Uncapped with Jack AltmanTobi Lütke – Building Shopify and the Future of AI | Ep. 50
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
65 min read · 13,420 words- 0:00 – 0:49
Intro
- TLTobi Lütke
I think in a way, like people are ov-somewhat overestimating the founders of companies, and then they are really massively underestimating what you can do when the founder is still present and in charge. It's my best way to help the mission. Everyone gets to complain about, uh, uh, you know, uh, the crazy founder, which is like great. Um, it's like, "Do, do whatever venting you want."
- JAJack Altman
Mm-hmm.
- TLTobi Lütke
And then you do, uh, uh, very often some of the best work of your, uh, careers. You know, that's why people I think flock to these type of companies because you're surrounded by other people that you can go on such crazy journeys with.
- JAJack Altman
[upbeat music] I am so excited to be here today with Tobi, the CEO founder of Shopify. Tobi, before we start, I will say, um, when I was running my company Lattice, and now you were one of the founders that I sort of most looked up to, and so many things about the way you operate, the way you've run your company, the changes you've made over time, it's the top of the top for me, and so I feel super lucky to
- 0:49 – 5:58
A problem worth solving
- JAJack Altman
be doing this with you. Before we get into AI and Shopify, I wanna like learn a little bit about you just, and more like your psychology. You've been running Shopify for over twenty years, and from what I see about you, it seems like you love what you do, and it seems like you're as energized by it as ever. It seems like you are as passionate about the future as ever, and I think that's really hard. Like, I think having, like, life's work is sort of like this romantic dream for a lot of people, and I just think it's very hard to do in practice 'cause people either fall out of love with their work, they get bored, they get tired. And on top of that, I think being a founder CEO of like a, you know, a big company is not even the easiest type of thing to have life's work.
- TLTobi Lütke
[chuckles]
- JAJack Altman
You know, like my work now as a VC would be much easier to do for thirty years. So I guess I'm interested in how you are able to bring and seemingly grow sort of your love for what you're doing after two decades.
- TLTobi Lütke
That's such a wonderful question. Thanks so much for having me on the podcast. I'm super excited for you to, to get to, get to do this. Um, part of the reason why I wanted to start a company is because I have found before in my teens that I have an extraordinarily hard, uh, time learning, um, things that I don't have basically experienced the problem that they solve. Like, it's just like the way, like in school how math was taught, basically. Here's just sort of like the steps for-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... to, like, I actually had to really go and like figure out, okay, well, um, what exactly is, uh, trigonometry useful for? Um, um, and, uh, I, I just had to like... I started with, um, tricking myself into finding, uh, like a useful, uh, problem that involved trigonometry, after which I felt I could learn it significantly faster than, uh, like everyone else because I just was so motivated, right? Like Karl Popper said, "One of the joys of life and one of the best things in life is like to find a beautiful problem that, uh, might occupy you all your, of your life, um, trying to solve it. And if you're so unlucky to, um, uh, at some point do solve it, that it will have, uh, plenty of, uh, delightful problem children that you can dig into," right? First of all, I think that's a beautiful way of thinking about, um, um, life's work. Um, but also it just works specifically well to, uh, for me because I love learning things. I love challenging myself. I find myself, to myself, very, very interesting. I, I just like because almost my favorite thing is when I want to do something and I can't-
- JAJack Altman
Hmm
- TLTobi Lütke
... because it just let you kind of find the limits. And then you can have this con-conversation with yourself about what... You know, because there's a very simple recipe to success. It's just that everyone I think sort of intuits or, or, or knows but maybe not spent too mu- enough time sort of following through on, which is success is really, really simple. It's just you have to figure out what it costs, and then you have to be willing to pay it, right? Like, and very rarely is this comes in the form of, um, um, uh, money. It usually comes in the form of, uh, time commitment and-
- JAJack Altman
Discom-discomfort
- TLTobi Lütke
... dedication, discomfort, and these kind of things. So like, I seek problems. Um, um, I, uh, you know, love comput-love computers. Like to stay with example, trigonometry. Turns out, um, the very early, uh, you know, video games like Wolfenstein 3D are basically just trigonometry. Um-
- JAJack Altman
Hmm
- TLTobi Lütke
... once you realize this and, like play with, uh, these things, uh, they become delightful and you learn the next thing and the next thing. So I wanted to start a company because I was just like, um, I was at a right time of my life. I, uh, I, I just moved to Canada from, from, from Germany. I didn't have a work permit, so I couldn't work for anyone. I needed something to do. My wife had, uh, lots of, uh, needed lots of time for her degree, and I'm like, like this is a good time to try it, and it's probably not gonna work, but like I, I, I will learn a lot. And so this has, uh, been, uh, just powerful way for me to motivate myself.
- JAJack Altman
I'm curious about, as you think about this, you know, are there things that other people can do to more likely stick with and enjoy their life's work? I think there are a lot of people who enter a career, a profession, whatever, and they love what they're doing, and then as time goes on, barnacles kind of attach-
- TLTobi Lütke
Mm-hmm
- JAJack Altman
... to the ship, and cruft builds, and responsibilities grow, and your job evolves, and you end up doing something that you didn't start doing. And so I think people sometimes don't know how to shed all of that weight, and obviously you, as much as probably anybody in the world, have the potential to have all of that around you. You're a public company CEO. You've got, you know, tons of employees. You've got all these responsibilities. So it's possible that you could be encumbered by all these things, but you somehow haven't been. So I'm curious if there's learnings for everybody, no matter how many or few barnacles they have.
- TLTobi Lütke
Mm-hmm.
- JAJack Altman
Like, what can you do to keep loving what you do?
- TLTobi Lütke
Yeah, look, I, I, I, I certainly collected barnacles around certain times in my career too, where just like I, I, I sort of fell into the, um, uh, you know, trap of like trying to live to... Like, uh, people had particular, um, expectations, not really like, more like in the department of aesthetics. Like, uh, uh, like I, I can only call it an aesthetic because people say things like, "This is what CEOs are like. This is like the behavior that a CEO, uh, should display. You're supposed to be a statesman. You should travel and kiss babies and whatnot." I'm like, well, that sound-sounds pretty inefficient from my perspective, but like I, I, I guess at some point, you know, you just sort of get whittled down and like you, you try all these kind of things. My life was miserable too. Again, this is a sort of junk science, uh, uh, um, a little
- 5:58 – 10:14
Building products people love
- TLTobi Lütke
bit, but like what I'm in- uh, pursuing here is trying to make-Uh, a, a, a, a beautiful product. I just think, like, we need to create products that are just, like, joyful. And, like, one of my favorite quotes is a quote by Cathy Sierra of, like, "Don't make better cameras, make better photographers," right? Like, and it's just, like, very deep to my psyche. I feel through beautiful tools and through beautiful, um, uh, you, you can just inspire people to be the best version of themselves. Actually become... Like, induce more ambition, induce more skill, or at least induce more ambition for yourself to develop skill beyond what you otherwise would do. Okay. And so I think that, um, I want this to exist, and that's just, like, sort of my guiding post here. And, um, it throws o- o- off all these problem children, which are interesting, which then challenge me. You're talking a little bit about sort of calm. Like, I'm, I'm not a terribly calm person either, but I actually don't f- want to, like, dial down my calmness. I want to channel it into building something.
