The Secrets of Racing w/ Tobi Lutke

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "The Secrets of Racing"

Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant
Date: October 30, 2025
Host: John Hope Bryant | Guest: Tobi Lütke (Founder, Shopify)

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Episode Overview

This episode transports listeners to Road Atlanta during the Petit Le Mans endurance race, where John Hope Bryant and Tobi Lütke (founder of Shopify and amateur/professional racecar driver) dive into the world of motorsports. The conversation uses racing as a lens to reflect on leadership, business management, personal growth, and wealth-building—mirroring the show's foundational themes. The episode balances the thrill and complexities of endurance racing with real-world lessons applicable both in business and in life, peppered with memorable moments and a genuine sense of camaraderie.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Racing as a Metaphor for Life and Business

• Physical and Mental Demands of Racing

  • Racing is described as an all-encompassing sport, requiring full physical, mental, and emotional engagement.
  • Bryant: “Motorsports is one of the most stressful...you use every part of your body. It’s one of the most energized sports in the world.” (03:12)

• Race Teams as Small Businesses

  • Tobi draws direct parallels between the operations of race teams and startups: shared passion, clear roles, and deep collaborative culture.
  • Lütke: “Every race team is a small business...no one at a track is there against their will. Everyone is passionate.” (03:47)

The Unique Community of Racing

• Egalitarian Atmosphere

  • Once helmets are on, social identity disappears; only skill and teamwork matter.
  • Bryant: “The only race in racing is racing...nobody knows what ethnicity, what gender you are. Are you a good driver or not?” (10:42)

• Supportive Learning Environment

  • Professionals and amateurs support each other, sharing knowledge and striving for mutual improvement.
  • Lütke: “Everyone’s there to help the bronzes to get faster because having a fast bronze helps you a lot...” (16:28)

Emotional and Spiritual Aspects

• Racing as Meditation and Personal Challenge

  • Both speakers discuss racing as a deeply centering, almost spiritual experience.
  • Bryant: “When I’m in a race car, it’s like Buddhism at 160 miles an hour.” (06:59)
  • Lütke: “That’s exactly right...It centers. It’s just...everything else that people do at the top level...veers into the philosophical.” (07:18)

• Faith, Physics, and Trust

  • Driving relies on blending science, technology, and personal faith—trusting the car and one’s preparation.
  • Lütke: “You have to know that downforce will push you...the car could drive on a ceiling if it wanted to.” (09:21)
  • Bryant: “You may not believe in God, but you find God in the cockpit.” (10:01)

Lessons on Leadership and High Performance

• Constant Feedback and Adaptation

  • Racing teams are masters of rapid feedback, immediate iteration, and role clarity.
  • Lütke: “The way they study the car...the immediacy of feedback...This is exactly how we should run the company.” (18:07–19:21)

• Authenticity and Facing the Truth

  • The racetrack strips away all pretense, confronting you with your limits and potential for growth—much like entrepreneurship.
  • Lütke: “It is authentic and everything is real and nothing is a lie.” (20:57)
  • “The difference between that lap time and your lap time is the sum total of all your little inadequacies. But then the next lap starts...and you have another shot at it.” (21:16)

• Smoothness Over Speed

  • Success in racing (and business) is often about precision and consistency, not just aggression.
  • “For me it’s not about going fast...Smooth is fast.” — Bryant and Lütke (22:31–23:04)

• Teamwork and Role Clarity

  • Each team member has a distinct role, and pride in their craft is central to collective success.
  • “There’s one engineer who owns the front of a car and one engineer who owns the back; everyone has their role and takes incredible pride in it.” (19:24–19:48)

• Leadership Through Listening and Trust

  • The best leaders and engineers listen deeply and interpret feedback, acting on their expertise to improve team performance.
  • Lütke: “Race engineer comes and just listens...he doesn’t do the things we ask him to. He understands the car at a completely different level...somehow, magically, the car is now more pointy.” (34:26–35:21)

