Accountability by Metrics OR Taste
Building without KPIs works only with an exceptionally opinionated founder/taste-holder; otherwise you need metrics.
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 92%
Shopify bans KPIs and OKRs in its core product org, driving decisions by conviction and taste instead. Abrams' key insight is that this only works because a small number of extremely opinionated people (Toby, and his deputy Glenn) hold the taste bar and personally review every ship. Accountability must come from one of two sources: metrics, or an exceptionally strong founder/taste-holder. Removing metrics without the second source produces a team that builds whatever it wants with no accountability, which he calls a 'very very bad state'.
Origin
Archie Abrams explaining why Shopify can operate its core org without KPIs, and warning most companies cannot copy it.
Core principles
- 01Accountability comes from metrics OR a strong opinionated taste-holder, rarely both needed
- 02Removing metrics without a taste-holder yields unaccountable 'build cool stuff' chaos
- 03Taste must be concentrated in a few named people who review every ship
- 04Most founders overestimate their own taste; the metric-driven path is safer for them
How to run it
- 1
Decide your accountability source honestly
Choose whether accountability will come from metrics or from an exceptionally strong founder/taste-holder; you need at least one.
Pro tip Be honest: it's rare to genuinely have the Toby/Brian Chesky/Elon level of taste required.
Watch out 'Let's just go build a bunch of cool stuff in a haphazard way' is the failure state to avoid.
- 2
Concentrate the taste bar in a few named people
If going the taste route, deputize a small set (e.g. a core-product head) who go deep on every single release and enforce a consistent quality bar.
Pro tip Shopify uses an internal system (GSD) where nothing ships without 'OK2' sign-off from a group lead like Glenn, Carl, or Archie.
Watch out Subjective decisions without concentrated taste-holders is 'where things go really sideways'.
- 3
Separate time horizons and accountability by org
Let different orgs run on different logics: core product on taste/100-year conviction, growth on metrics; don't force one North Star on everyone.
Pro tip Accept the tradeoff: taste-driven orgs get squishy, subjective debates that need openness and good discussion norms.
In the wild
Glenn heads core product and reviews every release in detail with final say, an example of 'founder mode but not as a founder'; disagreements with Toby are hashed out in a six-week all-project review.
→ A consistent taste bar is enforced across teams without formal KPIs.
Common mistakes
Copying the no-KPI model without the taste-holder
Removing metrics without an exceptionally opinionated decider produces unaccountable teams building whatever they want.
Overestimating your own taste
Most founders assume they have Toby/Chesky-level taste; in reality it's rare, so metric-driven accountability is the safer default.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders/leaders deciding whether to run a product org without formal KPIs
Not ideal for
Companies without a genuinely exceptional, deeply-involved taste-holder to hold the quality bar
From the transcript
“kpis are basically banned as a and okrs are banned”
“you either have to use my sense is metrics as accountability which is the most common kind of way to drive accountability and focus or…”
“it's subjective but it's objective in the sense that it's kind of a small number of people who really hold what that that bar is”
From the episode
Breaking the rules of growth: Why Shopify bans KPIs, optimizes for churn, prioritizes intuition, and builds toward a 100-year vision
Archie Abrams (VP Product, Head of Growth at Shopify)