Harley Finkelstein - Building the Entrepreneurship Company

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:00)
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**SPEAKER_2** (1:37)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.
Clients of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (2:02)
My guest today is Harley Finkelstein. Harley is the president of Shopify and has been with the company since its early years.
He's a lawyer by training, but an entrepreneur by calling, and that is the focus of our discussion. We discussed the different dimensions of entrepreneurship and Shopify's role in promoting it, as well as exploring the company's transition to public markets and what the last few years have been like. Please enjoy my discussion with Harley Finkelstein.
So Harley, maybe the place to begin is with a term that I and my team have spent a lot of time thinking about and trying to define, which is this notion of life's work amongst entrepreneurs. Obviously you can be doing your life's work outside of a business, and there's lots of people that do with great outcomes, but our specific interest is what does it mean for an entrepreneur to be doing their life's work? Is it something that's there at the beginning? Is it something that's developed after the fact when they come to realize that they're enjoying their work? Trying to really define this concept, which I think can be an unbelievable fuel for a durable, enduring business franchise is of great interest to me. Given that you've been doing what you've been doing at Shopify with Tobi for so long, and I think are doing your life's work, or would say you are, I'd love to hear your interpretation of this term, whether or not you think it's as powerful as I do, and if so, what the definition or dimensions of it are to you?

**Harley Finkelstein** (3:17)
Even the fact that you and I, Patrick, we're talking about this idea of life's work, I think is incredibly interesting. My father was an immigrant, came to Canada when he was like five years old. His parents were Holocaust survivors. They left Hungary during the Hungarian Revolution, and come to Canada to basically escape persecution. There was no conversations around the dinner table. My father was young with his parents talking about life's work, or how do you find your great passion, and how do you create great value for the world? In those days, at least the way my father would say it is, it was entirely about survival. That was it. The luxury of finding something that, if you were to sort of borrow the term Ikigai, which is a Japanese concept, which is kind of like life's work, it's a reason for being. It's something that gives you a sense of purpose, a sense of meaning, but also a living, meaning someone will pay you for it. We are incredibly lucky that we can even think about that. The reason I think it's really important is because for past generations, they effectively did a job they didn't love to eventually stop working, if they were able to retire, to go do their life's work. And they were able to pick up all these clues throughout 20 or 30 or 50 years of work, providing with an indication that maybe my life's work is in this direction. I think I'm fortunate enough to be doing my life's work, as you and I talked about previously. I think you're also doing your life's work, which is something you love doing, something that is of value to the world and something that people will pay you for.