One of the most important tasks as a leader in a startup is to pick the right metric to track. This is often referred to as the 'compass metric' because it will be your compass for growth. It's important to note that 'compass metrics' will likely change over the lifetime of a business.

I find the strongest predictor of people who do well at Shopify is whether they see opportunity as something to compete for, or do they see opportunity as essentially everywhere and unlimited? It's a rough proxy for pessimism and optimism.

Our hiring is almost completely built around just going through someone's life story, and we look for moments when they had to make important decisions, and we go deep on those.

Tobias Lutke Quotes