Tobias "Tobi" Lütke is the billionaire founder and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especiall ...

Shopify Shopify Inc. is a Canadian multinational e-commerce company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. Shopify is the name of its proprietary e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. The Shopify platform offers online ret ...

, an e-commerce company based in

Ottawa, Ontario Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

, Canada. He has been part of the core team of the

Ruby on Rails Ruby on Rails (simplified as Rails) is a server-side web application framework written in Ruby under the MIT License. Rails is a model–view–controller (MVC) framework, providing default structures for a database, a web service, and web ...

framework and has created open source libraries such as Active Merchant.

Early life

Lütke was born in Koblenz, Germany in 1981. He received a Schneider CPC (German brand of the Amstrad Colour Personal Computer distributed by the

Schneider Rundfunkwerke AG Schneider Rundfunkwerke AG was a German manufacturer of mass market audio equipment. History The origins of the company trace to 1889 in Türkheim, Swabia, Germany, when Felix Schneider founded a company manufacturing industrial woodworking tools ...

) from his parents at the age of six. 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. He moved from Germany to Canada in 2002. Lütke cites

John Carmack John D. Carmack II (born August 20, 1970) is an American computer programmer and video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related discip ...

.plan In computer networking, the Name/Finger protocol and the Finger user information protocol are simple network protocols for the exchange of human-oriented status and user information. Name/Finger protocol The Name/Finger protocol is based on Req ...

-files from the mid-1990's as "making a huge impression" on him as a teenager and calls them a "a

master class A master class is a class given to students of a particular discipline by an expert of that discipline—usually music, but also science, painting, drama, games, or on any other occasion where skills are being developed. "Masterclass" is als ...

systems design Systems design interfaces, and data for an electronic control system to satisfy specified requirements. System design could be seen as the application of system theory to product development. There is some overlap with the disciplines of system an ...

Career

In 2004, Lütke, along with his partners, Daniel Weinand and Scott Lake, launched Snowdevil, an online snowboard shop. Lütke built a new

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain mana ...

platform for the site, using

. Soon after, the Snowdevil founders shifted their focus from snowboards to e-commerce and launched

in 2006. He currently owns 7% of Shopify, which went public in 2015. '' The Globe and Mail'' named Lütke "CEO of the Year" in November 2014. Lütke was presented with the

Meritorious Service Cross The Meritorious Service Cross (french: Croix du service méritoire) is a decoration that is, within the Canadian system of honours, one of the two Meritorious Service Decorations gifted by the Canadian monarch, his or her Governor-in-Council. ...

on November 5, 2018, for his work in supporting the growth of the Canadian technology industry. In 2019, Lütke donated $1,000,001 to

Team Trees Team Trees, stylized as #TEAMTREES, is a collaborative fundraiser that raised 20 million U.S. dollars before the start of 2020 to plant 20 million trees. The initiative was started by American YouTubers MrBeast and Mark Rober, and was mostly ...

, the biggest donation as of December 14, 2022, with the message, "For the Lorax". In 2021, Lütke donated $1,200,001 to

Team Seas Team Seas, stylized as #TeamSeas, is an international collaborative fundraiser that was started by YouTubers MrBeast and Mark Rober as a follow up to Team Trees. The fundraiser succeeded in raising over 33 million U.S. dollars. All of the dona ...

, the 4th biggest donation as of December 14, 2022, with the message "For the Lorax... but wet.". 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".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lutke, Tobias 1981 births Living people Businesspeople from Ottawa People from Koblenz German emigrants to Canada Canadian chief executives Canadian company founders Canadian billionaires Naturalized citizens of Canada