Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke: Remote Work vs In-Person; The Benefit of Setting Constraints | E997

I think happiness is a temporary thing, but it's a terrible goal. Like in fact, it's, it's, it's a goal that's sold to people to keep them miserable. What you want is contentment, which is very different. If people would start making this differentiation, what we will figure out is, like, vastly more people currently live in a state of contentment than, uh, uh, uh, at many other pla- times in history. Now, the thing that can mess with contentment is, uh, we are comparators. Like, no one wants the worst house on the street, so, um, and we just... The street, it became the entire world because of, you know, social media.

(instrumental music) Tobi, I'm so excited for this. I had so many great things from Glenn, from Luke, from Jeremy at Besima, from so many others. So thank you so much for joining me today.

Oh, it's an absolute pleasure. I was looking forward to this.

Now, I thought (laughs) we'd start with something a little bit off the bat, to be honest, (laughs) Tobi.

(laughs) .

And so I thought we'd start with, think back to when you were a child. What did you wanna be when you grew up?

(laughs) Hey, so I got lucky. I got really, really, really lucky. My parents got a, got a computer for me when I was... uh, for the house, um, when I was six years old. Um, and it was like a, like a basic computer, like a sort of... if you think C64, then you sort of get the right idea. It's a German product, uh, called an Amstrad. Um, and, um, I knew that there was noth- nothing else, like, that would be more interesting than... Like, I, I, I, I, um, I, I learned programming before I knew that was a thing or term or that re- it was called some f- uh, programming, uh, just from, uh, you know, following listings on magazines and so on. So I, uh, I very, very, very early made for this... you know, I must, I must have been like 12 years old or so, but, you know, there's just no chance I'm gonna do anything other than program all day. Now, I failed (laughs) .

(laughs)

But in this particular, uh, frame of reference, um, uh, it, it was only a, uh, a period of my life where I did that all day long. Um, but I never stopped programming. I, I, I, I... so it's, it's been with me ever since.

Can I ask, what captivated you so much? You mentioned six when you got your first computer. What was it about it that made you so interested?

Oh, man. I, I just like... I, I, I know this sounds so wrong now, but like even just, you know, first time sitting in front of it and just typing, um, like any letter and seeing it appear on a screen was just magic. Um, and, um, remember, that was like... I mean, so you ty- before that that was... uh, even this was '80, mid, early '80s, so mid '80s, um, and, um, you know, typewriters were around.