Memo: Shopify cancels all recurring meetings with over two people “in perpetuity” and encourages staff to decline invitations, leave big group chats, and more
Shopify Inc. spent last year cutting costs. Now, it's cutting meetings. — As employees return from holiday break …
BloombergMatthew Boyle
Context & Ripple Effects
Shopify had already made remote work permanent for its workforce through an indefinite work-from-home policy, then moved to cut roughly 1,000 roles as consumer online-shopping demand pulled back. The meeting reset extends that cost-and-focus response from headcount into day-to-day operating practices.
By cancelling recurring meetings of more than two people and urging employees to opt out of large chats and invitations, Shopify is making synchronous coordination an exception rather than a default.
First-order effects
Shopify employees lose standing forums with three or more participants and must actively justify new group meetings, while managers must shift routine updates and decisions into smaller or written channels.
Second-order effects
Teams working under Shopify's remote-first model face greater pressure to document decisions clearly, since reducing large meetings and group chats removes informal venues for alignment.
Third-order effects
If sustained, Shopify's policy points to a leaner remote-work operating model in which companies treat employees' meeting time as a managed cost alongside headcount and outside capacity.
The trend: Shopify is part of a broader shift from remote-work flexibility toward stricter controls over how distributed teams spend coordination time.
Too many meetings —> let's switch to email distribution lists —> too many emails —>let's switch to enterprise social media —>too noisy chats —>let's switch to physical meetings —>too many meetings —>let's cancel meetings —>??? https://twitter.com/...
Get ready for the Law of Unintended Consequences. As Ackoff observed long ago, you don't get what you want just by eliminating what you don't want. You need to look to the system to understand why... https://twitter.com/...
The slowing of decision making accretes layer by layer and kills progress. Important to hit reset occasionally and reinforce cultural norms of DRIs with accountability. https://twitter.com/...
While some companies recently have gone in the opposite direction (one company whose name rhymes w/ “Bitter") this is interesting. Would love to see in six months what effects there are. #Shopify https://twitter.com/...
Good idea. The problem since the beginning of this was never office space, it was management. So many middle managers have mucked up everyone's schedules with needless check-ins to somehow prove their value as project managers. A pandemic and recession led businesses to care. htt…