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Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke says Shopify aims to make entrepreneurship a common career path

AIShopify CEO Tobi Lütke says he cares about growing gross profit dollars rather than gross profit margin. He says Shopify will pursue that growth by making its platform cheaper and bringing more people into entrepreneurship, which he wants to become a plan A career choice rather than a fallback.
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The time of day when the most new businesses onboard to Shopify: lunch break.

CEO @tobi breaks down the Shopify mission / business model in a way I haven't heard before:

"I don't care about gross profit. I care about gross profit dollar growth. I can get to gross profit dollar growth by making Shopify cheaper and having a larger wave of entrepreneurship.

Shopify just wants to see entrepreneurship be a more common and easier-to-attain thing for more people.. the fusion of entrepreneurship deeper into the economy, more as a plan A rather than a plan B for your career."

Alex Heath@alexeheath
Tobi Lütke on the AI agent revolution and future of Shopify @tobi on where agent commerce is headed, sci-fi becoming reality, and his GPU wine cellar. Why did Amazon block Meta's Muse but Shopify welcomed it? I sit down with Tobi in Toronto to discuss why the companies are taking different approaches to agents and how shopping changes when AI starts buying things on your behalf. He explains the early AI shopping behavior he’s seeing. We also get into why he thinks AI makes starting a business easier, the backlash against the technology, and why everyone will eventually have to embrace it to get ahead in their careers. We get into how AI agents will make money, who pays when they handle a purchase, and why advertising gets complicated when your assistant is supposed to work for you. We discuss his experience on Meta’s board and working with Mark Zuckerberg. Lütke also shares why he turned his wine cellar into a GPU server rack and how he uses his personal AI agent that runs entirely from his house. This is one of my favorite pods I've ever done. Timestamps: 00:00 Amazon blocks Muse 02:40 Shopify's approach to AI agents 07:00 How AI agents will change shopping 11:05 Sci-fi and tech optimism 17:57 Zero-sum thinking vs. abundance 21:20 AI backlash and the founder advantage 45:28 Building an AI-first Shopify 52:18 Who profits from agentic commerce? 01:03:22 How Shopify stays ahead 01:10:39 Advertising and discovery in the agent era 01:16:02 Rack, Cellar, and Claw Links: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/71xOycjYFjWEVSqhTpYPv8?si=rtVJne2kSr6L6QnAZWRGYw Substack: https://sourcesnews.substack.com/p/tobi-lutke-shopify-ai-agents YouTube: https://youtu.be/r9SHzCW9zxo Apple Podcasts: https://sources.news/p/tobi-lutke-shopify-ai-agents This episode's presenting sponsor is @hyperagentapp Thanks to the show’s premiere sponsors: @Atlassian, @meetgranola, and @mercury
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Original title: The time of day when the most new businesses onboard to Shopify: lunch break.

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