Tobi Lütke is the CEO and Co-Founder of Shopify, the powerhouse company allowing anyone to start and grow their e-commerce business. Over an incredible 18 years, Tobi has scaled Shopify to 10% of total US e-commerce, millions of merchants in over 170 countries, and a market cap today of over $60BN. Huge thanks to Harley Finkelstein for making this happen.
In Today's Episode with Tobi Lütke We Discuss:
1. From a Small German Town to One of the World's Most Powerful CEOs:
- What did Tobi want to be when he was growing up?
- Who did Tobi learn most from in his younger years? How does Tobi think about the importance of mentorship in learning?
- What does Tobi know now that he wishes he had known when he started Shopify?
2. You Can Learn More from World of Warcraft Than You Can Companies:
- Why does Tobi believe you can learn more from World of Warcraft than you can from studying companies?
- Why does Tobi believe that humans are terrible at company building? What are the most obvious ways we can improve the quality of the companies we build?
- Why does Tobi believe that in-person is far superior to remote working? What are the nuances?
3. The Best Companies Operate with Many Constraints:
- Why does Tobi believe in all cases, constraints produce creativity?
- What is the difference between an enforced constraint and an artificial constraint?
- How can leaders create and enforce artificial constraints when they are not real?
- How do the best leaders use constraints to ensure their companies move faster and faster?
4. Inside the Mind of Tobi Lütke: Decision-Making & Prioritisation:
- How does Tobi reflect on his own decision-making process? How has it changed?
- Why does Tobi believe that sunk cost fallacy is BS and only leads to your outsourcing approval to someone else?
- Why does Tobi hate "black boxes"? How does he remove them from the org entirely?
- How does Tobi decide what to learn? What is his learning process once he has made this decision?
- How does Tobi decide what to prioritise in terms of strategic initiatives for Shopify?
