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Unlike most people here, I liked this post, both for OP's ability to put his learnings into words (something I've learned I'm awful at) and the learnings in gen

by d3nj4l 6y ago

Unlike most people here, I liked this post, both for OP's ability to put his learnings into words (something I've learned I'm awful at) and the learnings in general. A lot of people are harping on the internal podcast/ learning about how your boss thinks, but I think that's actually good advice. Even in places with remarkably flat hierarchies, at the end of the day someone will have to settle ties, and knowing how those people think is a good practice to end unproductive discussions quickly. Besides, this isn't any different from having a director with creative vision at the helm of your project: you need to meet that person's vision, because that is really what matters. The podcast actually sounds great to me, because I'd prefer a slightly cringe-y "how do you do, fellow kids?" podcast over having zero or insufficient communication from leadership. It's not like people make decisions for no reason, and knowing how they think can help you appreciate what went into one without having a knee-jerk reaction.

hohloma 6y ago
This! Agree completely and having worked in different companies, including huge enterprise, Shopify sounds like a great company to me based on this post! When a company grows it starts to function like an enterprise business and being aware of it and managing it is just great management and it sounds like that’s what Shopify is doing (long learning period expected, transparent leadership).
- chiefalchemist 6y ago
  > Long learning period True. But this is why Goliaths get run over by Davids. When it take half a year's salary to begin getting return, that's six months of high risk. And then when your product cycles are six to twelve months, you're slow and venerable. Full disclosure: I do some Shopify development. It's a love hate relationship. There are things that are great. But there are things where I stop and think "For Ford's sake??!!?? Really??" This article explains the excess of the latter.
  - edmundsauto 6y ago
    When was the last time a David ran over Goliath because they moved faster?
    - chiefalchemist 6y ago
      Uber and Lyft knocked the taxi industry on its arse. Amazon ate Walmart alive, alone with a handful of other retailers. Etc.
      - twblalock 6y ago
        > Amazon ate Walmart alive, alone with a handful of other retailers. Walmart is actually doing very well, especially in e-commerce.
        Supermancho 6y ago
        Walmart online growth was directly cannibalized by AMZ for some time. Walmart stopped getting eaten, but the history stands. As it stands, you have the poorest Americans (the long tail) competing against a small section of the rise who can afford and trust that shipping goods to their door. The overlap is minor, excepting for perishables.
        chiefalchemist 6y ago
        Now. Maybe. But when Walmart was #1 they could have - and should have - never let Amazon and the like get a toe hold. Jeff ran up and over Walmart in less than a decade. It took Walmart well over a decade - and a few acquisition - to find their feet and sort it out. David is so far ahead Walmart is looking in the mirror thinking they're ahead :)
      - aprdm 6y ago
        How is uber and lyft not the goliah when they have billions of dollars poured into them vs the local tax companies...? Uber is global, your local tax company is not. Plus your local tax company is restrained by you know, laws. Amazon vs Walmart is also not a good comparison .. I believe this david vs goliah is mostly start up people that think too highly of themselves! In reality you have Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft... all huge companies that have been dominant for decade + and aren't too different from the post.
adjkant 6y ago
> OP's ability to put his learnings into words Reading this gave me the exact opposite impression - the amount of work it takes to extract takeaways from this writing is IMO one of it's biggest failures. It felt like pulling teeth to try and even get meaning out of some sections. #3 in particular is so nebulous I struggle to find the lesson at all. To me, this seems like a case of bad writing organization. If done better, I bet this piece would be half the length of current. As to the contentious content: taking time to understand how your company works, great! Needing 6 months before being considered useful? Huge red flag. > When you’re in a company full of smart people, like Shopify, it can often be quite tricky to resolve disagreements and impasses Here's another huge red flag for me. The later explanation around having an idea of how the leadership/company thinks? Great. But having that philosophy/approach outlined should make resolution a lot easier. The "full of smart people" excuse could be rooted in a few things, but I struggle to think of a good one.
- Aeolun 6y ago
  > Needing 6 months before being considered useful? I don’t think this is ‘useful’ so much as ‘having a clue what is going on’. It’s easy to be productive on the one project you are assigned to, but you won’t have any context for the implications of what you are working on.
  - adjkant 6y ago
    Quote the original piece: > "In your first six months, you’re gonna be useless anyways. You’re going to be drowning in new information and context and it’ll take you a few months to learn how to swim." Useless is their word here, and the way they continue to describe it gives the same impression. I'm in agreement that knowing how organizations work takes time and experience, but six months is indicative of a larger problem in the org. Brevity and succinct, digestive philosophy is valuable. If you can't at least communicate a good outline to new hires in a month or two, something has gone wrong. The minutiae of course will take far longer than 6 months in total, but you should be able to "swim" by then, just not as fast as a 2-4 year vet.
- csallen 6y ago
nathanvanfleet 6y ago
It actually sounds like their structure is really sycophantic and codependent. Possibly even cult-like. You are taught to view things as a small handful of leaders and never challenge their viewpoint. Sounds kind of not a great place to work.
tootie 6y ago
I think a key piece of info omitted from this article what OP actually does at Shopify. I'm assuming based on context that he's maybe a mid-level developer.
- nrdgrl 6y ago
  Exactly. At the entry level end we should talk about the number of employees who end up on flaming out or on short term disability from the stress.
  - Poiuytrewqlkj 6y ago
    Not even just at entry level. Gas lighting and bullying at this company are nuts, people constantly having breakdowns and having to go on stress leave, looking forward to more updates of and when this guy stops drinking the cool aid.
dorkwood 6y ago
I agree. I find it interesting how many people are saying something to the tune of "I'd rather spend my time adding value to the company's product than learning office politics". Firstly, I don't think they're mutually exclusive. And secondly, at least in my experience, the first six months at a new company is mostly an information gathering exercise. You're not going to be able to make valuable changes to the company's product in your second week, and attempting to force through something before fully understanding why things are the way they are is probably just going to leave a bad impression on people. If that happens, good luck getting the team to buy into those good ideas you're so eager to spend your time on.

