# 20VC: Shopify's Tobi Lütke on How AI is a Scapegoat for Mass Layoffs & What Will Labour Markets Be in the Future | Why We Need More Scrutiny on Charitable Giving, Governments are Bad at What They Do and Trump Derangement Syndrome in Canada

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/twenty-minute-vc/20vc-shopify-s-tobi-l-tke-on-how-ai-is-a-scapegoat-for-mass-layoffs-what-will-labour-markets-be-in-the-future-why-we-need-more-scrutiny-on-charitable-giving-governments-are-bad-at-what-they-do-and-trump-derangement-syndr
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/twenty-minute-vc/20vc-shopify-s-tobi-l-tke-on-how-ai-is-a-scapegoat-for-mass-layoffs-what-will-labour-markets-be-in-the-future-why-we-need-more-scrutiny-on-charitable-giving-governments-are-bad-at-what-they-do-and-trump-derangement-syndr.md
Podcast: [The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch](https://stenobird.com/podcast/twenty-minute-vc)
Published: 2026-05-04T07:07:00+00:00
Episode link: https://thetwentyminutevc.libsyn.com/20vc-shopifys-tobi-ltke-on-how-ai-is-a-scapegoat-for-mass-layoffs-what-will-labour-markets-be-in-the-future-why-we-need-more-scrutiny-on-charitable-giving-governments-are-bad-at-what-they-do-and-trump-derangement-syndrome-in-canada
Audio file: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thetwentyminutevc/Tobi_Lutke__Shopify_2.mp3?dest-id=240976
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/twenty-minute-vc/episodes/20vc-shopify-s-tobi-l-tke-on-how-ai-is-a-scapegoat-for-mass-layoffs-what-will-labour-markets-be-in-the-future-why-we-need-more-scrutiny-on-charitable-giving-governments-are-bad-at-what-they-do-and-trump-derangement-syndr
Duration seconds: 4429

## Resource

Tobi Lütke is the co-founder and CEO of Shopify, the global e-commerce titan with a $160 billion market cap. Under his leadership, the company generates over $7 billion in annual revenue and has seen its valuation grow nearly 100x since its 2015 IPO. Today, Shopify has over 8,000 employees and AI now generates over 50% of the Shopify's code. AGENDA: 00:10:36 - The $160 billion CEO who did not want to be CEO. 00:11:51 - Why don't companies become public? Because it is much worse to be an untrusted public company. 00:16:53 - Why we are about to enter a golden age of entrepreneurship. 00:17:54 - Why AI is being used as a scapegoat for mass layoffs. 00:17:41 - How will labor markets change in a world of AI? 00:24:43 - Why we should praise Elon Musk so much more than we do. 00:27:59 - Why we need to place more, not less, scrutiny on charitable giving. 00:31:56 - Why we have too many charity dollars and why they are inefficient. 00:34:57 - Why governments are so bad at what they do. 00:37:27 - The Trump derangement syndrome in Canada. 00:39:51 - Why will governments regulating technology push us into the hands of the Chinese? 00:41:59 - Europe has to get rid of the bullshit green parties and go back to Prussian economics. 00:48:29 - Why is looking at the ticker such bullshit? 00:50:48 - Why young coders are not as advantaged in AI as I thought they would be. 00:53:56 - The best engineers in Shopify are not writing code anymore and the AI does it for them. 00:56:40 - The cheat code for any career from the billionaire founder of Shopify.

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