- JAJack Altman
Yep.
- TLTobi Lütke
And so I, I've just found that almost all the mediocre products in the world, they remind me of room temperature, right?
- JAJack Altman
Mm-hmm.
- TLTobi Lütke
They... There's like... It's just like... It's sort of middle temperature of, like, the sort of what you get when, uh-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... when, when, when no one, like-
- JAJack Altman
When no one really cares.
- TLTobi Lütke
Yeah, exactly. It's a default setting of a thermostat. Almost every, um, great product is forged in some kind of furnace and, uh, some kind of temperature. And, like, you've got to tap into a heavy energy source to, to produce that kind of heat.
- JAJack Altman
Do you think that that basically has to start from, like, love for the customer?
- TLTobi Lütke
I don't know. I don't know. Because, like-
- JAJack Altman
You seem to love your customer
- TLTobi Lütke
... I, I, I... The greatest gift. People make great products, um, like, I think, without that crutch. I think if you have it, it should be an incredible, uh, uh, boon.
- JAJack Altman
You think, you think you can be a great CEO and not love your customer?
- TLTobi Lütke
It depends on what great CEO. Like, like, I, I don't know. I'm an engineer. I, I, I read lots and lots of b- books about how to make great software. And you know what? Like many of these books, it's really funny. Uh, like, when you actually check what was the project that they all worked on when they figured out the design patterns of modern software, it's like, it's like the Pennsylvania, uh, payroll system, right? Like, it's just, like, not the most inspiring project. Um, and, and, and, but, like, it turns out, I think just focus what you make out of it.
- JAJack Altman
Yeah.
- TLTobi Lütke
And, um, I think you can... Like, if, if, if you just default to, like, "Hey, let's actually build something that's, like, really, really meaningful, and we all learn a lot about," I think it can be done in any realm. I have a massive benefit, and really one of the greatest things, and I tell people this when, you know, in interviews, uh, when, when people are thinking about coming to Shopify, I point this out. It's like, one of the greatest gifts that this company has is all of our customers are inspiring. They are just, like, remarkable people on, on, on, on doing an incredibly courageous act of starting a company themselves. The people who flock to then come to work for Shopify are people who actually have experience starting a company or have, um, maybe a family member or, or at least a deep appreciation, or in fact-
- JAJack Altman
Probably want to do it again
- TLTobi Lütke
... want to do it in the future.
- JAJack Altman
Your customers in the past.
- TLTobi Lütke
Yeah, in many cases. There's just something wonderful also about, you know, Shopify feels hopefully very, very fresh as a company, and, uh, there's no, like, tree rings-
- JAJack Altman
Mm-hmm
- TLTobi Lütke
... that you can sort of read about its age. But, like, um, uh, it has been around. And so therefore, when we do our annual summit or so, where we all get together in Toronto for a week, there's gonna be people who work at Shopify who weren't born when I started the company. [chuckles]
- JAJack Altman
That's amazing.
- TLTobi Lütke
Like, and it's just like-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... holy hell, that's just, like, been, like, this little bit of an institution.
- JAJack Altman
Especially now, like, people are being... Kids are so capable at young ages of being productive.
- TLTobi Lütke
Absolutely.
- JAJack Altman
Yeah.
- 10:14 – 11:47
Why originality matters
- JAJack Altman
last thing here that, you know, you talk about wanting to build great products, but you've also spoken about, like, wanting to be original, probably to a degree where I imagine you'd rather be original and good rather than mimicking and great.
- TLTobi Lütke
100%. I mean-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... no, in, in fact, what's even better is, like, be different, um, because, like, again, axiomatically, if you are building the same thing other people build, it can only be similarly good. It can't be actually much better. It can maybe, or it might slightly look nicer, but, like, you're bounded a couple of-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... set points either direction. If you want to build something great or much better, it has to be different. Now, if it's... So this has to be your starting position. If it then, um, either converges on the same, uh, same thing, you have learned something potentially from first principles about why a s- the solution is the one that everyone has converged on. If it gets worse, you actually learned something more important because now you know, hey, your theory here was wrong. You, you... Something about the world, like, you, you had an assumption which now has been validated. That learning is the thing from which you're gonna pull so much value in every other realm now because, like, hey, you, you now have a clearer idea about how things actually work. I think it's, like, like, the null results in, um, science are massively underrated. And so, um, ideally then you don't ship it because the, the world needs better, not worse.
- JAJack Altman
Yeah.
- TLTobi Lütke
Right? Like, so, um, and I think that's actually... We, we have tried to eliminate the term, uh, failure in Shopify and just call it the successful discovery of something that didn't work.
- JAJack Altman
I'm curious if you've experienced this. You haven't lived...
- 11:47 – 15:47
Conformity in Silicon Valley
- JAJack Altman
I mean, you obviously spent a lot of time in the Bay Area, but, um, I wonder if it's different for you, you know, being in Canada. But for me, over the last 13 or 14 years in, you know, the Bay Area, I have definitely felt a trend towards herd mentality. I think there was more originality in 2013 when I moved than there is now.
- TLTobi Lütke
Yeah.
- JAJack Altman
I imagine there was more in 2003. I bet you there was more in 1995. Like, I would... Feels like the trend line is professionalization of the industry and the mindset. I'm curious if you experience it the same way, and I'm curious if there are... things that people can cultivate to free themselves from the sort of mimicry shackles?