• The Power of Refounding

  • In business, sometimes transformation requires shutting down underperforming structures and launching anew, fostering a culture of continuous renewal.
  • Lütke: “We created a new group. Now you can apply to the new group or not, but I’m creating a new group because I don’t like this one’s way of forming...15 minutes of deep uncertainty can replace months of agony.” (36:32–37:08)

Innovation and Pursuit of Excellence

• Pushing Boundaries Within the Rules

  • Racing attracts innovative engineers who think beyond the obvious; competition is as much against the regulations as it is against other teams.
  • Lütke: “In racing...it’s a competition between the specification and the engineer...the types who like to break rules or find ways to stretch them.” (25:46–26:56)

• Endurance Racing, Business, and Wealth-Building

  • The episode shows how lessons from racing extend to personal wealth, business operations, and community uplift—mirroring Bryant’s broader mission.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Focus and Mindfulness:

  • “You cannot focus on something else on this race when you’re in a race car. It demands respect...it’s like Buddhism at 160 miles an hour.”
    — John Hope Bryant, 06:35–06:59

• On Learning from Challenges:

  • “It’s fun to be kind of bad at stuff. And it’s really, really fun to get better at stuff.”
    — Tobi Lütke, 24:15

• On Immediate Feedback:

  • “Immediate feedback, immediate...Just make it visceral. Latency makes everything so hard to relate to.”
    — Tobi Lütke, 19:21

• On Authenticity:

  • “It is authentic and everything is real and nothing is a lie...there’s a theoretical best lap time. The difference between that lap time and your lap time is the sum total of all your little inadequacies. But then the next lap starts...you have another shot at it.”
    — Tobi Lütke, 20:57–21:16

• On Courage and Growth:

  • “Courage is what you do in spite of your insecurities and fears.”
    — John Hope Bryant, 38:30

• On Leadership and Teams:

  • “Constantly improving, always chasing, never settling. I think business could use this a little bit more too.”
    — Tobi Lütke, 35:28

• On Starting Over:

  • “It’s a refounding event. It’s fun to be part of something new...15 minutes of deep uncertainty can replace months of agony.”
    — Tobi Lütke, 37:03–37:08

• On Advice for Listeners:

  • “Do hard things surrounded by friends...find the thing that scares you a little bit and seems hard and you know you’re no good at, because riding up that learning curve is the entire point.”
    — Tobi Lütke, 39:25

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:12–04:37] — Motorsports as a physical, mental, and cultural challenge.
• [06:35–07:18] — Racing as Buddhist meditation; mindfulness and energy.
• [09:21–10:01] — Trusting physics, faith, and one’s preparation.
• [15:07–16:34] — Race driver classification (bronze, silver, gold, platinum), teamwork, and mentorship.
• [18:07–19:48] — Engineering, feedback, and applying racing methods to tech company management.
• [20:57–21:16] — Authenticity and incremental self-improvement.
• [22:31–23:04] — “Smooth is fast”; style and discipline over reckless speed.
• [25:46–26:56] — Innovation, breaking rules, and the spirit of racing engineers.
• [34:26–35:21] — Leadership lessons: feedback loops and listening.
• [36:32–37:08] — Refounding teams, managing change, and “15 minutes of deep uncertainty.”
• [38:30–39:25] — Reflections on courage, confidence, and overcoming fear through action.
• [39:25–40:02] — The value of hard, scary challenges with friends.

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Tone & Style

The conversation is animated, philosophical, and rich with metaphors—mixing candid, “straight talk” observations with stories and practical lessons. The chemistry between John Hope Bryant and Tobi Lütke is warm and collegial, with gentle teasing and visible mutual respect. Racing is both a literal and figurative vehicle for teachings about business, life, and personal growth.

