So. Shopify’s CEO just announced his brilliant plan to replace hiring with AI, because…
Checks Notes
Nothing says “we value our people” like making them audition for their own jobs against a machine that thinks “synergy” is a personality trait.
I mean if you like car crashes. Here’s some highlights and the tl;dr of what I make of the article.
If it was a pitch. Then it would go a little something like this.
“Why hire humans when AI doesn’t ask for raises, benefits, or basic dignity?”
But then if you look at the reality of it all. You now get to compete with a glorified autocorrect for the privilege of keeping your rent money.
If you lose, your severance package is a “Learn Prompt Engineering!” LinkedIn course. Which some nerd will happily sell you for $97.
But why is this peak corporate clownery you may ask.
It’s not automation or optimisation. It’s extortion. The whole “Prove you’re useful or get replaced” is basically just Squid Game with worse healthcare.
The irony of it all is pretty damn tasty though. The same tech bros who screeched “learn to code!” are now whispering “…but not better than GPT-5.”
And it wouldn’t surprise me if the CEO will be replaced by some obnoxious as shit Slack bot that only sends 🚀 emojis and “per my last email…”
But the bigger question really is. Are we all doomed? Is this the future? A world where your boss is an algorithm, your coworker is a hallucinating LLM, and your performance review is just Ctrl+F’ing your soul in a PDF?
Cool. Coolcoolcool.
If Shopify’s CEO wants efficiency, here’s a free idea…
Replace him with a ChatGPT bot that just says “disrupt” and “burn rate” on loop.
Same energy, fewer stock buybacks.
Anyway, thoughts? Or should I just let AI draft the response for me?
Here’s the dumb shit article if you want to lower your IQ by a few points today.
Stephen Walker