
Profile of Tobi Lütke - ohaikbai
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-magazine/meet-our-ceo-of-the-year/article21734931
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sivers
Tobi is the one that taught me Rails back in 2004 when it first came out.

He told me he was working on some new thing called Shopify, but I didn't
believe in it.

Later he asked if I could introduce him to Tim Ferriss, and I had to politely
decline, because I didn't think Tim would be into it.

Now Tim is an investor in Shopify, which is a huge success, and I'm so happy
to be so wrong, as usual. ☺

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OoTheNigerian
Any reason why you did not ask Tim first before declining? My assumption is
that you had a fairly good relationship with Tim which was why you were asked.

I'm trying to understand the thinking when people refuse to do "harmless
intros".

~~~
sivers
I've learned my lesson since then, and will do in the future.

I think it was just protecting my friend's time, and not bringing him anything
that I didn't feel 100% "hell yeah this is totally your thing".

I'd like an introduction from me to be seen as a real endorsement.

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shanev
Tobi is how I got into Rails back in 2004. I was looking for a blogging engine
and discovered his Typo project. I taught myself Rails to add some features to
Typo that I needed. His code and blog were some of the first resources for
Rails besides the 37signals blog. It's amazing to see how much success some of
the early Rails adopters achieved.

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pc
Well-deserved. Tobi is one of the most impressive CEOs I've ever interacted
with.

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cageface
Two years ago he said this about golang:

 _I have now completed two projects in Go. I predict that it 's going to be
the dominant language for server work._

I'm very curious if he still feels that way. My impression is that it's
growing but that the growth is more in its own niche than it is displacing
things like Django or Rails.

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lectrick
I am guessing there are more Rails people curious about Elixir than Go at this
point

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guiomie
"Lütke never went to university. Instead, after Grade 10, he entered an
innovative apprenticeship program designed to produce Germany’s next
generation of computer programmers." ... I've heard about this system in
Germany once too often, I wished we would have this in Canada.

I'm glad to hear he decided to keep his German accent. Having a French accent
and working in English in Ottawa, I always wonder if I should work harder on
getting rid of it, as opposed to focus on less shallow problems such as coding
:P

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skrebbel
Completely off topic, I like how they call him Canadian. If he had moved to
the Netherlands instead, people would still call him German, no matter how
long ago he moved over. I'm really envious of this part of North American
culture.

~~~
wvanbergen
As a Dutch immigrant to Canada and a Shopify employee, I can assure you that
the Germany-Netherlands rivalry is alive and well at this side of the ocean :)

All kidding aside, I cannot upvote this enough. The difference in how
immigrated is treated is vast between Canada and the Netherlands. Yes, people
complain about it here too, but success stories like this and a history of
immigration makes sure the general opinion on immigration is favourable.

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ojbyrne
I found the imprecision of this sentence kind of funny, just makes me think of
weed:

"Lütke enjoyed selling—as a boy in school, he’d made some money buying items
in bulk and selling them at a mark-up to other school kids."

~~~
xal
Never anything like that. I usually capitalized on whatever fads were around.
I went to middle school in the early 90s so it was things like those MagicEye
books. I'd buy a box of them from the publisher and sell them for retail price
at ( back then ) 200% markup.

~~~
girvo
Hey I used to do the same thing! Yo-yo's were a fad when I was in primary
school, so I'd buy the from the flea market and sell them at a mark-up at
school. Also, bulk lollies -- absolutely brilliant for making change at
school. When we had a "paper hornet" war, I sold prepackaged "ammo" kits!

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troymc
If you're curious about the biggest tech companies in Canada, then one source
is the annual Branham300 list:

[http://www.branham300.com/index.php?year=2014&listing=1](http://www.branham300.com/index.php?year=2014&listing=1)

You can drill down into various categories (e.g. "Top 25 Canadian Software
Companies") by clicking links in the left sidebar.

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herge
Probably the most exciting computer technology company in Canada ever since
Blackberry's heyday in the mid 00's.

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albumedia
Nice to see a Canadian publication and startup here.