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Conclusion

This episode offers a unique and inspiring view into the intersection of motorsports, business, and personal development. Through concrete anecdotes and candid reflection, both Bryant and Lütke illuminate how high-performance environments—on the racetrack and in the boardroom—demand authenticity, adaptability, and continuous learning. The lessons here transcend racing, providing motivation for anyone aspiring to grow, lead, and thrive in challenging environments.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Hunter]

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[Evan Ratliff]

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[Hunter]

Short on time, but big on true crime. On a recent episode of the podcast Hunting for Answers, I highlighted the story of 19 year old Lachey Dungey. But she never knocked on that door. She never made it inside. And that text message would be the last time anyone would ever hear from her. Listen to Hunting for Answers from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Hot Money Narrator]

Did it occur to you that he charmed you in any way? Yes, it did.

[John O. Bryant]

But he was a charming man.

[Toby Luke]

It looks like the ingredients of a really grand spy story. Because this ties together the cold war with the new one. I often ask myself now, did I know the true Yan at all?

[Hot Money Narrator]

Listen to Hot Money, agent of chaos on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[John O. Bryant]

Welcome to Money and Wealth with John O. Bryant, a production of the Black Effect podcast network and iHeartRadio.

[Evan Ratliff]

Foreign.

[John O. Bryant]

I'm here with my brother from another mother, my friend Toby Luke. Now you know Toby from Shopify. He's the founder and he's done an incredible job with that company. It's amazing. And we're honored to be a partner with him at operation hope with 1MBB, which has created almost a half million. Created, nurtured, supported almost a half million businesses. That's not why we're here today. If you hear that racket in the background, those are race cars. And it's an attentional noise. It doesn't bother us. We actually like it. It's very calming. Exactly. And coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous. It's an Andrew Young quote. I didn't know he raced. He didn't know that I have a racing license and he's a real racer. I'm. I'm working at it. But I've run a couple races, club races, things like that in Europe and Africa, whatever. But this guy is a real legit race car driver and he just killed it here at Road Atlanta for Petit Le Mans. I was like, we got to get the, we got to get the audience to understand the magic of this and we're going to show you on track and show some of that cool footage. My man is killing the game. But it's, people don't really understand Motorsports 1 is one of the most stressful or, or you use every part of your body. It's one of the, one of the most energized sports in the world. I think one of the top four or five where you use every part of your body.

[Toby Luke]

Physical, it's mental, the challenge, endurance racing specifically. It's like, I mean it's unlike anything else. I, I, I do certainly I've never found anything like it. Right.

[John O. Bryant]

So.

[Toby Luke]

But I love it. It's also a culture. It's like every race team is a small business. Like no one at a track is there against their will. Everyone is passionate. It's incredible. It's like so often you talk with any of the mechanics about any detail of a car and they will be able to spend hours and hours and hours talking about part. They will eventually become all sorts of philosophical about the particular part. It just like it, it's this one. It's wonderful to be surrounded by people who give a shit and really, really, really put giving a shit and care into a product. Any sorts. And at a racetrack. It's, it's, it's all like this. Yeah. Especially about amazing events like IMSA Web attack.

[John O. Bryant]

And when, when Toby comes here or when I go to a track, we're no longer the CEO or the founder or this or that. We're both founders of organizations. We're just race car drivers.

[Toby Luke]

Exactly.

[John O. Bryant]

And we just want respect for that. And when Toby got out of the car, he had a situation. Don't worry if you want to. He was safe. He had a situation. He had a situation. Some of another car in front of him. He met him, maneuvered it well and he lost a couple seconds on whatever, which irritates us when that happens. But when he got himself composed for a minute, he's like, damn, that was great. That was so much fun.

[Toby Luke]

Right. I'm out there and I just like, like I, I'm like, I can't even believe that we get to do this, but this is even possible. It's, it's, I mean especially this is a very storied race. I've been here for decades. And, and there are 52 different cars. There's three races at the same time. That's right.

[John O. Bryant]

In the same. Three different. Three different races inside the same race.

[Toby Luke]

Yes. And it's a 10 hour race. We do it with three drivers to car.

[John O. Bryant]

And, and he just did three stints, which means 45 minutes times three. And he thought, and he said over the radio that he thought it was like, he felt like it was just 50 minutes and he, he dropped five pounds by the way.

