Here is a good articulation of why I wasn’t as enthusiastic about the Shopify meeting cancelation thing as most everyone else. Something felt… off? Here’s the Raw Signal team in When meetings are outlawed, only outlaws will hold meetings:

But the long-term fix for bad meetings isn’t no meetings, it’s competence. If you run a bad meeting, you need to fix the meeting or cancel it. But if you run a company full of bad meetings that need annual reboots, you need to fix your management team. Because while collaboration, alignment, decision making, and unit cohesion can all happen outside of meetings, well-run meetings are a very useful and effective place to accomplish those things. Taking that tool out of your management toolbox might be prudent if you don’t trust your managers to use it without hurting themselves or others. But it would be better if they were competent.

Also this:

Running an effective meeting means being opinionated about what it is and isn’t for, and fierce about not wasting the time of your invitees.

→ Context: Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke Tells Employees To Just Say No to Meetings.