GoKawiilListen to this post
Key Takeaways Shopify COO Jess Hertz said the company looks for what she calls “X-shaped people” who know a lot about a lot of different sectors.
Rather than “T-shaped” employees, who have broad skills plus one deep specialty, Hertz sees greater value in people with several distinct areas of expertise.
Shopify recently reported $3.58 billion in second-quarter 2026 revenue, a 34% increase from a year earlier.
Jess Hertz, COO of the $185 billion e-commerce platform Shopify, says that employees have to stand out to survive the AI era.
On a recent episode of the Rapid Response podcast, Hertz discussed the kind of talent the company is increasingly seeking. She said that Shopify is now looking for what she calls “X-shaped people” or people who have “multiple spikes of expertise.”
These X-shaped employees are “much faster” at “being able to absorb complexity,” Hertz said. The ideal employee has multiple areas of knowledge, can learn rapidly and work effectively across disciplines.
Hertz previously looked for a “T-shaped person” or someone with broad skills and deep expertise in just one area. Now, she is “really moving away” from that expectation, she said. Instead, AI is changing the way people work and requiring employees to know more about more than one field, in greater depth.
Hertz has watched Shopify’s AI ambitions take shape from inside the company. She joined the e-commerce platform as general counsel in 2021 and moved into the COO role in 2025.
She said that AI’s impact will extend beyond individual job descriptions. As companies bring together people with different skills and perspectives, leaders will need to think more deliberately about how those employees collaborate.
... continue reading