[Toby Luke]

Yeah. So I, I asked race control if you have a radio connection, right. Like a button on the steering wheel. I hit that and talk to them and I asked how much driving time I've done because every driver has to do a minimum of I think two and a half hours. And they told me 20 minutes. I'm like, God damn it. Like, just clearly this felt longer. Like this is, this is hard. Didn't we have like. And then like I asked again, how much driving time have I done? It's like, turns out it's 20. I was already in it for 2 hours 10. So it's 20 minutes for minimum driving time.

[John O. Bryant]

Right.

[Toby Luke]

And I just didn't like, I couldn't believe it because it just felt like, I mean it felt like 40 minutes.

[John O. Bryant]

That's why I felt like now notice everybody. We haven't said a thing about speed, nothing about going fast. It is for people like Toby and myself where we are multitasking, multi thinking we can do four things at the same time. Golf. I mean there's nothing wrong Golf. Golf school. But we would get distracted. We'd be on our phones, we'd be, you know, we'd be cutting business deals, whatever. You cannot focus on something else on this race when you're in a race car. It is, it takes it risk, it demands respect. I've never said this to him, but I'm see if it resonates when I'm in a race car. It's like Buddhism at 160 miles an hour.

[Toby Luke]

That's exactly right. That's what it feels like. It centers. It's just, I mean I, I also find it's as everything else that people do at the top level. Right. Like it's, it does veer into the philosophical. I, I just find this always happens. Like this is like things that you learn in racing like that are generally good life advice. So like very simple. You can like, you can't win a race in the first corner, but you can lose it. That's pretty good. That's a pretty good match for life. Yeah, absolutely. It's like just figure out what matters. I also just find like, I mean at the end of the day we drive these Le mans prototype cars.

[John O. Bryant]

LMP2s they're called, and these are downforce cars. You would. They look like spaceships to you. Basically.

[Toby Luke]

Yeah, they look very different from a car on the street. If you seen Lamar, you would have seen them. But. And I mean those cars are at the end of the day connected to the ground with like four playing card size patches of rubber. That's. That's an entire con connection to planet Earth. You have.

[John O. Bryant]

Right.

[Toby Luke]

And lots of faith. And you are trying like there is a mount of resistance that you can invest in driving forward, going laterally, sideways steering wheel. But there's like a racing car is different from a normal car there. Like a normal car sort of starts. When you get to the limit and you ask too much of it, you will start feeling this. A race car stays put. They are planted. They go. It's not the 160 miles per hour that's so crazy in these cars. It's actually the 130 going to a turn. Like we like it's four and a half GS of like that's pulling you sideways.

[John O. Bryant]

Yeah.

[Toby Luke]

The road Atlantic.

[John O. Bryant]

The car is going that way and you're going. Your body's going this way and you.

[Toby Luke]

Have to like just know that downforce will push you. Like the car could drive on a ceiling if it wanted to. Like it's that much downforce. And here at Royal Atlanta, you have to throw it into turn one and you basically have to go full throttle. In any normal reality, the car would actually like, you're driving at a wall, except that there's a hill and a compression, right. And that causes even more stick. And then it grips and the car takes it and you just have to believe that that's happening.

[John O. Bryant]

Physics, physics, financial literacy. Really? Of course. Math, spirituality. It's.

[Toby Luke]

It's.

[John O. Bryant]

Look, you may not believe in God, but you, you praying to God, you find God in the cockpit. So faith, physics, math, technology. Attention, attention focus. Strategy.

[Toby Luke]

Yeah, lots of strategy in it.

[John O. Bryant]

Multitasking.

[Toby Luke]

It's also predictive a bit. You need to understand what everyone else around you does. Right. Like so you need a, like you need to learn about other people. It actually helps a lot getting to know other drivers because you know who's in the cars around you and you know what they're like. Are they more aggressive? Are they, you know, like, do they play the long game?

[John O. Bryant]

Right.

