Shopify COO Jess Hertz said AI is pushing the company away from the “T-shaped” employee it used to prize, someone broadly capable with deep expertise in one area, toward what she calls “X-shaped” people, according to her remarks on the Rapid Response podcast. Those employees carry “multiple spikes of expertise” instead of one, and Hertz described them as absorbing complexity quickly, picking up new areas, and being able to work as a seven out of ten designer. She said team composition matters more under that model, because the value comes from how differently shaped people intersect. The remarks follow CEO Tobi Lütke’s April 2025 memo, which made AI use mandatory at Shopify, tied it to performance reviews, and told teams to show they can’t do a job with AI before asking for headcount.
