20VC: Shopify Founder Tobi Lütke on Why Micromanagement is Good | Why You Will Learn More From Studying World of Warcraft Guilds Than You Will Companies | Why Happiness is BS; Lessons on Marriage, Fatherhood & Decision-Making Quality

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The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 3 April 2023

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tobi Lütke is the CEO and Co-Founder of Shopify, the powerhouse company allowing anyone to start and grow their e-commerce business. Over an incredible 18 years, Tobi has scaled Shopify to 10% of total US e-commerce, millions of merchants in over 170 countries, and a market cap today of over $60BN. Huge thanks to Harley Finkelstein for making this happen.

In Today's Episode with Tobi Lütke We Discuss:

1. From a Small German Town to One of the World's Most Powerful CEOs:

What did Tobi want to be when he was growing up?
Who did Tobi learn most from in his younger years? How does Tobi think about the importance of mentorship in learning?
What does Tobi know now that he wishes he had known when he started Shopify?

2. You Can Learn More from World of Warcraft Than You Can Companies:

Why does Tobi believe you can learn more from World of Warcraft than you can from studying companies?
Why does Tobi believe that humans are terrible at company building? What are the most obvious ways we can improve the quality of the companies we build?
Why does Tobi believe that in-person is far superior to remote working? What are the nuances?

3. The Best Companies Operate with Many Constraints:

Why does Tobi believe in all cases, constraints produce creativity?
What is the difference between an enforced constraint and an artificial constraint?
How can leaders create and enforce artificial constraints when they are not real?
How do the best leaders use constraints to ensure their companies move faster and faster?

4. Inside the Mind of Tobi Lütke: Decision-Making & Prioritisation:

How does Tobi reflect on his own decision-making process? How has it changed?
Why does Tobi believe that sunk cost fallacy is BS and only leads to your outsourcing approval to someone else?
Why does Tobi hate "black boxes"? How does he remove them from the org entirely?
How does Tobi decide what to learn? What is his learning process once he has made this decision?
How does Tobi decide what to prioritise in terms of strategic initiatives for Shopify?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I think you can learn more by studying World of Warcraft rating guilds than you can learn from studying
0:05.8	companies about coordination and what great looks like. There's probably no singular idea that
0:11.1	has destroyed more business value I'm proud of than the idea that micromanagement is a bad thing.
0:16.8	This is 20 VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and this show is the definition of persistence.
0:27.2	I have to say, I sent my first email to Toby asking him to come on the show on the 17th of May 2020.
0:30.3	It took about three years, but wow, this show is incredible.
0:35.7	I also heard him on every other podcast. He's done and made sure that we didn't cover any of the same content.
0:40.3	And so with that, I'm thrilled to welcome Toby Lutka, co-founder and CEO at Shopify, the global leader allowing anyone to start and grow their e-commerce.
0:44.3	Over an incredible 18 years, Toby has scaled Shopify to 10% of total US e-commerce,
0:50.3	millions of merchants in over 170 countries, and a market cap today of over $60 billion.
0:56.4	But before we dive into the show today, Secureframe is the leading all-in-one platform for automated security and privacy compliance.
1:03.4	Secureframe simplifies and streamlines the process of getting and staying compliant to the most rigorous global privacy and security standards, like SOC2,
1:12.6	ISO-271, HIPAA, GDPR and others. Secureframe's industry-leading compliance automation platform,
1:19.6	paired with their in-house compliance experts and former auditors, helps you get audit ready in weeks, not months,
1:26.6	so you can close more deals faster.
1:29.3	Secureframe makes it fast and easy to achieve and maintain compliance so you can focus on serving your customers and growing revenues.
1:37.3	Automate your security and privacy compliance with Secureframe.
1:41.3	Schedule a demo today at Secureframe.com. So if compliance is one thing you
1:46.0	always have to prioritize, you also always have to prioritize your team and work? Well, it's truly
1:51.1	global today and until now there's been no HR platform that's been able to handle everything
1:56.5	for everyone, no matter where they are in the world. Well, Deal does exactly that.
2:03.3	It handles all things for global teams.
	...

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