- TLTobi Lütke
I mean, like look, you can't help but be, um, uh, uh, affected by what you see around you, and if, if, if, if, like it's the best and the worst about the Valley is that everyone's working on interesting things, but of course that causes, um, priors to be pre-installed when you start on a project. What's amazing is like when you see children, uh, interact with things like AI, and they u- they will use it so different from how you imagine. Like it's worth aspiring to, uh, having this like, um, like free mindset of like, uh, just like try to take orthodoxy or the obvious path off the table when you start, because the forces of especially teamwork will always cause a convergence on the safest path, right? I think it is an advantage to be outside of, um, y- y- a valley. You just have fewer pre, uh, like prearranged priors. In fact, a really funny effect was when I went to like the Valley as a visitor and met with people and took for coffee, and we were talking about b- I was trying to figure out what a co- h- how a company should work, and I asked questions. And then I went home, and like I had the entire flight to make my notes, and like I, again, have sort of a bias towards do it differently. So I, I take what I hear and try to figure out, okay, well, what would a Shopify version, uh, look like, and what would be better of this system? And sort of ma- make it different because I felt that it's what you have to do. But then I realized, um, uh, only very late in my career that like I never actually got the real story from everyone about how they work internally. I got everyone's ambition or highlight reel, right? Like, because that's what they really share. That plus the ability to then make edits to try to improve it further like meant that, uh, very often we actually found ourselves doing, uh, the things that we thought someone else invented-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... actually. But they might not never actually have implemented it. Maybe that was just the thing that they just had the most previous meeting over. And so I think that helps a little bit, uh, distance. I mean, additionally, I should say, I think the world fundamentally, uh, Silicon Valley specifically has dec- has now for a decade and a bit, um, declared war on any kind of distinction. All the talk about diversity was very much about eradicating kind of eccentricities and distinction and, you know, just like, like people, people are not allowed to be just quirky or funny with off-color j- uh, humor.
- JAJack Altman
Yeah.
- TLTobi Lütke
Like, so I think, I think the, in the rest of world that is a little bit more intact, and you just kind of like encounter characters, and there's like often the like more appreciation of like, you know, so and so is just like a little bit crazy, and you know what? That's really good. I think that's coming back again-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... a bit, and so that's gonna, I think, help a lot.
- JAJack Altman
Yeah, I mean, there was a big moment there. All tech leaders had to sort of go through the sort of political back and forth and sort of what are we talking about at work, and are we focused on work? Are we focused on other things?
- TLTobi Lütke
Yeah.
- JAJack Altman
That was not easy for anybody, I think.
- TLTobi Lütke
Yeah.
- JAJack Altman
It wasn't easy for employees. It was hard for everybody, I think.
- TLTobi Lütke
It, it was hard because everyone, like literally everyone wanted to do the right thing, and we generally all agreed even on the sort of identified-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... problems, but just not the solutions that were peddled, which is like they, they just, they just caused distraction-
- JAJack Altman
Yep
- TLTobi Lütke
... and, uh, a- also, um, like a, a erosion of this thing. I, I'm, I'm-- A company sh- I think should resemble like an island of misfit toys much more than, um, sort of a convergence on one, um, sort of preordained truth. Um, I think it's, uh, totally worth exploring, um, any alternative, uh, or on, on this idea on the spectrum, and then I think the results will-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... just tell us what works best. I, I, I, I just didn't like when people were saying, "Hey, I, we are deciding for you-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... if, if, if, if you can have distinction in this company." And, uh, that,
- 15:47 – 18:44
Founder-led companies
- TLTobi Lütke
that didn't work for me.
- JAJack Altman
You've gone through another sort of like employee mindset change in the last couple years with AI.
- TLTobi Lütke
Mm-hmm.
- JAJack Altman
From at least what I recall. You were one of the first sort of CEOs to sort of say, "Everybody, we need to like however hard you think you're adapting, like triple it, quadruple it." I'm curious, like that journey, how did, how did that go? Is it still going on? Like, do you have it where it needs to be? Is there an end to-
- TLTobi Lütke
Yeah
- JAJack Altman
... how AI-pilled we should be?
- TLTobi Lütke
I, uh, I, I'm, I'm actually really proud of how Shopify has dealt with this. I think this worked extremely well. I made a, I made a choice. There's a type of, um, situation that you get in running companies and, uh, large of, large, like I think any large group, where something becomes clearly true, um, and then you need to make a decision on like are you-- First of all, are you, do you act on it? [chuckles]
- JAJack Altman
Mm-hmm.
- TLTobi Lütke
And sometimes people are just like already feeling bad, right? Like in fact, very often people fail the figure out what's true part. You know, like-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... I'm sure BlackBerry, uh, thought they were doing really, really-- I think they had their best, uh, year of sales ever when the, the year iPhone was released and, uh-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... thought they were pretty safe. So-
- JAJack Altman
I mean, s- and sometimes it's not that people are just not smart enough to see it. Sometimes they don't wanna believe it or wanna see it.
- TLTobi Lütke
Exactly. But it, it-
- JAJack Altman
They know the implications are-
- TLTobi Lütke
They're not predisposed for it, and they kind of, maybe through no fault of their own, created an organization where like sort of every layer inside of a conversation, um, uh, like just sort of prioritizes kind lies over hard truths. Often because people just m- m- sometimes because there's a culture of everyone being nice to each other.
- JAJack Altman
There's, there's also, um, when you have a big enough organization, you talked about this with sort of like teams, you know, m- make originality difficult. I also think big groups of people, it's hard to get everybody to agree to go through an uncomfortable change.
- TLTobi Lütke
Uh, I think in a way, like people are ov- somewhat overestimating the founders of companies, and then they are really massively underestimating the, what you can do when the founder is still present and in charge. It's not so much about the individual as in about the almost the piece of infrastructure, the slot of having the founder filled, uh, slot filled. And it's not a odd distinction, but it's actually, um, as the founder, you get so much social credit as having started the company. But like you can just invest this-
- JAJack Altman
It's a bank.
- TLTobi Lütke
It's, it's a bank, and it's just like every day someone, ev- some- every time someone, uh, onboards, uh, like they, they hear how the company was created, and that just deposits a little bit of credibility tokens, I suppose, um-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... uh, into a virtual bank account, uh, that, uh, is hard to reason about, but sort of virtually exists. And then I get to cash that in for-
- JAJack Altman
You can spend it on big, important changes
- TLTobi Lütke
... and change management, right? Like it's like that's, uh, one of the best ways. I can, I can speed up something that would take years of small culture change or like internal training, um, with sometimes a memo. And so in, in this case, like I find, um, I take that really seriously. It's like not the easiest thing for, for f- It just like leads to, you know, just like, I mean, more work or-
- JAJack Altman
Mm-hmm
- TLTobi Lütke
... sometimes unpleasantness. I just find that is m-What I owe the company, right? Like it's, it's, uh, like I, it, it's my best way to, to, to help the mission. And so
- 18:44 – 23:52
Shopify’s AI transition
- TLTobi Lütke
when something like the AI thing becomes true and we are saying, "Hey, we have like two people, they're both equally good programmers 15 minutes ago, but one of them like has just been like completely onto the AI train-
- JAJack Altman
Right
- TLTobi Lütke
... and just like has sort of..." Back when I wrote this, it was really hard to actually get real value out of AI.
