Honestly, if you looked at the e-commerce landscape twenty years ago, nobody would have bet their life savings on a German snowboarder living in Ottawa. But here we are in 2026, and Tobi Lütke has turned Shopify into a literal titan that powers over 10% of all U.S. retail. It's wild. People often compare it to Amazon, but that’s a massive misunderstanding of what’s actually happening under the hood.
Amazon wants to be the store. Shopify wants to be the engine that lets you be the store.
Lütke didn't set out to build a multi-billion dollar platform. He just wanted to sell snowboards. Back in 2004, he tried to launch an online shop called Snowdevil, but the software available at the time was, frankly, garbage. It was clunky, expensive, and felt like it was built for the 90s. So, being a programmer who started rewriting video game code at age 12, he did what any obsessed engineer would do: he built his own.
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The Snowdevil Pivot and the "Trust Battery"
The transition from selling snowboards to selling software wasn't some grand master plan. It was basically a response to people asking, "Hey, how is your site so much better than mine?" By 2006, Snowdevil was dead, and Shopify was born.
Lütke’s leadership style is... different. He’s a high school dropout with ADHD and dyslexia who views the world through the lens of systems design and video games. He talks about the "Trust Battery," a concept that has become legendary in business circles.
The idea is simple: when you first meet someone, the battery is at 50%. Every time you deliver on a promise, it charges. Every time you mess up or ghost a meeting, it drains. You can’t have a difficult conversation with someone if their trust battery is at 5%. This isn't corporate fluff; it's how they actually run the company. It’s about creating a "high-trust" environment where things move fast because you aren't wasting time second-guessing everyone's motives.
Why he still codes in 2026
You don't see many CEOs of $100B+ companies still pushing code, but Lütke does. He’s obsessed with the "craft." To him, Shopify isn't just a business; it's a piece of engineering. He’s often said that "stagnation is slow-motion failure." If you aren't climbing, you're sliding. This mindset is why he forced a massive cultural shift recently, mandating that every single employee must be "AI-first."
The 2026 AI Mandate: No AI, No New Hires
As of late 2025 and into 2026, Shopify has hit a new phase. Lütke released a memo (that he eventually posted on X because he knew it would leak) stating that using AI is now a "fundamental expectation." It's pretty hardcore.
If a manager at Shopify wants to hire a new person, they first have to prove that an AI agent couldn't do the job instead. They’re using tools like GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and Claude Code as standard equipment. Lütke’s logic is that the "Red Queen race"—a reference to Alice in Wonderland—is real: you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in the same place. In a world where AI is universal, Shopify has to be the "best canvas" for the businesses of the future.
- The Goal: 100x productivity.
- The Rule: AI must dominate the prototype phase of every project.
- The Consequence: If you don't learn to prompt and load context, you're "sliding."
Shopify vs. Amazon: The Invisible War
Most people think of these two as direct competitors. They sort of are, but their philosophies are polar opposites. Amazon is a "centralized" power. They own the customer, the data, and the brand. If you sell on Amazon, you’re basically a tenant.
Shopify is the "decentralized" alternative.
They provide the tools—payments, shipping, storefronts, and now AI-driven marketing—but the merchant owns the relationship with the customer. This is why brands like Tesla, Gymshark, and Heinz use Shopify. They don't want to be just another row in an Amazon search result. They want to own their "vibe."
By 2026, Shopify’s market share in the U.S. has solidified around 29-30% of all e-commerce websites. That is a staggering number. In the UK, it’s about 23%. They aren't just for "mom and pop" shops anymore. Shopify Plus, their enterprise version, is now powering nearly 30% of the top 1 million e-commerce sites globally.
The "100-Year Company" Philosophy
Lütke isn't looking for an exit. He’s talked repeatedly about building a company that lasts 100 years. This influences everything from their sustainability fund—where they intentionally overpay for carbon sequestration to kickstart the market—to how they handle their stock.
He treats the company like a "product" that needs to be constantly debugged. For instance, he famously "deleted" all recurring meetings with more than two people a couple of years back. He called it a "subtraction" phase. He hates the "corporate bloat" that kills innovation.
Breaking down the 2026 Numbers
To understand the scale, look at the Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV). In 2024, they processed nearly $300 billion. By now, in early 2026, that number is pushing even higher as B2B e-commerce explodes. The B2B market is projected to hit $36 trillion globally this year, and Shopify has pivoted hard to grab a slice of that wholesale pie.
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What Most People Get Wrong About Tobi
There’s this myth that he’s just a "tech guy" who got lucky with a platform.
In reality, he’s a student of human potential. He views video games like Factorio or StarCraft as legitimate training for business because they teach you about resource allocation and systems under pressure. He’s even said that he learned more about leadership from gaming than from any business book.
He’s also surprisingly transparent about his own failures. He’s admitted to being the "bottleneck" of the company at various points and has worked to "fire himself" from roles he wasn't good at. That kind of self-awareness is rare at the CEO level.
Real-world impact
Take a look at any small brand you see on Instagram. Chances are, they’re running on Shopify. They’re using Shopify Payments (which handles about 46% of all transactions on the platform) and the Shop App, which now has over 100 million users.
It’s an ecosystem.
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When you buy a pair of shoes from a boutique in Berlin, and the tracking comes through the Shop app, and the checkout is a one-click "Shop Pay" experience—that’s the invisible hand of Lütke’s engineering.
Actionable Insights for Entrepreneurs
If you're looking at the "Shopify way" of doing things, here is how you can actually apply it to your own work or business:
- Audit your "Trust Battery": Look at your key relationships. Is the battery low? If so, stop trying to "win" arguments and start delivering on small promises to recharge it.
- The Rule of Subtraction: Once a year, look at your processes. What can you delete? Complexity is the silent killer of growth.
- Adopt "Reflexive AI Usage": Don't just use AI when you're stuck. Use it to build the first 80% of everything. If you aren't using AI to prototype, you're working 10x slower than your competition.
- First-Principles Thinking: When faced with a problem, don't ask "How do others do this?" Ask "What are the fundamental truths here, and how can I build a solution from scratch?"
- Focus on the Craft: Whatever you do—whether it’s coding, writing, or selling—treat it as a vocation. The goal is to be better this year than you were last year.
Shopify's success isn't just about code; it's about a relentless, almost obsessive focus on making entrepreneurship easier. Tobi Lütke basically built the tool he wished he had, and in doing so, he gave millions of people a "superpower" they didn't know they could possess.
To stay ahead in this landscape, focus on your "vocation" and don't be afraid to blow up your existing systems if they're holding you back. The "Red Queen" isn't stopping, and neither should you.