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Comment by canucklady | Hacker News Reader

Also ex-Shopify. Tobi has done this a couple times, and IMO it comes from a place of narcissism. It's applied very arbitrarily across the entire org at random times. It very much feels like he wants to do something big and visionary instead of the boring day-to-day of actually managing like an adult, so he just throws bombs that generate headlines.

Even for devs who didn't have a lot of external meetings it was a pain because the executive leadership is basically just undercutting the authtority of managers. When I was there Shopify's middle management was extremely ineffectual because devs basically had free reign and executives didn't put any effort into top-down management, they just focused on "vision" (like joining the doomed Facebook crypto project, or hiring interns based on their esports experience)

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"Free rein," it's an equestrian term.

https://writingexplained.org/free-rein-or-free-reign-differe...

Does Tobi even work these days? Sometimes I think he prioritizes playing video games over running a multibillion dollar company. It’s frustrating because Shopify could have been much bigger as a result of the pandemic if they had someone with a bit more ambition.

This seems odd to me, given that he looks (from the outside at least) to be one of the most ambitious CEO's around. E.g. Building a fulfilment network to compete with Amazon.

From the inside, he has an ego like Elon and focus like Dorsey. Several of his executives are very good at managing him, but he lives in and broadcasts from a white void detached from reality.

Can I ask what your source for this is? Perhaps you're an ex-employee?

I never worked under Tobi directly (or even close), but I was almost always thoroughly impressed with his communication and direction. I think I have a totally different take than the one you stated. The only axis I could see Elon & Tobi both sitting on is being members of the tres comas club.

Externally he has a personal writer whose whole job it is to make him seem smart. He's the darling of the Canadian tech industry, which badly needed a win since the implosion of Nortel, so he has a ton of advantages. In SV he would be a mediocre wannabe founder but in Ottawa he's hot shit.

That seems disingenuous at best—the man helped create Ruby on Rails & founded a mutli-billion dollar tech startup that has been wildly successful. Is there really any ground to question his intelligence, or rather, whether or not he's smart?

Tobi is cool as fuck.

Your experience reminds me of the saying, sometimes "the best people to work WITH are the worst people to work FOR".

This reminds me of SNL's Undercover Boss Starkiller Base ~ Kylo Ren

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaOSCASqLsE

Kylo Ren as Matt: "He said Kylo Ren has an 8-pack. That Kylo Ren is shredded."

Are you saying this based on speculation, or based on having worked with or for him at Shopify?

Not OP, but I worked for Tobi when I was at Shopify. He is indeed cool as fuck.

Tobi still actively works on project within Shopify.

I've worked on projects within the last year that had (pretty heavy) direct involvement from Tobi.

Paging @xal

If you are a self-made billionaire you should be allowed to be a little narcissistic. But seriously this is more like a sign of panic. This quarterly numbers is going to be bad.

No one in a modern democratic society is self made

No, I don't think you should be allowed to be narcissistic if you are a self-made billionaire, whatever "self-made" means.

Ok, so replace him.

I'm sure there are other solutions but in my building tons of meeting rooms go empty because they've been booked for endless reoccurring meetings that no longer reoccure. The solution was to clear all of the reservations and say to rebook if you still have meetings

Was that solution "cancel meetings" or "clear all physical room reservations from meetings, but leave the meetings alone"? Sounds like there's a slight difference there.

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