[Toby Luke]

So all these kind of things.

[John O. Bryant]

Right.

[Toby Luke]

So it's. And, yeah, it's actually community.

[John O. Bryant]

So it's a community. Yeah. And, and the only race in racing is racing. You put the helmet on, nobody knows what ethnicity, what, what gender you are. Are you a good driver? Are you not? Are you are. Do people look at you and say, let's stay away from that guy or not. Your reputation and you're interconnected. You're, you're, you're dependent. In some ways you're dependent. Well, not some ways. On your team, the mechanics, those four patches of rubber, those tires are, I mean, you think about this like you got to be, you got to be one with the car. Like you're feeling in your butt, you're feeling the road, you're feeling the pedals, you're feeling the gearing. You're hearing the gearing, the engines when the ship, when the brake, the G forces, all that which is the lateral pressure. You hear about those in flare planes, you'll hear about them in race cars. But they're very same philosophy. As he said, you can turn the car upside down and, you know, stick on the ceiling. It is very spiritual. I get out of a race car and I just feel salt caught.

[Toby Luke]

Yeah. And you were, you were an entire vacation.

[John O. Bryant]

Yeah, it's an entire vacation.

[Toby Luke]

It's like it has all the elements in it.

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[Hot Money Narrator]

Jan Marsalek was a model of German corporate success.

[Toby Luke]

It seemed so damn simple for him.

[Hot Money Narrator]

Also, it turned out that a fraudster.

[Toby Luke]

Where does the money come from? That was something that I always was questioning myself.

[Hot Money Narrator]

But what if I told you that was the least interesting thing about him?

[Toby Luke]

His secret office was less than 500.

[Evan Ratliff]

Meters down the road.

[Toby Luke]

I often ask myself now, did I know the true Rian at all? Certain things in my life since then have gone terribly wrong. I don't know if they followed me to my home. It looks like the ingredients of a really grand spy stories because this ties together the Cold War with the new one.

[Hot Money Narrator]

Listen to Hot Agent of Chaos on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Hunter]

I'm Hunter, host of Hunting for Answers on the Black Effect Podcast Network. Join me every weekday as I share bite sized stories of missing and murdered Black women and girls in America. There are several ways we can all do better at protecting Black women. My contribution is shining a light on our missing sisters and amplifying their disregarded stories. Stories like Tameka Anderson. As she drove toward Galvez, she was in contact with several people talking on the phone as she made her way to what should have been a routine transaction. But Tameka never bought the car and she never returned home that day. One podcast, one mission. Save our girls. Join the search as we explore the chilling cases of missing and murdered Black women and girls. Listen to Hunting for Answers every weekday on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Evan Ratliff]

When news broke earlier this year that baby K.J. a newborn in Philadelphia, had successfully received the world's first personalized gene editing treatment, it represented a milestone for both researchers and patients. But there's a gripping tale of discovery behind this accomplishment and its creators. I'm Evan Ratliff and together with biographer Walter Isaacson, we're delving into the story of Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna, the woman who's helped change the trajectory of humanity. Listen to on crispr, the story of Jennifer Doudna with Walter isaacson on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Toby Luke]

I mean it's clearly not for everyone but like I, I, I just like it's, it's one of the greatest hobbies also just because I mean this is the most wonderful thing about endurance racing. There's a like system there. Like I'm a bronze driver, which means I'm sort of a pro.

[John O. Bryant]

Am means he's very, very good. He's no punk. He's a very good driver. Pro. Essentially a pro. As much of a, as much of a, of a pro as an amateur can be who's running a company or, or trying.

[Toby Luke]

Right? Trying to, trying to do that. Yes. In my good laps and we're going.

[John O. Bryant]

To show your labs so don't worry.

[Toby Luke]

The other people I'm sharing recover. You know, David Hanemar Hansen was Silver Driver. He's been a silver, he's been, he's done the 24 hours more 12, 13 times. Silver driver is like extremely accomplished like again, when you win too much, they upgrade you.

