Shopify built a leaderboard to get employees excited about using AI. It worked a little too well.
Farhan Thawar, Shopify’s VP and Head of Engineering, has confirmed the company “killed” its original token leaderboard after discovering it created a perverse incentive: employees were burning through AI tokens to climb the rankings, not to actually accomplish anything useful. The phenomenon has a name now. It’s called “tokenmaxxing,” and it’s exactly what it sounds like, competitive overconsumption of AI resources for bragging rights.
The fix? Shopify replaced the leaderboard with a usage dashboard designed to measure utility rather than volume. The company also implemented spending alerts that trigger whenever a single user’s daily token spend exceeds $250.
From vanity metrics to value metrics
Shopify’s AI push began in 2025, around the same time CEO Tobi Lutke issued a memo establishing AI use as a baseline expectation across the company. The leaderboard was part of that cultural push, a way to normalize and encourage adoption.
