❝Story13:30
A Different Billionaire Every Decade — Pair With Irrational Visionaries
Farhan noticed he'd worked for a different billionaire in each decade of his life, and the common thread is that they're irrational long-term thinkers who can see 10-20 years out. He can't see that vision himself, so he pairs with people who can, contributing his ability to push the ball forward 1% a week. He even wrote a list of every unreasonable person he knew in Toronto to find a co-founder.
- The people he's learned most from share an irrational, long-term view of the future
- He knows his strength (execution, moving forward) and doesn't try to build a vision skill he lacks
- The move is to recognize your strengths and weaknesses and merge forces with a complement
- He literally listed all the 'unreasonable' entrepreneurs he knew and met each to find one he was 'API compatible' with
“they have an irrational view of what the world should look like over the next decade or so they're very long-term thinkers”
“I'm not good at seeing that Vision but I'm good at trying to move towards that Vision 1% a week”
#career#self-awareness#collaboration#vision
❝Story23:00
Toby's One-Hour Rule: Delete the Code, Keep the Tests
Farhan tells how Toby and his CTO Cody would set a one-hour timer while pair programming, and if they hadn't finished the feature, they'd delete all the code, keep the tests, and start over — even if they were one minute over. The logic: if you can't write it elegantly in an hour, you're on the wrong design. Deleting is hard because of sunk-cost fallacy, but the shorter, more elegant solution appears after pathfinding.
- Set a one-hour timer; if the feature isn't done, delete the code but keep the tests and restart
- Inability to write it in an hour signals you're building the wrong thing
- The best time to rewrite code is right after you wrote it, because you now know the problem domain
- Deleting is hard due to sunk-cost fallacy, but it lands you on a much better solution
“if we were not able to articulate and write the code for this feature in one hour we must be on the wrong design we…”
“code lives a long time code is a liability”
#engineering#code-quality#pair-programming#shopify
❝Story37:30
Meeting Armageddon: Deleting Every Recurring Meeting Once a Year
Once a year at a random time, Shopify deletes all recurring internal meetings with more than two people, then bans adding new recurring meetings for two weeks. The point is to break the inertia of standing meetings that persist by default. That reset, plus moving announcements from Slack to Facebook Workplace, cut IC meeting time to about three hours a week — a 50-60% reduction.
- Delete all recurring internal meetings of 3+ people (keeping 1:1s and external meetings)
- Two-week moratorium on adding any new recurring meeting forces a rethink of what's actually needed
- IC meeting time dropped to ~3 hours/week; managers to ~6 hours/week
- Paired with moving announcements off Slack to a lower-distraction 'river of information' feed
“once a year at a random time we will delete all recurring meetings that have more than two people”
“we're at something like three hours of meetings per week for an Niner contributor at shifi which is phenomenal”
#management#meetings#productivity#shopify
❝Story42:30
Build Infrastructure, Not Features — Put Gas in the Tank
When merchants demanded NFT gating, Farhan estimated 2-3 weeks to build it, but Toby asked how long to build a platform layer where anyone could build NFT gating in an hour — 2-3 months. Toby said do the platform, because you don't know what people will build on top. He calls it putting gas in the tank, and habitually writes client code against an API that doesn't exist yet to discover what infrastructure should exist.
- Toby reframes 'you could write this in a day' as 'what has to be true so you could write it in a day'
- Building the infra layer is slower now (2-3 months vs 2-3 weeks) but unlocks unforeseen use cases forever
- Shopify buckets work into experiment, feature, or infrastructure
- Toby writes client code against a non-existent API first, then implements the server to match
“if you put the gas in the tank people could drive on that gas for a long time going forward”
“what has to be true so that you could write this in a day what infrastructure do you need”
#engineering#platform#product#shopify
❝Story1:21:30
The $18-Month Mistake: Punished for Hedging, Not for Failing
In his first week at Shopify, Farhan hedged on the point-of-sale rebuild — iOS in Swift, Android in React Native — to guarantee a shipped product while learning React Native. A year later React Native was the clear winner and they had to rewrite, burning ~18 months for 100 engineers. When he confessed, Toby's response wasn't anger — it was that Farhan's real mistake was not taking the risk.
- He hedged to guarantee a product in market, but React Native was clearly the future platform
- The wrong call cost roughly 18 months of time for about 100 engineers
- Toby said he comes down harshly on people who don't take risks, not on those whose risks fail
- Because he was going all-in on React Native anyway (core contributor, release captain), hedging was the wrong instinct
“I will always come down harshly on people who do not take risks and you did not take a risk in this case”
“I hedged right HED is the worst”
#failure#engineering#leadership#risk
❝Story1:35:30
The Waitress He Hired Who Became a Director of HR
Farhan spotted a waitress running a chaotic, busy restaurant with total organization, and offered her a job at Extreme Labs. She started as receptionist, became his admin, then a recruiter, and eventually took over an HR function — later becoming a director of HR elsewhere and finishing her degree. He kept hiring talented people from that restaurant, because everyone is smart at something.
- He scans everyday environments for people who do their job exceptionally well
- The waitress moved from receptionist to admin to recruiter to running an HR function
- She parlayed the experience into a university degree and a director-of-HR role
- Several other strong hires came from the same restaurant
“she was kind of like doing an phenomenal job of organizing the entire crazy busy restaurant”
“everyone's smart at something right”
#hiring#talent#stories#recruiting