- JAJack Altman
Mm-hmm.
- TLTobi Lütke
It was more like the premise of AI was important. Like what do we do in performance reviews? And we just, like the moment we said like, it, it's like we can't be... It's, it's impact, right? It, it's called like net impact, uh, reviews, they're called with Shopify. So like what's your net impact on the company and the mission? And so like it's just like very demonstrably true that one of the people was more, of more impact. And the moment that is said, it is, feels like an incredibly unkind to not tell people. So, so just like, "Hey, let's write it out and send it to everyone."
- JAJack Altman
It's like unfair if you're like, "This person has an exoskeleton on-
- TLTobi Lütke
It's really unfair
- JAJack Altman
... and I'm not going to point out, hey, that exoskeleton thing can, can have a faster-"
- TLTobi Lütke
Yeah, if we act on this thing, we should tell people. And so, so, so we did, and like I included a bunch of other, um, uh, things that are true. Like I, I've invested lots in, in making sure that everyone has everything they need. We have an unlimited token, um, uh, uh, policy that I'm sure your brother is thrilled for, with. [chuckles]
- JAJack Altman
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's good.
- TLTobi Lütke
And so, um- [chuckles] And so, um, you know, like we want people to tinker. We want people to play with this. We want people to use it much, and it's super good. It skyrocketed the second this, uh, message came along. The, what, what Shopify did with this, the speed of diffusion of this tool was like remarkable. And I think Shopify's like... I, I, I'd like to think Shopify is like predisposed for this. We have thriving on change is one of our core values, and we really mean it.
- JAJack Altman
It's good that you talked about like, you know, net impact. I think one of the sort of blunter instruments that's getting used a lot right now is just like tracking token consumption, and people are like, "I wanna see token consumption go up 20% a month." You know, there's, I think there's founders that say that, which is, it's not an obvious terrible idea in the same way that, you know, judging people by lines of code, like we could debate-
- TLTobi Lütke
Yeah, yeah
- JAJack Altman
... is there anything to it? Like probably something, but, um-
- TLTobi Lütke
I think it's fine. I mean, at some point we like had a leaderboard and so on, like-
- JAJack Altman
Of token con-
- TLTobi Lütke
Yeah, yeah. And then of course that leads to immediately bad, uh-
- JAJack Altman
Of course. Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... uh, like effects. Um, and, and then, and we don't have that. Uh, like on Void is our internal system, like, uh, it's a intranet.
- JAJack Altman
Mm-hmm.
- TLTobi Lütke
It's probably not a term that anyone's ever heard, but like it's, um, um... So it's our internal wiki and everything. Um, and, um, on your profile, it shows you how m- what your token usage and which percentile you are in your department and group and so on. Just like, because that's interesting. I think-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... like again, also because we are, we are tracking it, we have to be because we have to actually... I mean, at some point we have to allocate finances to OpEx and whatnot.
- JAJack Altman
Yeah.
- TLTobi Lütke
And so, um, just therefore we show it to people so that they know.
- JAJack Altman
This is probably different numbers 'cause you're at such scale, but there are, um, there are private companies whose token spend as a percentage of revenue is going into pretty wild places right now. I kind of think that's fine if you're an earlier stage company and you're just trying to win the market-
- TLTobi Lütke
Yeah
- JAJack Altman
... at all costs. But I am curious how this might play out. I'm sure even you're seeing token spend at numbers that are probably not a huge deal relative to your revenue, but are-
- TLTobi Lütke
It's a huge deal compared to revenue. It's like it's n- it's unbelievable.
- JAJack Altman
It's like many percentage points kind of thing for-
- 23:52 – 26:52
Building with urgency
- TLTobi Lütke
I think the small team is my bet. Um, like it's, it's like the three, four, five people team, uh, which actually is like, funnily enough, has always been Shopify's bias. Th- this is quite gratifying to like, um, um... The, the reason why we had to very often go past it now is because you just need a lot of specialized skills, at least for, for certain moments, uh, on, on the teams. Your example is a great one. Talk to the customers. It's just like having someone who's like actually like does the, you know, customer research and just like talks with people-
- JAJack Altman
Mm-hmm
- TLTobi Lütke
... or like, um, I... What we always did is like relocated people from the support org, um, who are look, looking at... We, we routed them all the tickets and put them on the teams, which was an amazing way to do it. Now, just like the, the sort of agentic harness around our teams is actually routing like really, really good summarizations of what our customers say automatically, basically, uh, back. And so that's now available to everyone, and then everyone can do more skill. Like again, we, everyone is a seven out of 10 on every skill now. So that's like really, really helpful because it allows to make teams smaller. The thing that we are, um-Working the most and thinking the most, um, around at Shopify is that, um, I'm, I'm, I, I'm big on pace. Like, pace has to be induced, otherwise it's, uh, received. Uh, Parkinson's Law is one of my, uh, most recommended books, and I, I have a 1970s, '60s copy of it that I give to every one of my executives.
- JAJack Altman
Mm.
- TLTobi Lütke
I, I own m- m- many of them-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... of the original run because-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... it's, like, so meaningful.
- JAJack Altman
And the law is basically-
- TLTobi Lütke
Um, time, uh, uh, work expands to the time allocated to it. Uh, uh, is, uh, the, the book is 60 pages and full of these kind of wisdoms. This is the most important one.
- JAJack Altman
And so basically one of the most important functions of a leader is to just compress-
- TLTobi Lütke
Yes
- JAJack Altman
... time windows.
- TLTobi Lütke
Yeah. To, to the, uh, to the plausible. It's not that you just give any deadline and anything happens, but, like, if this is why it's really, really helpful to be very technical and understand all the, like, sort of tasks and skills. You can ask for something that has, like, a 50% percentile chance of being the right ship date. Um, then everyone gets to complain about, uh, uh, you know, uh, the crazy founder, which is, like, great. Um, it's like, do, do whatever venting you want.
- JAJack Altman
Mm-hmm.
- TLTobi Lütke
And then you do, uh, uh, very often some of the best work of your, uh, careers. Um, and, and, um, uh, you know, that's why people actually flock to these type of companies because you, you're surrounded by the other people that you can go on such crazy journeys with. The main point here is, like, the, um, I, I, I run the company by the six-week review cycle where, where, where we go for all the projects and spend the time with engineers and pr- uh, uh, champions and PMs. That existed to set a pace, um, uh, uh, like a, a pace ceiling, um, I suppose. Ceiling? Floor? Floor of, um, uh, six, the six-week cycle, which was faster when we instituted it. Because if you don't do it, you are run by a quarter. Um, sometimes you see... Like the mom- like the moment you see in a PowerPoint, first of all, first flag. Second flag is someone uses the word H2 or H1-
- JAJack Altman
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm
- TLTobi Lütke
... which means, you know, first, second half, you're actually fucked. You, you, you, you're, you're, you actually really have to do something.
