Tobi Lütke on Living in Everyone Else’s Future: Inside the Mind of Shopify’s CEO

“You don’t even need to predict the future that well — if you just live in everyone else’s relative future, you're ahead.”

— Tobi Lütke, CEO of Shopify

In a recent appearance on ACQ2, Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke offered a masterclass in how founders should think about technology, leadership, and the future. What started as a conversation about Shopify’s evolution quickly became a deep philosophical exploration — one that every entrepreneur can learn from.

Lütke, who has led Shopify from a snowboard store experiment to a $200B e-commerce infrastructure giant, isn’t just playing defense. He’s actively rethinking what it means to build tools, lead teams, and navigate a world being reshaped by artificial intelligence.

✅ Don’t Predict the Future — Live There

Lütke’s strategy is simple, but powerful: constantly operate one step ahead of where your users — or even your competitors — currently are.

He admits to being addicted to beta software. Whether it's Apple's bleeding-edge iOS or generative AI models, Lütke insists that “updating to beta” is more than just curiosity. It’s a cultural discipline. It’s how he trains his product sense and coaches Shopify’s teams to design not for today’s interfaces — but for the future’s.

“Design for the device as it will be experienced by people in the future.”

This isn’t theoretical futurism. It’s grounded in operational reality. Shopify’s now-iconic Sidekick AI assistant and its real-time product image transformation tools were both born from this mindset.

One customer, selling luxury rugs, was about to pull out of the European market — until they used Shopify’s image generation tools to localize product visuals from Malibu beach houses to Parisian apartments. Sales turned around without needing a reshoot.

That future? It was already here. They just lived in it a little earlier.

🛠 Build Tools That Don’t Lower the Ceiling

Lütke has a clear framework for evaluating software: does it raise the floor while also allowing you to reach a high ceiling?

Too many platforms, he argues, lock users into lossy abstractions — making things “just good enough” but capping their potential.

“Most tools raise the floor but lower the ceiling. Great tools raise the floor without constraining the ceiling.”

It’s a subtle but powerful distinction. Early abstraction decisions, like building with Xamarin or PhoneGap, can create an invisible ceiling founders can't break through, no matter how talented the team.

The role of tool-makers — whether you’re building software, infrastructure, or a course — is to make it easier to reach “7 out of 10” performance without making “10 out of 10” impossible.

🤖 AI Isn’t the Future — It’s the New Floor

Few CEOs are leaning into AI as aggressively — or thoughtfully — as Lütke.

At Shopify, he’s implemented an internal mandate: everyone must reach for AI tools first. Not because it replaces creativity, but because it increases surface area for discovery.

He’s even built a personal suite of “Tobi Evals” — a folder of prompts and model responses — which he runs against every new foundation model to test its capability boundaries. This hands-on approach isn’t just play. It’s leadership by experimentation.

But the biggest insight?

“We don’t care about chess — we care about humans playing chess.”

Even as AI becomes ubiquitous, Lütke sees a future where it doesn't replace human work, but amplifies it. Just like calculators didn’t make math irrelevant — they made it more accessible. The job of the modern entrepreneur is to learn how to play the new instrument.

🧠 The Founder’s Real Job: Transmit Awe

For Lütke, running a company like Shopify isn’t just operational — it’s spiritual.

He speaks about this moment in history as a golden age — a moment people 1,000 years from now will study in the same way we study the Roman Republic. And founders? They’re not just builders — they’re stewards of that transition.

“Find a task you care about inside the change. That’s the best position anyone can take.”

Whether it’s leading your team, building a product, or helping others adopt new tools, Lütke’s advice is simple: be the bridge between what’s coming and the people who aren’t there yet.

That’s how you create enduring companies. That’s how you earn your place in the future.

✨ Wantrepreneur Takeaways

• Adopt the tools of tomorrow today. Use betas, test AI models, and don’t wait for the market to validate your instincts.
• Build abstractions that empower, not constrain. Raise the floor, but never lower the ceiling.
• Embrace AI — not as magic, but as leverage. Start with it, learn from it, and embed it in your creative process.
• Stay problem-focused, not solution-attached. Fall in love with the journey of solving, not the way you’ve always done it.
• Transmit awe. If you understand how powerful this era is — your job is to help others see it too.