Tobi Lütke and Harley Finkelstein: Shopify wants 'a thousand new Amazons' — and AI is the lever
Tobi Lütke & Harley Finkelstein · CEO e Presidente da Shopify
▶ Listen / WatchIn the DotDev 2026 fireside, Shopify's CEO and president explain the mission to create more entrepreneurship, the vision of hyper-specific commerce experiences, and AI's role in the next decade of independent commerce.
Who they are
Tobi Lütke é o fundador e CEO da Shopify, a maior plataforma de e-commerce independente do mundo. Harley Finkelstein é o presidente da empresa. Juntos, definem a direção do comércio digital: IA como alavanca, infraestrutura componível e a defesa do empreendedorismo independente contra a concentração do varejo.
Highlights
- Shopify's mission is to create more entrepreneurship in the world — and AI is the lever that will enable it.
- 'A thousand new Amazons': Shopify wants to enable super bespoke, community-specific commerce experiences.
- Infrastructure over features: the platform is composable and lets merchants build whatever they want.
- 'Thriving on change' has been a core value since day one — and the community proved it during the pandemic.
- Shopify's platform is 'unbelievably good and still underrated' — and making the web fun again is the main quest.
At DotDev 2026, CEO Tobi Lütke and president Harley Finkelstein took the stage for a fireside on the state of Shopify: the mission to create more entrepreneurship, AI as the lever, and the vision of 'a thousand new Amazons' — hyper-specific commerce experiences that only the internet can enable.
Mission: more entrepreneurship in the world
For Lütke, everything Shopify does is anchored in a clear mission, and AI reinforces that north star.
I think we would follow our mission which is really to create more entrepreneurship in the world even more closely.
The conversation revolves around how the platform empowers anyone to become a merchant — and how AI removes the last technical barriers.
A thousand new Amazons
One of the strongest images of the fireside is Shopify as an enabler of unique commerce experiences — not Amazon clones.
Making a thousand new Amazons, or just super bespoke community-specific experiences, or just making the web fun again — we want to help. We want to be in the background.
Instead of concentrating retail on a single platform, the vision distributes commerce across thousands of specific experiences — each community with its own store.
Infrastructure over features
Lütke explains Shopify's product philosophy: build the base, not the use cases.
If you want to be able to help people with their missions, you kind of have to build a lot of things. And we were like, let's build infrastructure instead of features. Because infrastructure is composable.
That decision — composable infrastructure instead of ready-made features — is what allows 'a thousand new Amazons' to exist on the platform.
Thriving on change
The two recall how the Shopify community responded to a real crisis: the pandemic that cancelled conferences.
There were four conferences in total including ours. Three were cancelled. Shopify and this community got together and we created the world's greatest garden party. That exemplifies this community.
'Thriving on change' has been a core value since day one — and the pivot in hours during the pandemic was living proof.
AI: the lever of the next decade
Lütke is emphatic about AI's role in Shopify's future.
I believe very very strongly that AI will allow us to do a lot of incredible things. Shopify will allow all of you to do way more incredible things.
From store generation to operations automation, AI is the multiplier that will turn individual merchants into scale operations.
The underrated platform
Finkelstein stresses that Shopify is still underrated — even by its own users.
The platform is so unbelievably good and so underrated still. It's one of the many main quests for Shopify.
The main quest: making the web fun again, with shopping experiences nobody imagined — and keeping Shopify in the background, as the infrastructure of independent commerce.
Why it matters
Tobi Lütke and Harley Finkelstein define the direction of global independent commerce: AI as the lever, composable infrastructure, and a web of niche experiences. For anyone running an e-commerce operation, it's the map of what the sector's biggest platform is building.