- JAJack Altman
Yeah, it was on Thursday.
- TLTobi Lütke
That's like... Yeah, yeah, exactly. So as you do this, um, and, uh, now I think actually, uh, a six-week review is actually way too limiting. It's just like we can do so much more, and we are trying to figure out how to... Like, what is replacing this? Um...
- 26:52 – 35:18
AI for small businesses
- JAJack Altman
I want to talk about sort of your customers and what AI means for them. You know, we were talking a little bit earlier about how, like, um, there's a lot of, uh, there's a lot of young people right now who have sort of fears of permanent underclass and how I think basically the idea being like, you're just entering the workforce. You don't have any, like, accumulated skills or, you know, credibility yet, and now you've got, you know, this AI thing, which in some ways is empowering, in some ways seems scary. The net is that there's become this meme of, you know, people are afraid of, you know, ascending through sort of the career and financial heights that they want to. And you sort of talked about how, like, that's not necessarily the experience that your customers are feeling.
- TLTobi Lütke
No, I... And again, um, our customers are wonderful, and they're entrepreneurs. They're courageous people who are putting themselves out there. They build businesses. They create employment. And, and it's like, in one way, it's like a, a, it's clearly like a particular slice of, uh, people who, who would do this, but, like, it's actually much m- bigger than people think, first of all. It's incredibly diverse, right? [chuckles] It's just like, it's like really, um, you, you, you put like, like Shopify's customers go exactly with a population map. It's like great businesses in the most, in the smallest communities. It's like, well, it's, I mean, it's a point of sale stores in, um, the town center of tiny, tiny, nine little townships as well as, uh, you know, uh, uh, Alo Yoga. And, um, so it's, uh, it, it's, it's incredibly different, and it's cosmopolitan. It's big business, billion dollars of business. It's, it's, it's the people who are trying to build a thing in the lunch breaks to make ends meet, um, or actually because they have an ambition that they want to become entrepreneurs. So what's so funny with the way the AI, the conversation is projected, uh, how it's reported and, and sort of what you see on social media and so on is, like, it just doesn't... Like, we can't access it anywhere. Like, in anywhere we, where we look-
- JAJack Altman
You're saying Shopify's-
- TLTobi Lütke
Like it just-
- JAJack Altman
... data and experience doesn't map-
- TLTobi Lütke
We cannot reproduce it
- JAJack Altman
... to this doomer stuff.
- TLTobi Lütke
It, it absolutely doesn't. What we hear from everyone is like, "Hey, you guys fix computers." It's like they, they, they... Like, you techies talked about computers being these incredible things that can do anything and just like-
- JAJack Altman
And it was so complicated
- TLTobi Lütke
... and so, and then we try this, and they, like, I don't know what. You guys just sound unhinged. And now we have, we can talk to it, and it just does the thing, and it's incredible. It's like just works with me. And it's like I've like, like expanded my business, and I've, like, hired all these people now, like, just like... And, and, and so, I mean, it fits into Shopify's vision because we want lots and lots and lots of small companies. M- And, and by the way, 60, 70, 80%, depending on country, of people in the economy work for small businesses.
- JAJack Altman
Right.
- TLTobi Lütke
They're incredibly precious and important.
- JAJack Altman
So what should AI mean? If you're a small business owner, you're starting a new small company, logically, what should the change be as a result of AI from 2023 versus 2029? What's the fundamental change?
- TLTobi Lütke
I think you should sign up for more. Like you should, you should, you, you can follow your ambition, uh, further. I think our customers are... Like, if, if you would poll, like, like a thing, I think they, they believe in a, in a permanent upper class. I think they are just gonna... Like, I think there's, we're gonna get to a point where just many, many, many more people can self-actualize. There's two, two pieces of data that I just find incredibly meaningful. One is, like, every 36 seconds, someone else gets their first sale, which I, I just, I think is j- it just... While we are talking here, think about h- what that means for how many people just became entrepreneurs. The other one is, um, uh, more like an, uh, a higher level observation, but every single time we ship something where we know it meaningfully changes something about the early journey, the, the sign up, the kind of complexities, the questions, the friction in the business, each of them can be best thought of as a hurdle that someone has to jump over. And every single time we manage to make the hurdle slightly less high because we made something just vastly better, we now let you register domains or whatever, or easily transfer them, or in fact, these days have an AI that, like, you t- can share your browser tab, and it helps you set up GoDaddy, right? Um, every single time you do this, more cust- actual business come out of it, which then provide employment and so on. It's people churn out early in process if something happens that-Um, uh, this ends up being a governor on, uh, for them, and then they null out, they give up, and they stop, and then, then typos and stuff mixes. AI is just un-- It never, ever has there been such a thing that it can take people so, uh, be, be so supportive.
- JAJack Altman
It occurs to me that last year I, on this podcast, I asked somebody this question that, you know, they were a fun person to ask, but you're probably like the number one person in the world to ask this to, and it's something that I've been thinking a lot about, which is, what has to be true for us to be in a place where you can s- like prompt, "Build me a business"? Like, how far are we from, "Hey, I made this widget. Please go make me a million dollars. Thanks."
- TLTobi Lütke
[chuckles] I mean, it's my favorite, um, uh, uh, replacement, like i- idea, um, as a replacement for a Turing test, which we, of course, um, uh, sailed past without oddly very little, uh, uh, notice, I think.
- JAJack Altman
It is crazy.
- TLTobi Lütke
I, I, I think, um, acting the, in the, in the real world, starting a business and that, that people find meaningful enough to vote, to v- to vote for to the tune of a million dollars-
- JAJack Altman
Marketing it correctly, getting the right sourcing-
- TLTobi Lütke
It is a wonderful-
- JAJack Altman
... demand-
- TLTobi Lütke
... wonderful test
- JAJack Altman
... knowing what things to prioritize-
- TLTobi Lütke
Exactly
- JAJack Altman
... the shipping matter.
