Shopify’s president says the ‘greatest performers he knows’ avoid incredibly long working hours

The president of e-commerce giant Shopify says that some of the “greatest performers he knows” avoid working themselves into the ground and enjoy a more harmonious relationship with work.

“You don’t have to work 80 hours a week to perform well, to be a high performer,” Harley Finkelstein told the Aspire with Emma Grede podcast. “I know people that work 40 hours a week that are some of the greatest performers ever.

“They’re just incredibly efficient with their time,” he added.

Finklestein, who began his career selling T-shirts at McGill University in Canada, became one of the first vendors on Shopify in 2009 after being approached by company co-founder Tobias Lütke. He later rose through the ranks of the company to Chief Operating Officer and later president.

Speaking on the podcast, Finklestein said that instead of seeking a “work-life balance,” people should instead opt for a “harmony” with their work that allows for a better rhythm.

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“I think this idea of work-life balance is a little bit of a misnomer. I think actually what we’re all searching for is like some sort of harmony,” he said.

“There are some Saturdays where I have to work, and there are some Thursday afternoons that I go for a walk with my wife. That’s my version of harmony.”

Finklestein admitted that 80-hour work weeks were not uncommon for him when first starting out, though that was when he adopted a “Swiss army knife” role at the company – using his law degree to solve all manner of problems.

“Anything that needed to get done on the legal or business side? I would do it. I made my skills from law school extremely transferable,” he wrote on LinkedIn in 2022.

However, after starting a family he switched up his schedule to be more manageable and work towards “one big, meaningful pursuit.”

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“Someone asked me how I know I’ve found mine. My answer? Because Monday mornings feel like Saturday mornings,” Finkelstein wrote in 2022.

“Whatever your mission is, I hope you find the thing that makes Monday feel like Saturday. Because that’s when you know you’re building something that really matters.”

Shopify recently made headlines after suffering a major outage on Cyber Monday, leaving thousands of business owners without access to their accounts on one of the busiest online retail days of the year.

The Canadian firm is one of the world’s largest independent e-commerce platforms, with over five million customers, and processed almost $300 billion in transactions in 2024, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Though it is hailed as being an easy place for small businesses to create and run online stores, it is also home to major retailers including Nestlé, PepsiCo, Kraft, Heinz, Whole Foods and Red Bull.