How Shopify Accidentally Became Canada’s $150 Billion Empire

In 2004, a young German programmer in a freezing Ottawa apartment got so frustrated with his online snowboard shop that he built his own store software from scratch. That snowboard shop never became famous, but the software did. Today Shopify powers millions of online stores, handles hundreds of billions of dollars in sales every year, and is one of the most valuable companies in Canada, while most shoppers have never noticed it. This is the story of Tobi Lütke and Shopify: arming the rebels against Amazon, the App Store and Shopify Payments, Gymshark and Kylie Cosmetics, overtaking the Royal Bank of Canada in 2020, the painful pandemic hangover, the billion-dollar "side quest" into shipping, and an all-in bet on AI. In this video: 0:00 A furious programmer in Ottawa 1:00 A kid from West Germany 1:35 Moving to Canada for love 2:02 Snowdevil: the snowboard shop 2:25 The software that went wrong 2:54 Shopify is born 3:54 Arming the rebels against Amazon 4:30 The App Store 4:47 Shopify Payments: a toll road for online shopping 5:36 Gymshark, MVMT, Bombas and Kylie Cosmetics 6:42 2020: Canada's most valuable company 7:19 The big pandemic bet 8:29 The shipping "side quest" 9:42 Going all in on AI 10:11 Not your typical CEO 10:45 Racing with the creator of Ruby on Rails 11:39 The most Canadian accident ever Is Shopify the hero keeping Amazon in check, or is it becoming too powerful itself? Let me know in the comments. Subscribe to High Street Business for more stories about the Canadian companies you use every day: how they won, how they lost, and what happened in between.