Founder Profile
Tobias Lütke
Last reviewed: October 2026 · By Swet Parvadiya
Who is Tobias Lütke?
Tobias Lütke is a founder of Shopify Inc., which was founded in 2006 with Daniel Weinand and Scott Lake.
- Company founded
- Shopify Inc.
- Founded
- 2006
- Co-founders
- Daniel Weinand and Scott Lake
Background
German-born programmer and Ruby on Rails core contributor who created the Liquid template language.
Founding Story
Tobias Lütke co-founded Shopify after building the Snowdevil snowboard store in Ruby on Rails in 2004. He has led Shopify as CEO since 2008 and holds a founder share that gives him about 40% of total voting power.
Tobias Lütke was born in 1980 in Koblenz.
Lutke was born in 1980 and is German-Canadian. He was part of the core team of the Ruby on Rails framework and created open-source libraries such as Active Merchant. He also races sports cars.