Tobias Lütke (born 1980) is a German-Canadian entrepreneur and

racing driver Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. In North America, the term is commonly used to describe all forms of automobile sport including non ...

who is the co-founder and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

Shopify Shopify Inc., stylized as ''shopify'', headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, operates an e-commerce platform for retail point-of-sale systems that offers payments, marketing, shipping, inventory management, transaction management, and customer eng ...

, an e-commerce company based in

Ottawa, Ontario Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

, Canada. He competes in the

2025 IMSA SportsCar Championship The 2025 IMSA SportsCar Championship (known for sponsorship reasons as the 2025 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship) is an ongoing motor racing championship and the 55th racing season sanctioned by the International Motor Sports Association ...

driving in

LMP2 A Le Mans Prototype (LMP) is a type of sports prototype race car used in various races and championships, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans, FIA World Endurance Championship, IMSA SportsCar Championship, European Le Mans Series, and Asian Le M ...

for Era Motorsport. Lütke has been part of the core team of the

Ruby on Rails Ruby on Rails (simplified as Rails) is a server-side web application framework written in Ruby under the MIT License. Rails is a model–view–controller (MVC) framework, providing default structures for a database, a web service, and web pa ...

framework and has created open source libraries such as Active Merchant. As of 2022, he was the 11th richest Canadian. As of February 2025, his net worth was US$11.1 billion.

Early life

Lütke was born in Koblenz, Germany in 1980. He received a Schneider CPC (German brand of the Amstrad Colour Personal Computer distributed by the

Schneider Rundfunkwerke AG Schneider Rundfunkwerke AG was a German manufacturer of mass market audio equipment. History The origins of the company trace to 1889 in Türkheim, Bavaria, Germany, when Felix Schneider founded a company manufacturing industrial woodworking tools ...

) from his parents at the age of six. 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. He moved from Germany to Canada in 2003. Lütke cites

John Carmack John D. Carmack II (born August 21, 1970) is an American computer programmer and video game developer. He co-founded the video game company id Software and was the lead programmer of its 1990s games ''Commander Keen'', ''Wolfenstein 3D'', ''Do ...

's .plan-files from the mid-1990's as "making a huge impression" on him as a teenager and calls them a "a

master class ''Master Class'' is a 1995 play by American playwright Terrence McNally, presented as a fictional master class by opera singer Maria Callas near the end of her life, in the 1970s. The play features incidental vocal music by Giuseppe Verdi, Giac ...

systems design The basic study of system design is the understanding of component parts and their subsequent interaction with one another. Systems design has appeared in a variety of fields, including sustainability, computer/software architecture, and sociolog ...

Career

In 2004, Lütke, along with his partners, Daniel Weinand and Scott Lake, launched Snowdevil, an online snowboard shop. Lütke built a new

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...

platform for the site, using

. Soon after, the Snowdevil founders shifted their focus from snowboards to e-commerce and launched

in 2006.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 ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...

'' named Lütke "CEO of the Year" in November 2014. Lütke was presented with the

Meritorious Service Cross The Meritorious Service Cross () is a State decoration, decoration that is, within the Orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, Canadian system of honours, one of the two Meritorious Service Decorations gifted by the Monarchy of Canada, Canadia ...

on November 5, 2018, for his work in supporting the growth of the Canadian technology industry. 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 Coinbase Global, Inc. is an American cryptocurrency exchange. It was founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam. Coinbase has over 100 million users, and is the largest U.S. based cryptocurrency exchange as well as the world's bigge ...

announced Lütke would join its board of directors.

Criticism and controversies

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 ''Breitbart News Network'' (; known commonly as ''Breitbart News'', ''Breitbart'', or ''Breitbart.com'') is an Radical right (United States), American far-rightMultiple sources: * * * * * * * * * * * * syndicated news, opinion, and commentar ...

in 2017 by stating if they removed a merchant, they would be enforcing a

moral code Morality () is the categorization of intentions, decisions and actions into those that are ''proper'', or ''right'', and those that are ''improper'', or ''wrong''. Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduc ...

and questioned what as well as who should defines 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 Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

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."

Racing career

In 2025, Lütke entered the

to compete in the

class driving for Era Motorsport alongside co-drivers Paul-Loup Chatin, Ryan Dalziel, and

David Heinemeier Hansson David Heinemeier Hansson, also known by his initials DHH, is a Danish software engineer, programmer, writer, entrepreneur, and racing driver. He is the creator of Ruby on Rails, a web framework written in Ruby. He is also a partner and chief t ...

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

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lutke, Tobias 1980 births Living people Businesspeople from Ottawa People from Koblenz German emigrants to Canada Canadian chief executives Canadian company founders Canadian billionaires Naturalized citizens of Canada Racing drivers from Ontario Racing drivers from Rhineland-Palatinate WeatherTech SportsCar Championship drivers