Dev Interrupted Forget vibe coding. Say hello to vibe entrepreneurship. | Shopify’s Andrew McNamara
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Aug 26, 2025 Andrew McNamara, Director of Applied Machine Learning at Shopify, shares insights from his extensive experience in AI. He introduces the concept of 'vibe entrepreneurship,' highlighting Shopify Sidekick, an AI co-founder for e-commerce. Andrew discusses the importance of robust evaluation systems in building trustworthy AI, revealing how Shopify uses LLMs to measure user fulfillment. The conversation dives into human-AI collaboration and the transformative potential of AI in boosting entrepreneurship while preserving human creativity.
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From Startup Assistant To Microsoft Research
- Andrew recounted building a personal assistant startup before Siri and later joining Microsoft Research after acquisition.
- That mix of scrappy startup and research shaped his applied approach to assistants.
Evals Drive Production Quality
- Evaluations shape ML product decisions and must not be neglected.
- Andrew McNamara warns that strong evals separate research curiosity from production readiness.
LLMs Both Enable And Lull Eval Rigor
- LLMs changed evaluation practices by enabling LLM-as-judge approaches.
- McNamara cautions that ease of vibe-testing can tempt teams to skip rigorous eval design.