Tobias Lütke

Born 1980 in Koblenz, Germany. Self-taught programmer who began programming as a teenager and became an active contributor to the Ruby open-source community. Moved to Ottawa after meeting his future wife Fiona McKean online. Built Shopify's founding software in two weeks in 2004 while attempting to sell snowboards online through a store called Snowdevil.

Tobias Lütke is CEO and co-founder of Shopify, having led the company from its 2006 founding through its 2015 IPO, the pandemic boom, the logistics mistake and reversal, and the 2024 return to profitability. Known for engineering-first management philosophy, long-term thinking, and transparency about both success and failure, he maintains approximately 36% of voting rights through dual-class shares. His 'trust battery' management framework — the idea that trust between managers and employees charges and discharges with every interaction — has become one of the more discussed management concepts in technology. Lütke built Shopify's founding software in Ruby on Rails in 2004, and his deep engineering background has kept the company product-focused rather than sales-focused throughout its history. His most consequential decisions include the 2006 pivot from snowboard selling to platform business, the 2013 launch of Shopify Payments, and the 2023 reversal of the logistics strategy — including the public acknowledgment that the Deliverr acquisition had been a strategic mistake.