- TLTobi Lütke
I think we are actually getting there. I wanna be into the proviso though, like, like you can obviously use Shopify without having products. We help you find manufacturers if that's what you want. We help you, um, um, there's an entire thing called, um, you know, collective that, uh, uh, where, you know, manufacturers offer their products-
- JAJack Altman
Mm-hmm
- TLTobi Lütke
... which you can then use to in your Shopify store. So if, if your j- if your particular skill set is the marketing, you can come to Shopify and like, like you, you can, you can try your hand on entrepreneurship. And I-- and again, very often, um, I think about half of Shopify stores end up being, uh, created, um, by people who have done an online store or at least a business before. So, um, people are just like, you know, try and build things. People should have a product that the world wants. Um, ideally come up with some, some unique take on something, and there's so much white space out there.
- JAJack Altman
But you think AI could do everything else?
- TLTobi Lütke
I think AI should then do absolutely everything else. In fact, that's actually literally what our pr- what, what our product's ambition is, to be like the m- maybe the vessel for AI, uh, in, uh, being the brain or the exoskeleton around a model, um, to, to basically like conspire to just like do absolutely everything, so that if you show up with a product, you can start a business.
- 35:18 – 41:11
Raising the standard of living
- JAJack Altman
Benchmark, I spend probably three-quarters of my time in software land, but sometimes I do step back, and I think, okay, to actually, like, you know, and this is maybe a little easier for me when I'm, like, not in San Francisco, and I'm, like, touching grass in some other city or something. I'm like, okay, what's actually going to raise the standard of living for everybody in the world? It's things like we need more and better houses. We need better transportation.
- TLTobi Lütke
Exactly.
- JAJack Altman
We need better food.
- TLTobi Lütke
Yes.
- JAJack Altman
We need, like, better healthcare. We need good education. It's like all these things that aren't software, and then sometimes I think about, like, some alien watching us all, and we're just, like, sitting behind our little boxes typing. Everything's going better in typing land, and it's all bopping about in software land, but we do really need it to get into the physical world to like r- 'cause the standard of living, it's all, it is all on some level physical.
- TLTobi Lütke
Absolutely. It completely is, and I think this is actually, uh, uh, the missing ingredient, right? Like, because, I mean, people talk about the, you know, s- looking at the incredible infrastructure we used to build in the '60s, and it's like, well, just even before that, but th-there's the Hoover Dam, like, you know, and this kind of stuff. Lots of individual stories about these infrastructure projects, how quickly we built, uh, um, subways, and now it takes, like, forever, and so on. Like, there is a, a observed degradation of, uh, uh, like a lot of these kind of, uh, projects, and there's, it's, it's multifactorial. There's not one reason behind it. But one of them that really is true is because we are building, um, the modern wonders, um, that are no less impressive, entirely in software, right? The, the web browser, Linux, um, all these kind of things are like, like projects at a scale beyond what the pyramids are, and so-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... um, uh, easily. And, um, uh, with-without compulsion and just by volunteers, uh, sometimes people who have never met each other in the open source world or at companies building these, I mean, like, uh, something like Google or, or, or, or the social networks. It's like these are incredibly-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... incredibly impressive pieces.
- JAJack Altman
Yeah.
- TLTobi Lütke
If they would have physical manifest- manifestations-
- JAJack Altman
They would be the most impressive thing in the world
- TLTobi Lütke
... you, you would, again, you go to something like a, uh, uh, uh, like a, like a, like a refinery or so-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... um, and, and you see the pipes and so on. It's so impressive.
- JAJack Altman
Mm-hmm.
- TLTobi Lütke
It's not even, uh, in basis points territory in terms of complexity compared to a browser.
- JAJack Altman
Compared to, like, a browser.
- TLTobi Lütke
Exactly. And just so we, we don't appreciate that, and so, and, and neither sh-That's not our problem
- JAJack Altman
I don't think I appreciate a browser. Is a browser near the top of complexity?
- TLTobi Lütke
I, I would put it on a-- I, I-- It's one of the wonders of the world. I mean, for so many reasons. Like, it, it could never, ever be introduced today. Like-
- JAJack Altman
Can you give a small flavor? I'm, I'm sure it's hard to even explain why it's so complicated, but what, what can you give a flavor of what makes it such an unbelievable thing?
- TLTobi Lütke
In so many ways, like, we, we just, like, okay, you go to a website. It's like we don't trust that website. We just run code. We, we, we-- But, like, also just, like, it's, like, actually your computer in front of you magically reconfiguring itself into a, someone else's vision for what should be there, and, like, without limits. It's actually, like, you, you download software that then just, like, exists for this one m- one moment to do literally everything.
- JAJack Altman
Yeah.
- TLTobi Lütke
And, like, what-- It's, it is self-responsible. Like, Shopify is a hundred, like, it's, like, over $100 billion market cap company with, um, uh, hosting, uh, like, millions and millions of builds of, of, of business that might otherwise not exist, and all of this just happened because anyone can just put a server online, gets an IP address by, like, automatically-
- JAJack Altman
It's insane
- TLTobi Lütke
... and then just like, it's like-
- JAJack Altman
And, and it all hangs together.
- TLTobi Lütke
It all, it all works.
- 41:11 – 48:14
Predicting the future with AI
- JAJack Altman
How important for you is it as, you know, CEO of Shopify to have an opinion on where AI will be in, like, two years? Like, you know, like, there's one worldview you could probably take, which is like, "This is so unpredictable. I'm gonna take it as it comes. I'm gonna try to know six months ahead, but, like, I'm gonna do what I can do." And then there would be another which is, "No, I'm actually gonna spend a lot of time with the labs, and I'm gonna try to have an understanding of, like, two, three years out and try to care about the farthest out I can see." What, what do you think is the right position?
- TLTobi Lütke
Yeah, I mean, if my friends would listen to this question, they would laugh just because, like, it's my predominant obsession is to, like, try to, um, have as many data points on as many people, which I then can try to match to the right, um, you know, super linear or linear or sublinear curves and just, like, figure out how they all connect and what they, uh, what, what sort of therefore will happen in the future, right? Like, it's basically, I mean, to me, it's the most fun game in the world is, like, have a pretty clear-eyed view of what the future is like.
- JAJack Altman
And what in particular are you trying to figure out?
- TLTobi Lütke
I mean, the AI memo is, like, a good example because, like, I, again, it was probably slightly too early to write it, but now if you read it now, it, like, it says nothing that would be surprising, right? Like, so being able to give my company the gift of, uh, um, like, a, a, a head start is, like, I mean, that's what we are trying to do, right? Like, and, uh, because the moment when, um, I, I, I, I can tell everyone something that is now quite clearly true now about the importance of these systems, and we can rebuild our systems to really, really reinforce this and support everyone in their own tinkering and exploration. That means that, uh, our view of the future is gonna be more accurate in the things we are building because you're always building for a future point. You're, you, you-- Like, software is getting faster to build, but you still have to aim at a future point of value. It's not our customers' job to tell us what they need. Um, it's, it's our customers' job to tell us what the problems are that they're experiencing, and we fall in love with those problems or, like, adopt those problems as our own and just solve them in an ideal way. But, but that's our job to figure out what the ideal, uh, way is. That comes into contact with the customers, and they give us further feedback for refinement. But it's, uh, in my mind, it's a complete abdication to just build what your customers are asking for.
