Reid Hoffman praises Shopify's Tobi Lütke for his recent memo on AI

Tech billionaire Reid Hoffman highlighted Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke's recent internal memo as a model for how leaders should think about AI.

The LinkedIn cofounder said on Wednesday's "Possible" podcast episode that the memo is an "open-source management technique."

In an internal memo Lütke shared last week, the e-commerce CEO wrote that AI usage is "now a fundamental expectation of everyone at Shopify."

"Before asking for more Headcount and resources, teams must demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI," Lütke wrote in the memo, which he posted on X. "What would this area look like if autonomous AI agents were already part of the team? This question can lead to really fun discussions and projects."

Lütke added that AI usage questions would also be added to Shopify's "performance and peer review questionnaire."

"This applies to all of us, including me and the executive team," he wrote.

On "Possible," Hoffman said that every leader, whether they're running a five-person startup or a giant company, should be baking AI into their teams' work.

To ensure AI integration happens, Hoffman recommended a simple management approach. Hold weekly or monthly meetings for everyone to share something new they've learned about using AI — whether it's helping them do their job better or helping the whole company run more smoothly, he said.

Even OpenAI's chief people officer is vibe coding

Hoffman and other leaders agree that AI is no longer just for technical staff.

In an episode of Lenny's Podcast published last week, OpenAI's chief product officer, Kevin Weil, shared how the company's chief people officer "vibe coded" an internal tool. The executive used AI to rebuild a system she missed from a previous job.

"If our chief people officer is doing it, we have no excuse," Weil said.

Vibe coding, a term coined in February by OpenAI cofounder Andrej Karpathy, describes giving AI prompts to write code. As he puts it, developers can "fully give in to the vibes" and "forget the code even exists."

The rise of vibe coding has shaken up the way people think about software development, and some engineers wonder if AI could put them out of a job. It has also sparked debate among investors over whether technical skills are still a must-have for startup founders.

People should be "vibe coding" everything instead of using static design files, Weil said.

"That's totally possible today, and we're not doing it enough," the product chief added.