The Post-Scarcity Organization

The viral Shopify AI memo isn't about technology.

It is about breaking business's oldest constraint:

For the last century, business has operated under one universal constraint: Human cognitive bandwidth is scarce and expensive to scale.

This created the core economic equation of business:

→ Output scales linearly with cognitive bandwidth

→ Exponential coordination costs as organizations grow

→ Hierarchies manage limited decision-making

While everyone debates AI tools and policies, they're missing a key point: Shopify is building the first "post-scarcity organization".

Tobi's memo recognizes this fundamental constraint no longer exists, and organizations that don't recognize the shift cannot compete in this new era.

Shopify is building an organization designed for cognitive abundance rather than scarcity.

In this new model:

→ Cognitive bandwidth scales exponentially

→ Systems replace management coordination

→ Resources optimize for amplification, not utilization

Organizations that understand this will build a compounding advantage that will reshape how we build and compete.

In a post-scarcity organization, work transforms:

→ Value shifts from producing to orchestrating

→ Problem framers outrank problem solvers

→ AI scales teams exponentially, not linearly

→ Traditional firms become structurally uncompetitive

Organizations designed around scarcity face a massive challenge: They cannot compete with post-scarcity economics.

The question isn't whether you should adopt AI tools.

It's whether you can rebuild your entire organization around a post-scarcity model before your traditional design becomes obsolete.