- JAJack Altman
Mm-hmm.
- TLTobi Lütke
Um, uh, it's an abdication of product responsibility. And so, um, uh, so it's, it's, it's hugely important and, and, and it's, it's kind of like almost everything, every decision I make, I try to make on, um, an understanding of, like, I try to live in everyone else's relative future. So, so this is, uh, I, I do a lot of it. Interesting. While it's incredibly, um-Uh, fun and helpful to talk with the labs and sometimes, like, there's some, uh, really important information that you can get from this. What I found, and we sort of k- uh, touched on it earlier, is my-- one of my favorite things, especially for, you know, product teams and so on and then engineering, is to hire people who actually know Shopify really well from outside. People who were merchants, um, uh, are some of my best product managers because they actually understand what the software feel like, feels like when it's being used. And, um, uh, you know, and same with, uh, people who built, uh, apps on the Shopify platform to help come to Shopify and then help make the app platform better.
- JAJack Altman
Mm-hmm.
- TLTobi Lütke
It's like, it's like I actually don't even think being in a lab is actually the best position. It's actually being, like, using everything and paying a lot of attention of how everyone else uses what the sort of gifts that the labs release, and then being in the sort of conversation which usually happens on X of, on, uh, what everyone's figuring out, maybe actually building something and seeing everyone finds it useful. It's like, I think this sort of learning by doing is just the-- that's actually how to get the most clear view of how everything works.
- JAJack Altman
Does that give you a clear view on the present, or does it also give you a clear view on what's coming in a year or two?
- TLTobi Lütke
If you do it over whi- a while, you get-
- JAJack Altman
You see a trajectory
- TLTobi Lütke
... you get trajectories.
- JAJack Altman
Yeah.
- TLTobi Lütke
And the trajectories are the point. If you are exactly on the state-of-art meta of the best thought on stuff, um, and you have, um, other data points, it's just the future gets very simple to im-- uh, to predict. Now, it's the hardest time ever to do it because, like, right now the time horizons are so short. I did this very same thing throughout my entire life, um, and, um, uh, it used, it used to be that the future was absolutely trivial to predict.
- JAJack Altman
Mm-hmm.
- TLTobi Lütke
It's like you just, like, I mean, you just looked at-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... like the first couple numbers on, on, on mobile browser usage, and you just knew what's happening on the cell phone and that we needed to make mobile websites.
- JAJack Altman
Yeah.
- TLTobi Lütke
Which just sounds insane now, but like, yeah, it, that was at some point people didn't believe that.
- JAJack Altman
Mm-hmm.
- TLTobi Lütke
Right? So yeah.
- JAJack Altman
Yeah. Are there parts of AI right now that you think are under-hyped in terms of capabilities, and are there parts that you think are over-hyped?
- TLTobi Lütke
So obviously the labs really care about programming because that's the problem they need to solve for themselves. And again, it's always easier to build, um, uh, and then for various reasons. So like the, like Opus is unbelievably good at programming, and right now it's easy to go from that and then just, like, assume it's equally competent in everything else. Uh, and quite often it isn't. If you wanna discuss, like, how to do like a, like a, like a public talk or something, it just doesn't have great, like, theoretical rooting of this and why-- I mean, it, it, it knows about all the different sort of ways to construct tension and so on, but like it's, it's, it's not able to then look at something and make it meaningfully better, where like even a incredibly well-optimized piece of code, it often finds like a-abilities to go and, uh, do better. What is happening a lot is that they're bringing more types of problems in the domain of programming, which is really what OpenClaus, if you really think about it. It's like make it a file system, give it-
- JAJack Altman
Mm-hmm
- TLTobi Lütke
... like tools like a programmer uses and make a couple of file, like, uh, in the files just tell it the soul and the memory and so on. And, um, then it uses the normal programming tools to in, in- to interrogate this. And because it stays a little bit in domain programming, it now actually is remarkably better-
- JAJack Altman
Mm
- TLTobi Lütke
... at this other out of domain, uh, thing, which is really, really funny. I, um, think we should assume though that, uh, we are going through the entire, uh, uh, uh, you know, radio chart of, uh, things that are, uh, uh, valuable and bring them to the same point of, uh, we've honed programming. So I think there's a bit of over-hype in like, um, having to work so hard on bringing things in, in programming domain.
- JAJack Altman
Yeah.
- TLTobi Lütke
Because, like, all of this is just gonna get much, much, uh-
- 48:14 – 55:34
Changing perception on talent
- JAJack Altman
point of talent, have you changed anything about the types of people you're looking for, like pre, post-AI? Are the same people who were successful before, are those still the same most successful people, or is there any attribute that you are scanning for in a different weighting than you used to?
- TLTobi Lütke
It's fascinating. So this is actually really changing all, all the time, and actually I've had to change my mind a couple of times. The, I think the best distinction point is, um, you know, Shopify is twenty years old. I think average age of Shopify is somewhere like late e- thirties, which is I think still pretty good. But like, I mean, at, like this is one thing you have to look out for, like as a company. If you, like there's some companies which just age themselves twelve months every year and, um, uh, bec- for various reasons. And, you know, that's, that's probably a problem at some point when a lot of new things happen. So like, just like massively restarting the internship program has been really helpful, right?
- JAJack Altman
Right.
- TLTobi Lütke
Like just like, um, uh, yeah, we take a thousand interns a year from, you know, we're close to Waterloo and work with Waterloo, so it's great. And, um, just, um, making sure that the interns are not just the students now, but also the teachers. Because like, again, they are just like so AI native that it was really, really helpful. It's also interesting because, um, initially I, I, I had the thought that, you know, there's like fluid intelligen- intelligence and-
- JAJack Altman
Mm-hmm
- TLTobi Lütke
... crystallized intelligence, basically knowledge and curio- curiosity driven willingness to learn. Um, and often early in career you have more fluid, you have no knowledge, therefore you have all, you, you're all fluid. Um, and, uh-Then AI was sort of super new. There was sort of the first people who just flocked to it, right? Like, and immediately got value out of it, and that was super, super exciting. I've had the thought that maybe that really tilts into their direction. But then as we started, like the more of a system sort of got firmed with, uh, uh, around recording harnesses, cloud code, Pi, and all these kind of things, it really, programming is so much not the type of typing... Uh, like typing, uh, task of typing. It's really understanding the problem deeply. And, um, I think every programmer in the world massively underestimates how much they're doing when steering an AI right now.
