CULTURE OF OPTIMISM AND CREATIVITY Shopify is currently one of Canada's most valuable public technology companies, and founder and CEO Tobias Ltke has explained that they got there not because of their knowledge but by being as creative as possible: "We are all here because of how we react when we don't know what to do." The whole focus of the Shopify model is to make commerce better and easier for vendors to sell their goods online, so the company's business focus is heavily invested in responding to its customers and improving its technology. Like many tech companies, Shopify fosters innovation and development through a culture that encourages optimism and creativity. Shopify has a director of culture whose responsibility it is to bridge the gap between the executive team and the rest of the company, and she says "My team and I are obsessed about not losing our culture but balancing that with the fact that it does need to evolve and change in some ways. At the core, it's about maintaining whatever culture we're trying to embody, because if it goes in a direction that we don't want it to, it's a lot harder to reign in." Shopify actively recruits employees who are ambitious, driven, and like to be challenged by their work, and those employees are granted a very high level of autonomy. The company focuses on employee health and offers benefits like self-directed budgets to support learning and growth, and even offers employees catered meals and housecleaning services to save them time and stress and help them focus on staying positive, creative, and optimistic. Shopify is alert to the future, and has identified virtual reality and cryptocurrencies as technologies that will surely influence how Shopify does business. Shopify plans to stay on top of these trends-they've pledged to be a 100-year business.

SOURCES: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/shopify-cynicism-optimism-1.3261379; http:// wayswework.io/interviews/konval-matin-director-of-culture-at-shopify

Apply Your Understanding: Questions 1. How do the many different departments at Shopify differentiate the culture? 2. How is Shopify's culture affected by its current CEO also being its founder? 3. Explain the significance of Shopify's director of culture saying, "My team and I are obsessed about not losing our culture but balancing that with the fact that it does need to evolve and change in some ways."