[John O. Bryant]

Right?

[Toby Luke]

So you have, you have a bronze in the car, a silver and then a gold. A gold is a professional.

[John O. Bryant]

The platinum is the highest.

[Toby Luke]

Platinum is like the Formula one guys and so on. We can have a gold or platinum in our car. And so it's a sport via team members. Like, it's not like, if you hear about Formula one, they have two cars and the two teammates actually are biggest competitors because they only use the same hardware in endurance racing. We are switching, we are doing driver switches. Takes us 19 seconds to switch a driver.

[John O. Bryant]

There's another teammates on the, on the road right now.

[Toby Luke]

Yeah, the race is still another, what is it, five hours? Yeah, yeah. It's going to get dark. So this store of Atlanta is, it's, it's, it gets really dark here. I've done dark testing because every driver has to do at least four laps in the dark here to be allowed to go. And it's like, that's a cool experience. But I'm like, I'm like, just like. Luckily this track has been here since the early 80s or like 70s. No one's going to remove the track behind this corner, but I have no possibility of seeing it. I just have to believe it. I have to believe it's still there and no one spun. That's also right in front of me. Right. And lost the power and lights. So anyway, like this kind of stuff that happens in racing and you do it with world class pros. Oliver Jarvis like won every race many times. And like, so it's, it's wonderful to do us a hobby, a sport with pros together. And just because you learn so quickly, everyone's there to, you know, help the bronzes to get faster because having a fast bronze helps you a lot in this world. And so it's, so you have a.

[John O. Bryant]

Bronze and a, and a silver and a silver is the team. And, and how does this make you better in your family? How does it make you better in your business? For people who think that we are like, why would you do that? You know, I know why I do it, but why does it make you better?

[Toby Luke]

I think, I mean, I've learned a lot from, from, from, from racing. I, I like, I mean, obviously I would do it without any of these kind of things, but there's like, I just find whenever you get in contact and study anything that humans do at a crazy level, you just find either new versions of the same lessons that you've already learned in other ways that sort of flesh out the picture or come across completely new ideas. Honestly, I personally, I'm incredibly. I run a tech company, so I thought we were really, really, you know, data driven and excellent at this kind of thing. And then I joined a professional racing team. And the way they study the car, the telemetry that they have, this. I mean, there's like six engineers looking at squiggly lines on screens to just figure out how the car is doing and give feedback and monitor everything. And like this sort of immediacy of like the feedback. I went to one of my teams saying, hey, come to the next race. Have a look at how this looks when you team. You need this for Shopify. This is exactly how we should run the company. Right.

[John O. Bryant]

Because immediate feedback, immediate.

[Toby Luke]

Just make it visceral latency makes everything so hard to relate to. Right. This is a small example, but also just how things are organized, how clear the jobs are for everyone. There's one engineer who owns the front of a car and one engineer who owns back of a car. And then there's one major race engineer who makes it's. It's. Everyone has their. Has their role and takes incredible pride in their role.

[John O. Bryant]

Yes.

[Toby Luke]

And I think all of this is inspiring.

[John O. Bryant]

Yeah.

[Toby Luke]

So. So in. All of this is relevant.

[John O. Bryant]

Yeah. And it probably makes you nicer when you get home. We won't. We won't ask beyond that later. I know. Sh. Knows. She like, yeah, go to the track. Please go for me. I always thought I was real. I always thought, but because I was so different from everybody else around me, my version of real, I'm like, okay, well, maybe I'm just wrong in my version of real. I didn't like bs. I like stripping away the BS into what's real. When I got into a race car, I thought I understood the philosophy of life, but when I got into a race car, it challenged me in ways that was like when I was. When I was struggling as a kid. Like, it was. You can't play around in a race car. You can't mess around. It doesn't care who you are, your reputation, your net worth, your. None of that matters. So you get out of it. You're like, maybe I am who I think I am, because I just did that. And you can't fake that. It calms me. It strips away all the stuff that's not real. It's very authentic.