- JAJack Altman
Yeah, yeah.
- TLTobi Lütke
Um, and how much that was really them being creative and actually just like, uh, like it's uniquely theirs what they're coming up with. They're like, just like having seen the movie before. Like, it... You, you can sort of spot the AI just going the wrong path, and you just like one, two words can completely, like, just change everything. That's a very, very long answer to say, I kind of don't know, but I actually just think good people are good.
- JAJack Altman
Mm-hmm.
- TLTobi Lütke
Like, it's like [chuckles] there's a bit of variance how quickly people adopted the tools, but once they did, it's like everyone just like, yeah, falls back onto there, ever.
- JAJack Altman
I guess the, so the, that, I guess that's the sort of like, what do you like side of the question. I guess to, to flip it to what are candidates like, have you felt any change in competing for talent in this market? And, you know, may- maybe it's, you know, you've got a lot of variables at play here that, you know, you're public. You know, many of your sort of competing for talent companies are probably private. You're, you know, in Canada, not in Silicon Valley. You know, there's all these different factors. But I'm curious, how does the sort of like, um, AI wave change sort of what you do to sort of attract and retain the very best people?
- TLTobi Lütke
Yeah. I mean, I think the best way to deal with, um, recruiting is to build a company worth working for for the best, right? Like, so I think, um, I think people are like thinking about it too much as selling and not enough as marketing-
- JAJack Altman
Right
- TLTobi Lütke
... um, in a, in a way, or at least even just like information. Um-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah.
- TLTobi Lütke
Um-
- JAJack Altman
It's like, how do I look, how do I look super healthy? Like, well, you could like, you know, you could use this, you could turn this angle, you could do... It's like, well, you can also just try to be healthier.
- TLTobi Lütke
Mm-hmm. Exactly. So sometimes it's just like things are just simpler sometimes than they seem.
- JAJack Altman
So what goes into that then?
- TLTobi Lütke
Yeah.
- JAJack Altman
I mean, obviously there's like, you know, being a good business, but-
- TLTobi Lütke
Yeah, just don't, don't mire people in bureaucracy. Don't... Like, l- give people the space that, uh, like to, to, to be, be creative and, uh, have them, like, allow them to, you know, fall in love with the mission actually, and like under- like have them understand what problems people care about and what impact, um, the work has. I think, uh, Shopify has a lot of intrinsic advantages here, but like, I mean, the best way to attract talent is make it so that when people, uh, sort of try on the idea of maybe coming to Shopify, that, you know, they, um, come by, they, they, they meet everyone they will work with and also really, really impress people that they will work with to- together.
- JAJack Altman
As a CEO of a public company for I think over 10 years, how do you feel about companies being private for so long? Like, obviously it's like more possible than ever.
- TLTobi Lütke
Yeah.
- JAJack Altman
Like, venture markets are a lot bigger than they were back when you were going public.
- TLTobi Lütke
Mm-hmm.
- JAJack Altman
Um, but I don't know. Like, what do you think?
- TLTobi Lütke
I f- I, I find it a little bit sad from a perspective of s- like I, I totally understand why the individual companies do it. I just find it like, man, I'm so glad that so many people end up like-
- JAJack Altman
Buying Shopify stock-
- TLTobi Lütke
... buying Shopify early
- 55:34 – 58:01
Reading and curiosity
- JAJack Altman
Makes sense. And my last question is, I know you have at least been a big reader. Do you still have time to read a lot?
- TLTobi Lütke
Yeah. Yeah.
- JAJack Altman
You got any books I should read?
- TLTobi Lütke
[chuckles] There's so many books I love. I mean, obviously likeI, I, I'm, I'm, I'm a huge fan of, uh, sort of short, incredible books like Parkinson's Law and Lessons of History. Um, um, it's just like when people distill, like, all of their knowledge into, like, under 100 pages, then I think, um, that's great. Recently read a really good book on, uh, it's called, um, What Is Intelligence? It re-explains basically all of biology from a perspective of how important prediction is and how it properly emerged just in a sequence. I'm like-
- JAJack Altman
Mm-hmm
- TLTobi Lütke
... this is, like, felt accidentally profound in a way that, like, I don't quite know if that was b- b- because it felt obvious part was just to support an argument later that wasn't actually that important to make-
- JAJack Altman
Mm-hmm
- TLTobi Lütke
... I think. So that was kind of interesting.
- JAJack Altman
I think others have felt this too, but I struggle, I've been struggling more to read. Partially it's a stage of life thing, but partially I think, like, the internet is making my brain loops-
- TLTobi Lütke
Yeah
- JAJack Altman
... too short, and partially I think I am in a head space where I want every minute to be productive, and so it's hard for me to read a book for joy, and I need to figure out how to get through that. But you seem to have figured out how to-
- TLTobi Lütke
It, it's, it's, it's a, it's a job of a author to make you keep reading, right? Like, this is important, like, mental switch, right? Like, if, if, if you read a book and it just, like, doesn't capture you, it's like it's, that's not because you're broken, it's because the author didn't manage to do the thing that they want- set out to do, right? Like, I sort of have a advantage, disadvantage. I have, I have probably advantage at this point. Um, like, of, uh, being out of, uh, uh, um, cycle with my, uh, wife who also is a light sleeper. So, like-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... I just, like, go to bed when she wants, which is, like, way too early.
- JAJack Altman
Yeah.
- TLTobi Lütke
Usually like at 10:00 or whatever, something crazy.
- JAJack Altman
Yeah.
- TLTobi Lütke
I'm, like, a night owl, so.
- JAJack Altman
Yeah.
- TLTobi Lütke
I, I don't need a lot of sleep, luckily. So-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... I, uh, I, uh, just have, like, hours of reading time, and that's, like, you know, the Kindle is not that bright, doesn't wake her up-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... and therefore I'm, have a couple hours of reading time.
- JAJack Altman
And you're not doom scrolling on Twitter like the rest of us, you're-
- TLTobi Lütke
Yeah, yeah. It's, it's important to, like, uh, using, like this, I, I really, really am a huge fan of a Kindle just because, not because it's great, but because it isn't, right? Because it's like, it's such a limited but actually single purpose device.
- JAJack Altman
Yeah.
- TLTobi Lütke
So yeah, like I find that-
- JAJack Altman
Yeah
- TLTobi Lütke
... I find that wonderful. I just, I just, I find books just to be so remarkable and-
Episode duration: 58:01
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