He Just Wanted to Sell Snowboards

In 2004, a young German programmer living in Ottawa wanted to sell snowboards online.

He looked at the software available for online shops. It was clunky, expensive and ugly. He hated all of it.

So he did what programmers do. He built his own.

The snowboard store, called Snowdevil, was never a giant hit. But the software behind it became Shopify, a company that helps millions of businesses around the world sell online.

The programmer was Tobias Lütke, known to everyone as Tobi. And he never finished high school.

A kid, a computer and a German apprenticeship

Tobi Lütke was born in 1980 in Koblenz, Germany.

As a boy he got a Commodore 64 computer. He did not just play games on it. He took the games apart and rewrote their code to make them better.

School bored him. At 16, he left regular school and started an apprenticeship as a computer programmer. In Germany, that means learning on the job at a real company instead of sitting in a classroom.

For Tobi, it was perfect. He learned by building.

Moving to Canada for love

On a snowboarding trip, Tobi met a Canadian woman named Fiona McKean. In 2002, he moved to Ottawa to be with her. She later became his wife.

He did not have a job waiting for him in Canada, so he decided to start a business.

He loved snowboarding. So, with his friend Scott Lake, he decided to sell snowboards online.

The software was the real product

Tobi built the store himself using a new programming tool called Ruby on Rails. He liked it so much he became one of its early contributors.

Other people started asking him a question. Could they use his shop software for their own stores?

That question changed everything. In 2006, Tobi and his co-founders, including Scott Lake and designer Daniel Weinand, turned the software into Shopify. Now anyone could open an online store without being a programmer.

In 2008, Tobi became CEO.

2:55 The software was the real product

Arming the rebels

Amazon was becoming the giant of online shopping. Many small businesses felt they had to sell on Amazon's terms.

Tobi had a different vision. He wanted to give independent shop owners their own stores, their own brands and their own customers. Shopify's famous mission became to help merchants everywhere, often described as "arming the rebels" against the giants.

Shopify grew one small business at a time. Clothing brands. Coffee roasters. Artists. Big companies later joined too.

Going public

In May 2015, Shopify went public on the New York Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The German teenager who skipped university was now leading one of Canada's most important tech companies.

1:58 Going public

The pandemic bet

In 2020, the pandemic closed shops around the world. Almost overnight, businesses rushed online. Shopify exploded.

Tobi believed this jump would last. He hired fast and built fast.

But when life went back to normal, online shopping growth slowed. In July 2022, Shopify laid off about 10 percent of its staff. Tobi did not blame the market. He blamed himself.

"Ultimately, this was my call to make and I got this wrong."

Then he reshaped the company, selling off its heavy logistics business in 2023 to focus on software.

Prove AI cannot do it

In April 2025, Tobi posted an internal memo publicly. It shook the tech world.

He told every Shopify employee that using AI was no longer optional.

"Reflexive AI usage is now a baseline expectation at Shopify."

He added a tough rule. Before any team could ask for more people or resources, they had to show why AI could not do the job.

Many CEOs soon wrote similar memos. Tobi had once again moved early.

In 2026, he kept pushing into AI commerce, including work with his team on a Universal Commerce Protocol for AI shopping agents.

Where he is now

Today, Tobi Lütke is co-founder and CEO of Shopify. He is known for coding for fun, gaming, racing cars and thinking in very long time frames. He still behaves more like an engineer than a typical CEO.

Why the story matters

Tobi Lütke's story proves that the paper on your wall matters less than the things you build.

He left school at 16. He moved countries with no job. He tried to sell snowboards and ended up selling software. When he made a huge wrong bet, he said so out loud. When AI arrived, he told his whole company to change before it was forced to.

For young builders, the lesson is simple. If the tools you need are bad, build better ones. The side project might be the real business. And when you are wrong, say it and fix it.

He did not want to rule shopping. He wanted every shopkeeper to have a chance.

The Record

Born: 1980

From: Koblenz, Germany; lives in Ottawa, Canada

Education: Computer programmer apprenticeship in Germany; left school at 16

Built: Shopify (with Scott Lake and Daniel Weinand)

Role: Co-founder and CEO of Shopify

Timeline

1980 Born in Koblenz, Germany.

1996 Leaves school for a programming apprenticeship.

2002 Moves to Ottawa, Canada.

2004 Starts Snowdevil, an online snowboard shop.

2006 Launches Shopify.

2008 Becomes CEO.

2015 Shopify goes public on the NYSE and TSX.

2020 Pandemic sends Shopify soaring.

2022 Lays off about 10 percent and admits he bet wrong.

2025 Publishes his AI memo to all staff.