Another dive in to the SEC filings in search of research and investment ideas.

Today, I ran across  Shopify, a Canadian firm that provides cloud based platforms for small and medium businesses.

In its recent 20-F filing,  company’s culture included:

Our culture is continuously being redefined with every person that joins our company, but, at our core, we value people who:

•Get shit done
•Build for the long-term
•Focus on simple solutions
•Act like owners
•Thrive on change

Whoa…that was not subtle at all. Of course, we need people to get things done but the first value is get shit done?

This either means that things are not getting done, they really want things to get done, or they are lacking compliance? Did any of the auditor or counsel read the culture section?

So just for curiosity, I read the filing further. As I expected the CEO, Tobias Lutke, is young, 35 year old. But a quick googling reveals that he doesn’t seem to be a party animal.

Then I searched whether the firm had a general counsel and it did. So the general counsel, Joseph Frasca is a member of the Society of Corporate Secretaries & Governance Professionals sitting on the Securities Law Committee. A bit ironic.

Update

Shopify also had the get shit done in its IPO prospectus. IPO is the time that the SEC, auditors, lawyers, VCs, and investors engage in intense scrutiny. But I suppose that every party was fine with get shit done.

Plus, it did get shit done. They had a phenomenal quarter. Respect!