by d3nj4l 6y ago

hohloma 6y ago

This! Agree completely and having worked in different companies, including huge enterprise, Shopify sounds like a great company to me based on this post! When a company grows it starts to function like an enterprise business and being aware of it and managing it is just great management and it sounds like that’s what Shopify is doing (long learning period expected, transparent leadership).

chiefalchemist 6y ago
> Long learning period True. But this is why Goliaths get run over by Davids. When it take half a year's salary to begin getting return, that's six months of high risk. And then when your product cycles are six to twelve months, you're slow and venerable. Full disclosure: I do some Shopify development. It's a love hate relationship. There are things that are great. But there are things where I stop and think "For Ford's sake??!!?? Really??" This article explains the excess of the latter.
- edmundsauto 6y ago
  When was the last time a David ran over Goliath because they moved faster?
  - chiefalchemist 6y ago
    Uber and Lyft knocked the taxi industry on its arse. Amazon ate Walmart alive, alone with a handful of other retailers. Etc.
    - twblalock 6y ago
      > Amazon ate Walmart alive, alone with a handful of other retailers. Walmart is actually doing very well, especially in e-commerce.
      - Supermancho 6y ago
        Walmart online growth was directly cannibalized by AMZ for some time. Walmart stopped getting eaten, but the history stands. As it stands, you have the poorest Americans (the long tail) competing against a small section of the rise who can afford and trust that shipping goods to their door. The overlap is minor, excepting for perishables.
      - chiefalchemist 6y ago
        Now. Maybe. But when Walmart was #1 they could have - and should have - never let Amazon and the like get a toe hold. Jeff ran up and over Walmart in less than a decade. It took Walmart well over a decade - and a few acquisition - to find their feet and sort it out. David is so far ahead Walmart is looking in the mirror thinking they're ahead :)
    - aprdm 6y ago
      How is uber and lyft not the goliah when they have billions of dollars poured into them vs the local tax companies...? Uber is global, your local tax company is not. Plus your local tax company is restrained by you know, laws. Amazon vs Walmart is also not a good comparison .. I believe this david vs goliah is mostly start up people that think too highly of themselves! In reality you have Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft... all huge companies that have been dominant for decade + and aren't too different from the post.

adjkant 6y ago

> OP's ability to put his learnings into words Reading this gave me the exact opposite impression - the amount of work it takes to extract takeaways from this writing is IMO one of it's biggest failures. It felt like pulling teeth to try and even get meaning out of some sections. #3 in particular is so nebulous I struggle to find the lesson at all. To me, this seems like a case of bad writing organization. If done better, I bet this piece would be half the length of current. As to the contentious content: taking time to understand how your company works, great! Needing 6 months before being considered useful? Huge red flag. > When you’re in a company full of smart people, like Shopify, it can often be quite tricky to resolve disagreements and impasses Here's another huge red flag for me. The later explanation around having an idea of how the leadership/company thinks? Great. But having that philosophy/approach outlined should make resolution a lot easier. The "full of smart people" excuse could be rooted in a few things, but I struggle to think of a good one.

Aeolun 6y ago
> Needing 6 months before being considered useful? I don’t think this is ‘useful’ so much as ‘having a clue what is going on’. It’s easy to be productive on the one project you are assigned to, but you won’t have any context for the implications of what you are working on.
- adjkant 6y ago
  Quote the original piece: > "In your first six months, you’re gonna be useless anyways. You’re going to be drowning in new information and context and it’ll take you a few months to learn how to swim." Useless is their word here, and the way they continue to describe it gives the same impression. I'm in agreement that knowing how organizations work takes time and experience, but six months is indicative of a larger problem in the org. Brevity and succinct, digestive philosophy is valuable. If you can't at least communicate a good outline to new hires in a month or two, something has gone wrong. The minutiae of course will take far longer than 6 months in total, but you should be able to "swim" by then, just not as fast as a 2-4 year vet.
csallen 6y ago

nathanvanfleet 6y ago

It actually sounds like their structure is really sycophantic and codependent. Possibly even cult-like. You are taught to view things as a small handful of leaders and never challenge their viewpoint. Sounds kind of not a great place to work.

tootie 6y ago

I think a key piece of info omitted from this article what OP actually does at Shopify. I'm assuming based on context that he's maybe a mid-level developer.

nrdgrl 6y ago
Exactly. At the entry level end we should talk about the number of employees who end up on flaming out or on short term disability from the stress.
- Poiuytrewqlkj 6y ago
  Not even just at entry level. Gas lighting and bullying at this company are nuts, people constantly having breakdowns and having to go on stress leave, looking forward to more updates of and when this guy stops drinking the cool aid.

dorkwood 6y ago

I agree. I find it interesting how many people are saying something to the tune of "I'd rather spend my time adding value to the company's product than learning office politics". Firstly, I don't think they're mutually exclusive. And secondly, at least in my experience, the first six months at a new company is mostly an information gathering exercise. You're not going to be able to make valuable changes to the company's product in your second week, and attempting to force through something before fully understanding why things are the way they are is probably just going to leave a bad impression on people. If that happens, good luck getting the team to buy into those good ideas you're so eager to spend your time on.