Tobi Lütke

Well, the best reason, wonderful Canadian woman.

My wonderful wife is Canadian, and we were living in Germany, and we were really young.

She went back to study, do a master's degree in Ottawa, Canada.

I moved with her.

Nice.

You know, I grew up in Germany.

I'm a computer guy.

This is probably a surprise to little or no one.

I spent my teenage years more in dark rooms exploring what computers can do than in...

know dark rooms at raves um as i probably should have um and um uh given that this was the 2000s in germany or late 90s um the um it's funny sometimes friends ask me it's like hey how was what was the techno scene like in in in the 90s in germany i'm like

Yeah, I wish I knew.

Being very much in computers, I knew of Silicon Valley.

I never was there, but Canada was certainly closer to that, and I figured I just make my way there over time.

learned everything about Canada and really, really fell in love with the place.

So that's where I am.

Yeah.

So funny story.

I did, again, I...

Well, I left school pretty early, I should say.

This is not super unusual in Germany, where you can, after 10th grade, you can decide to do an apprenticeship instead of doing three more years in school.