[Toby Luke]

It is authentic and everything is real and nothing is a lie. You know, just like there is a theoretical best lap time out there for every car. It's Completely impossible for a human to reach it.

[John O. Bryant]

Yes.

[Toby Luke]

And it's your actual lap time. The difference between that lap time and your lap time is the sum total of all your little inadequacies. But then the next lap starts 1 minute 14 after the previous one starts and then you have another shot at it. And it's like you will find micro improvements. You just learn to get better. It's like I honestly like, I mean like a lot of drivers really, really just like want to win, which I totally respect. I, I feel like compete against the set 100 I, I, I to me the other drivers are actually kind of obstacles.

[John O. Bryant]

That's right. That's right.

[Toby Luke]

And they make it more interesting. But like I just want to do a really good job because like I'm part of a team and like I, you know everyone there is relying on what I'm doing in the car and I have to deliver functioning car ideally at a good place in the race to my co drivers.

[John O. Bryant]

That's right.

[Toby Luke]

And then they do their thing and then I will hop into the car again and do it again and again together.

[John O. Bryant]

And this is like a business management team, board of directors, shareholders, customers very much like everybody. You know what we want to deliver, we want to bring it back and the funny else again, we've never talked about this. For me it's not about going fast or about the competitor smooth as fast.

[Toby Luke]

Exactly. Yeah. It's, it's not like just throwing it around.

[John O. Bryant]

Right.

[Toby Luke]

Smooth as fast. I don't know if that makes sense. But you only have like, I mean you, you have a throttle.

[John O. Bryant]

Yeah.

[Toby Luke]

You have a break. You usually use your two legs for those in race. And then you have a steering wheel.

[John O. Bryant]

Yeah, I use the same leg but yeah, yeah.

[Toby Luke]

So like that also that's just as fast like the, the steering wheel that goes like this and this. That's it. I mean it couldn't be simpler. But that makes it not easy.

[John O. Bryant]

Right.

[Toby Luke]

And it just tells you how far you like there's no simplicity and difficulty are completely uncorrelated with each other. In fact usually simplicity allows people to get to reach further because this is not a lot of pedal inputs like the train. Like afterwards when we review there's a video. Here's my what I like the brake. How much brake pedal was pushed. Here's how much the throttle was pushed and you know what the steering angle was and we look for laps and then overlay someone else's maybe a pro driver's lap and it shows you. Okay. Yeah. You could have actually Braked a little bit later, a little bit harder. You could. Your trace could have been different. And then you just learn and you go out and try it again and you improve. And I just think it's really, really fun. And also, like, it's fun to be kind of bad at stuff. And it's really, really fun to get better at stuff.

[John O. Bryant]

That's right.

[Toby Luke]

And so, yeah, you get to do this every. Every weekend, every time.

[John O. Bryant]

You get to Paul Newman, who is a bit of an inspiration from Toby and I, who you know, as a famous actor, some of you do. He was actually. He was most proud of being a race car driver. And he started racing at 50, basically the same age that I did. And he won his last race at 82 or 83. And he was phenomenally good. But he started out really not that.

[Toby Luke]

Well, not in 83, when he was 83 years back, which is incredible.

[John O. Bryant]

It's incredible.

[Toby Luke]

Incredible.

[John O. Bryant]

And he said it was his great quote when they asked, why do you do auto racing? He said, it's the only sport I was ever elegant at. I wasn't great at basketball. I wasn't. I was a tackling dummy, football, whatever. But I'm. I feel elegant at this sport. And it's. And for all the stuff that we've already said, but it is quite fascinating. It is amazing. It is underrated. It is its own world, as you said. Each one of these Financial literacy point. Each one of these trailers you see is his own llc, Limited liability corporation has insurance. It has profit, profit loss, balance sheet, income statement sponsors.

[Toby Luke]

It has assets, liabilities, procurement, parts, supply chains, technology. Absolutely everything. Yeah. And every team is trying to find the next thing. There's a lot of innovation in there.

[John O. Bryant]

Yeah.

