“High Output Management” by former Intel CEO Andrew S. Grove and “Influence” by Dr. Robert Cialdini, are the two books that made Tobias Lütke a billionaire.
The Shopify co-founder revealed this in a podcast series observed by TechEconomy.
Lütke is a computer programmer by profession and had no intention of having anything to do with the business side of Shopify, the Canadian startup he co-founded.
According to Lütke, it became imperative for him to arm himself and scale his e-commerce platform.
Influence
He decided to source some reading that would arm him with the skills he needed and ended up wí two powerful books – “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” and High Output Management.
“Influence was just the most mind-bending book you can imagine, because it essentially taught you all the ways humans are flawed and influenceable, and how, yes, computers are predictable, but once you make things for people you need to go into storytelling,” says Lütke.
“Which was news to me, frankly. I spent my teens with computers. Not with people,” he adds to laughs from Ferriss.
“Influence” was first published in 1983 and remains a foundational work on the science of persuasion, so Lütke is far from the only brilliant-but-awkward young striver Cialdini has helped. If you’re looking for a quick summary of the book’s basic ideas, Trapulionis’s post has a useful rundown.
High Output Management
“One of the best books ever,” raves Lütke of this second classic by the former CEO of Intel, describing High Output Management as “a how-to manual that deconstructs the world of business into first principles. It’s like, here’s what matters.
Here’s how to think about it.” By laying out building a business like an engineering exercise, Grove’s book made the whole challenge far less daunting, Lütke claims.
He’s not the only nerdy young entrepreneur riding a startup rocket ship to benefit from the legendary title. Mark Zuckerberg also claims the “book played a big role in shaping my management style.”
In accordance with the recently published financial statements, Shopify has a current valuation of 47.14 billion. This is 144.06% higher than that of the technology sector and significantly higher than that of the Software—Application industry
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