Tobias Lutke

“Once you've made peace with the fact that you're hardly ever going to work on anything that you're actually good at, the only thing that you can do is get good very fast on everything you have to do.”

“We're trying to build the largest start-up ever without becoming a big company.”

“In my worldview, time is energy that you can invest in things, and money is energy that you can invest. Time has significantly more leverage than money in terms of how much energy you get out of time.”

“What could be more Canadian than working hard to figure out something new and sharing it with the world? The world wants to hear from us!”

“Products are a form of speech, and free speech must be fiercely protected, even if we disagree with some of the voices.”

“I always loved retail. I love the ideas behind it. I think small-business retail is one of the areas where capitalism works so wonderfully well.”

“Commerce is a powerful, underestimated form of expression. We use it to cast a vote with every product we buy. It's a direct expression of democracy. This is why our mission at Shopify is to protect that form of expression and make it better for everyone, not just for those we agree with.”

“Why do Canadians sell themselves short? I've never been able to answer that question.”

“Shopify was built as a company that could be run remotely anywhere.”

“Growing up, I spent my time doing useless stuff looking at computers.”

“Being a start-up has nothing to do with the numbers. It's that everyone who works there has the chance to do everything and have an impact.”

“One of the most important tasks as a leader in a startup is to pick the right metric to track. This is often referred to as the 'compass metric' because it will be your compass for growth. It's important to note that 'compass metrics' will likely change over the lifetime of a business.”

“We need a lot more technically literate people. The computers are the tools that are going to solve essentially all problems, and the people who can use them better will be more effective.”

“It took about 10 years' time for Shopify to be an overnight success.”

“Being part of something that's growing fast is better than being part of something that isn't growing fast because opportunities are essentially everywhere, and you're not competing for something.”

“I find the strongest predictor of people who do well at Shopify is whether they see opportunity as something to compete for, or do they see opportunity as essentially everywhere and unlimited? It's a rough proxy for pessimism and optimism.”

“It is my strong belief that computer literacy should be part of our educational system's core curriculum.”

“To kick off a merchant is to censor ideas and interfere with the free exchange of products at the core of commerce. When we kick off a merchant, we're asserting our own moral code as the superior one. But who gets to define that moral code?”

“Shopify has been a perpetually underestimated company at every point of its history.”

“I never went to university.”