Imagining the City

While I appreciate the positive tale of a Canadian start-up as much as the next person, perhaps some balance is in order. Relying solely on Gilbert Reid’s review, having not read Larry MacDonald’s The Shopify Story itself, I can’t help but mention a few things that temper the fan fever: The failed initiative to establish fulfillment centre logistics. Fostering a daycare-for-adults-at-work environment, to the detriment of mature employees (not unique to Shopify). Then over-hiring during the COVID-19 online-shopping upswing, only to send many of the employees who survived to work from home in the post-pandemic crash, thus contributing to the hollowing out of downtown Ottawa.

As Reid observes, Nortel and BlackBerry are grave markers on these e-commerce shoals.