Tobias Lütke
Tobias "Tobi" Lütke MSC is a German/Canadian entrepreneur who is the co-founder and CEO of Shopify, an e-commerce company based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.[2][3][4] He has been part of the core team of the Ruby on Rails framework and has created open source libraries such as Active Merchant.[5] As of 2022, he was the 11th richest Canadian.[6]
Early life[edit]
Lütke was born in Koblenz,[7] Germany in 1981.[8] He received a Schneider CPC (German brand of the Amstrad Colour Personal Computer distributed by the Schneider Rundfunkwerke AG) from his parents at the age of six.[9][7] By 11 or 12, he began rewriting the code of the games he played and modifying computer hardware as a hobby. Lütke dropped out of school and entered an apprenticeship program at the Koblenzer Carl-Benz-School to become a computer programmer after tenth grade.[10][11] He moved from Germany to Canada in 2002.[9][10]
Lütke cites John Carmack's .plan-files from the mid-1990's as "making a huge impression"[12] on him as a teenager and calls them a "a master class in systems design".[13]
Career[edit]
In 2004, Lütke, along with his partners, Daniel Weinand and Scott Lake, launched Snowdevil, an online snowboard shop.[3][14][15] Lütke built a new e-commerce platform for the site, using Ruby on Rails.[16][11][17] Soon after, the Snowdevil founders shifted their focus from snowboards to e-commerce and launched Shopify in 2006.[18][19][20] He currently owns 7% of Shopify, which went public in 2015.[21] Despite controlling a minority of the shares outstanding, he controls a 40% voting interest in Shopify due to a two-class voting structure.[22]
The Globe and Mail named Lütke "CEO of the Year" in November 2014.[23][24] Lütke was presented with the Meritorious Service Cross on November 5, 2018, for his work in supporting the growth of the Canadian technology industry.[25] In 2019, Lütke donated $1,000,001 to Team Trees, the biggest donation as of May 10, 2023, with the message, "For the Lorax".[26] In 2021, Lütke donated $1,200,001 to Team Seas, the 4th biggest donation as of May 10, 2023, with the message "For the Lorax... but wet.".[27]
On September 8, 2021, it was announced that Lütke, along with former and current Shopify top executives and Celtic House Venture Partners, invested $3 million in Creative Layer, "a global personalized print-on-demand platform for managing Shopify orders, proofs, fulfillment, and team members".[28]
On January 31, 2022, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced Lütke would join its board of directors.[29]