Tobias Lütke
Tobias “Tobi” Lütke is Shopify’s co-founder and CEO, a programmer who shares ideas about building businesses, making software, and working with AI.
At 100 nudges, fangea sends Tobi’s team an official invite.
🔒 Star boosts open once Tobi claims this page.
Latest
Tobi’s happenings, collected from public sources, plus their backstory and Starbook, where fans write.
Known for
Shopify
YouTube
Lenny’s PodcastOverview
- Also known as
- Tobi Lütke
- From
- Born in Germany; Canadian by choice
- Work
- Programmer and Shopify co-founder
- Starting point
- Snowdevil, an online snowboard shop, in 2004
- Breakout
- Shopify’s commerce platform launched in 2006
- Leading Shopify
- CEO since April 2008
Mini bio
Learning by doing.
Growing up in Germany, Tobi left school at 16 to train as a computer programmer. At BOG Koblenz, a Siemens subsidiary, a mentor named Jürgen helped Tobi learn through real projects and close feedback on code. In a personal essay, Tobi describes that apprenticeship as a formative part of the career that followed.
How it started.
Tobi’s route into commerce began with snowboarding. In 2004, Tobi started building software for Snowdevil, an online snowboard store. The work revealed a different opportunity: other sellers needed better tools for running their own shops.
The software became the business.
Tobi and the founding team launched Shopify’s platform in 2006. After serving as chief technology officer, Tobi became CEO in April 2008. The idea that began with selling snowboard gear became a career spent helping other people start businesses.
A programmer’s roots.
Alongside the company, Tobi contributed to open source software. Tobi joined the Ruby on Rails core team in 2004 and released projects including Liquid, DelayedJob, and ActiveMerchant. That technical background remains part of the public conversations about product design and leadership.
What fans can follow now.
Tobi shares ideas through posts and long interviews, often returning to craft, curiosity, and the structure of companies. Recent conversations examine AI tools in everyday work, how entrepreneurs can use them, and the judgment people bring to the process.
Creditschronological, newest first
Conversations
- 2026Sources with Alex HeathGuest discussing AI agents and Shopify
- 2026The Knowledge Project: AI Agents, Better Decisions, and the Future of WorkGuest with Shane Parrish
- 2026Building the Universal Commerce ProtocolConversation with Ilya Grigorik
- 2025Lenny’s Podcast: Tobi Lütke’s leadership playbookGuest
Software and company building
- 2008ShopifyBecame chief executive officer in April
- 2006Shopify platformCo-founder; platform launched
- 2004Ruby on RailsJoined the core team
- 2004SnowdevilBuilt the software for an online snowboard store
Awards
Quotes
I want Shopify to be a company that sees the next century.Tobi Lütke, “We need to talk about carbon”
Recalling the letter in Shopify’s 2015 F1 filing, in a December 2019 post: https://tobi.lutke.com/blogs/news/we-need-to-talk-about-carbon
Trivia
- Snowboarding was the interest that led Tobi to start Snowdevil, the store behind Shopify’s beginnings.
- Tobi’s open source releases include Liquid, DelayedJob, and ActiveMerchant.
- Tobi describes themself as a programmer and race car driver on their personal website.
- On Sources in October 2026, Tobi described turning a wine cellar into a GPU server rack for a personal AI system.
Find Tobi
Follow Tobi’s posts and longer thoughts on building things.
Are you Tobias Lütke?
Fans built this page. Claim it to connect with them and unlock Star boosts, or request a takedown if you’d rather it not exist.