#359: Tobi Lütke — From Snowboard Shop to Billion-Dollar Company
The Tim Ferriss Show
Is There a Future for Software Development?
The world has sort of sorted itself into solutions based on a world that's long gone, in a way. I think it's really worth going through life and just saying, well, what are people actually trying to accomplish? What is the actual problem here? The most impressive story along those lines that have ever come across was Mecha McLean's story around the invention of a shipping container.
"Feedback is a gift." — Tobi Lütke
Tobi Lütke (@tobi) is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Shopify. In 2004, Tobi began building software to launch an online snowboard store called Snowdevil. It quickly became obvious that the software was more valuable than the snowboards, so Tobi and his founding team launched the Shopify platform in 2006. He has served as CEO since 2008 at the company's headquarters in Ottawa, Canada.
Tobi is an active advocate for computer literacy and education, and serves as a board member of Canada Learning Code, an organization working to give all Canadians access to digital skills. In 2014, Tobi was named The Globe and Mail's CEO of the Year. He served as Chair of the Digital Industries Table, an advisory board commissioned by the federal government to provide recommendations on how to turn Canada into a digital leader.
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