I got my first computer at the age of 6. To me, it was magic. By the time I was 12, I wanted to know the secrets behind the wizardry, and that started my journey toward computer programming. This was the early 1990s, when computers weren't built for the mass market.

Tobias Lutke

Categorized in : Me Time Age Journey

Change has to be fundamental to a company's culture, or there is no way it can survive.

Tobias Lutke

survive change culture way

E-commerce is not an industry; e-commerce is a tactic.

Tobias Lutke

tactic e-commerce industry

I find the strongest predictor of people who do well at Shopify is whether they see opportunity as something to compete for, or do they see opportunity as essentially everywhere and unlimited? It's a rough proxy for pessimism and optimism.

Tobias Lutke

see optimism opportunity people

Everyone loves feeling comfortable. But it's actually completely useless.

Tobias Lutke

everyone feeling comfortable useless

We are at our best when we are at our proudest. Canadians need to harness that confidence in every arena, not just the ice rink. The Maple Leaf stands for quality, thoughtfulness, and innovation, so let's brand it proudly on the things that we've invented, created, and figured out.

Tobias Lutke

best confidence innovation quality

It took about 10 years' time for Shopify to be an overnight success.

Tobias Lutke

about success time years

In my worldview, time is energy that you can invest in things, and money is energy that you can invest. Time has significantly more leverage than money in terms of how much energy you get out of time.

Tobias Lutke

you money energy time

A lot of people have a great business idea; they just need a little push to make it a reality.

Tobias Lutke

great business reality people

Our hiring is almost completely built around just going through someone's life story, and we look for moments when they had to make important decisions, and we go deep on those.

Tobias Lutke

deep look moments life

I'm always trying to think of ways to make something more efficient. If I have to do something once, that's fine. If I have to do it twice, I'm kind of annoyed. And if I have to do it three times, I'm going to try to automate it.

Tobias Lutke

try think three trying

No one benefits from us not taking credit for our successes. There is no virtue in allowing kudos to go unclaimed or elsewhere.

Tobias Lutke

us go credit virtue

It's this concept of 'just fill up a building of smart people.' It sounds so basic, but honestly it might just be the secret behind Shopify's success. We just do that and get out of the way.

Tobias Lutke

smart success people way

It is incredibly powerful if you solve the problem you actually have yourself. It's really tough to develop a good product when you don't have very close proximity to the people who actually use your product. The closest proximity you can have to those people is to be that person.

Tobias Lutke

yourself good you people

Computers add convenience to our everyday lives, but we are limited in what we can do with technology others have imagined. The ability for humans to teach machines entirely new things - coding - is nothing short of a superpower.

Tobias Lutke

computers new new-things technology

I'm a liberally minded immigrant, leading a predominantly liberal workforce hailing from predominantly liberal cities and countries.

Tobias Lutke

leading liberal immigrant workforce

I'm against exclusion of any kind - whether that's restricting people from Muslim-majority nations from entering the U.S. or kicking merchants off our platform if they're operating within the law.

Tobias Lutke

against kind law people

Commerce is a powerful, underestimated form of expression. We use it to cast a vote with every product we buy. It's a direct expression of democracy. This is why our mission at Shopify is to protect that form of expression and make it better for everyone, not just for those we agree with.

Tobias Lutke

better vote democracy powerful

Products are a form of speech, and free speech must be fiercely protected, even if we disagree with some of the voices.

Tobias Lutke

some free free-speech speech

One of the most important tasks as a leader in a startup is to pick the right metric to track. This is often referred to as the 'compass metric' because it will be your compass for growth. It's important to note that 'compass metrics' will likely change over the lifetime of a business.

Tobias Lutke

growth leader business change

Being part of something that's growing fast is better than being part of something that isn't growing fast because opportunities are essentially everywhere, and you're not competing for something.

Tobias Lutke

something better being you