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Tobias Lütke
German-Canadian entrepreneur and software developer From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Tobias Lütke (born 1980[1]) is a German-Canadian entrepreneur and racing driver who is the co-founder and CEO of Shopify, an e-commerce company based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.[4][5][6][7] He competes in the 2025 IMSA SportsCar Championship driving in LMP2 for Era Motorsport.[8]
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Lütke has been part of the core team of the Ruby on Rails framework and has created open source libraries such as Active Merchant.[9] As of 2022, he was the 11th richest Canadian.[10] As of February 2025, his net worth was US$11.1 billion.[11]
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Early life
Lütke was born in Koblenz,[12] Germany in 1980.[1] 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.[13][12] 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.[14][15] He moved from Germany to Canada in 2003.[11]
Lütke cites John Carmack's .plan-files from the mid-1990's as "making a huge impression"[16] on him as a teenager and calls them a "a master class in systems design".[17]
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Career
In 2004, Lütke, along with his partners, Daniel Weinand and Scott Lake, launched Snowdevil, an online snowboard shop.[5] Lütke built a new e-commerce platform for the site, using Ruby on Rails.[18][15][19] Soon after, the Snowdevil founders shifted their focus from snowboards to e-commerce and launched Shopify in 2006.[20][21]He currently owns 7% of Shopify, which went public in 2015.[22] Despite controlling a minority of the shares outstanding, he controls a 40% voting interest in Shopify due to a two-class voting structure.[23]
The Globe and Mail named Lütke "CEO of the Year" in November 2014.[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]
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".[26]
On January 31, 2022, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced Lütke would join its board of directors.[27]
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Racing career
In 2025, Lütke entered the 2025 IMSA SportsCar Championship to compete in the LMP2 class driving for Era Motorsport alongside co-drivers Paul-Loup Chatin, Ryan Dalziel, and David Heinemeier Hansson.[8][28][7]
Criticism and controversies
Platform content policies
Lütke has faced criticism over his handling of Shopify's platform content policies and their enforcement. [29] Lütke has historically defended free speech in commerce, including hosting controversial clients like the far-right online tabloid Breitbart in 2017 by stating if they removed a merchant, they would be enforcing a moral code and questioned what as well as who should defines it.[30]
Trade war between the United States and Canada
In 2025, Lütke criticized the Canadian federal government for its decision to impose retaliatory tariffs on the United States after President Donald Trump enacted 25% tariffs on Canadian goods.[31] Lütke seemed afraid of escalation, stating that "hitting back will not lead to anything good. America will shrug it off", and softly described Trump's decision to put tariffs on Canada, saying, "Trump believes that Canada has not held its side of the bargain, and he set terms to prove that we still work together: get the borders under control and crack down on fentanyl dens."[31]
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Racing record
Racing career summary
* Season still in progress.
Complete IMSA SportsCar Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap)
* Season still in progress.
24 Hours of Daytona results
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References
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