Tobi Lutke

Founder & CEO at Shopify

Tobi Lutke is the founder and CEO of Shopify, operating with a 100-year vision and driven by dissatisfaction with the status quo to make entrepreneurship more common.

The Visionary The Operator

Dimension Profile

Strategic Vision 95%

Execution & Craft 75%

Data & Experimentation 40%

Growth & Distribution 60%

Team & Leadership 70%

User Empathy & Research 65%

Key Themes

100-year product vision dissatisfaction as energy source optimism sounds naive but wins fun and delight as business power contrarian by default working backwards from the future

Episode Summary

Tobi Lutke shares his 100-year vision for Shopify and the philosophy that drives it: dissatisfaction with the status quo as an energy source, working backwards from the future, and the contrarian belief that optimism and delight are more powerful than the sophisticated pessimism that dominates business thinking. He explains why Shopify exists to make entrepreneurship more common.

Leadership Principles

→ My energy source is dissatisfaction with the status quo — today is the dystopia of the future
→ Pessimism sounds sophisticated but optimism actually drives progress
→ The most powerful unquantifiable things in business are fun and delight

Notable Quotes

"My energy source is dissatisfaction with status quo. Today is the dystopia of the future. It behooves us to try to build the kinds of products that lead towards progress."
— On what drives him as a builder and why he stays energized

"Pessimism sounds extremely sophisticated. Optimism always sounds dumb or at least naive. The most powerful unquantifiable things in business are fun and delight."
— On why the conventional business aesthetic misses what actually matters

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