Tobias Lütke

Lütke was born in Koblenz, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, in 1980. 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. Lütke graduated from school and entered an apprenticeship program at the Carl-Benz-School in Koblenz to become a computer programmer after the tenth grade. He moved from Germany to Canada in 2003.

During the early development of Shopify, Lütke lived in the Ottawa home of his parents-in-law, Bruce and Dale McKean, who were retired federal public servants. Bruce McKean also provided early seed capital to fund the startup.

Lütke cites John Carmack's.plan-files from the mid-1990s as "making a huge impression" on him as a teenager and calls them "a master class in systems design".

In 2004, Lütke, along with his partners, Daniel Weinand and Scott Lake, launched Snowdevil, an online snowboard shop. Lütke built a new e-commerce platform for the site, using Ruby on Rails. Soon after, the Snowdevil founders shifted their focus from snowboards to e-commerce and launched Shopify in 2006.

Lütke did not collect a salary from his business venture during the launch phase. He was able to do this as he lived with his girlfriend Fiona McKean in her parent's home where the couple resided at low cost for approximately a decade.

He currently owns 7% of Shopify, which went public in 2015. Despite controlling a minority of the shares outstanding, he controls a 40% voting interest in Shopify due to a two-class voting structure.

The Globe and Mail named Lütke "CEO of the Year" in November 2014. Lütke was presented with the Meritorious Service Cross on November 5, 2018, for his work in supporting the growth of the Canadian technology industry.

In October 2019, Lütke donated over 1 million dollars to Team Trees. This made him the largest donor in the project's history and marked a personal commitment to environmental protection.

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".

On January 31, 2022, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced Lütke would join its board of directors.

Lütke has three children with his wife Fiona McKean, a former Canadian diplomat.

In 2015, Lütke and McKean purchased and relaunched a classic Ontario summer resort lodge named Opinicon near Chaffey's Locks on the Rideau River.

Platform content policies

Lütke has faced criticism over his handling of Shopify's platform content policies and their enforcement. 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 define it.

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. 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."

AI-first approach

In April 2025, a memo from Lütke was leaked that revealed his demand that there would be no need for new hires at Shopify unless employees could justify why AI couldn't do the job. Commentators speculated that the 'leaked' memo move was more about tackling comments about Shopify's rapidly dropping share price; new hires would be difficult to justify anyway when the company was financially struggling. Over the subsequent months Shopify continued to lay off staff, as share prices continued to struggle.