[Toby Luke]

Like the teams that do best are the teams that have the type of race engineers that never settle. They're like the people who are not motivated, again, by just looking good in comparison to the others or like being in. In the field. It's the ones who drive things further that end up doing it. Like the ones who are intrinsically motivated, which is like, try to build the perfect car for the weekend. Because cars are very complicatedly set up. Right. Like, there's an entire build we could dive into on setups. But suffice to say that innovation is a big part of it. Creativity is a big part of thinking outside of the box is a big part of it. There's a rule book that exists and in most of industry, the engineers are there to look at the specifications and build something that conforms to the specifications. And does the job in racing. It's the one where it's a competition between the specification and the engineer. It's the engineer. Like, it's the, the types, it's, it's the rare type of engineer that likes to break rules or find, find ways how to stretch the rules.

[John O. Bryant]

Okay.

[Toby Luke]

And there's, you know, Formula one is, well, like has a long document history. There's Adrian Newey who built many of the best cars in the world and like Sennas, McLaren and then Vest in Brazil. Yeah, exactly. And, and, and Vestin's recently winning cars and he wrote a book, how to build a car, which I, I, I, I recommend. It's, it's, it's just the story of someone who takes the new formula and this is why it's called Formula One. It's like takes the 600 pages, goes to a college with a drawing board and starts drawing parts that he thinks would do the best job. And so I mean that is like erasing has all sorts of interesting characters in it. It's a, it's a niche for lots of types of people who, I don't know where else they would be. Some kind of people were like, they work on the car and then if they don't, they talk with their friends about car and then they drive home in their car and then probably meet some friends of obs to talk about cars and watch the race and then go in the shop and work on their project car. Ye, it's all that.

[John O. Bryant]

Right, right.

[Toby Luke]

And so it's also wonderful to support that kind of people who really deeply desire that something like this is possible.

[John O. Bryant]

Yes, yes.

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[Hot Money Narrator]

Jan Marsalek was a model of German corporate success.

[Toby Luke]

It seemed so damn simple for him.

[Hot Money Narrator]

Also, it turned out a fraudster.

[Toby Luke]

Where does the money come from? That was something that I always was questioning myself.

[Hot Money Narrator]

But what if I told you that was the least interesting thing about him?

[Toby Luke]

His secret office was less than 500.

[Evan Ratliff]

Meters down the road.

[Toby Luke]

I often ask myself now, did I know the true Ryan at all. Certain things in my life since then have gone terribly wrong. I don't know if they followed me to my home. It looks like the ingredients of a really grand spy story because this ties together the Cold War with the new one.

[Hot Money Narrator]

Listen to Hot Agent of chaos on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Hunter]

I'm Hunter, host of Hunting for Answers on the Black Effect Podcast Network. Join me every weekday as I share bite sized stories of missing, murdered Black women and girls in America. There are several ways we can all do better at protecting black women. My contribution is shining a light on our missing sisters and amplifying their disregarded stories. Stories like Tameka Anderson. As she drove toward Galvez, she was in contact with several people talking on the phone as she made her way to what should have been a routine transaction. But Tameka never bought the car and she never returned home that day. One podcast, one mission. Save our girls. Join the search as we explore the chilling cases of missing and murdered Black women and girls. Listen to Hunting for Answers every weekday on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Evan Ratliff]

When news broke earlier this year that baby kj, a newborn in Philadelphia, had successfully received the world's first personalized gene editing treatment, it represented a milestone for both researchers and patients. But there's a gripping tale of discovery behind this accomplishment and its creators. I'm Evan Ratliff and together with biographer Walter Isaacson, we're delving into the story of Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna, the woman who's helped change the trajectory of humanity. Listen to on crispr, the story of Jennifer Doudna with Walter isaacson on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[John O. Bryant]

You got verstappen. Who sees his fashion or his his artwork in the car? You've got Lewis Hamilton who sees fashion designing, really designing the car and designing the world and they're both great drivers. Just different styles and different approaches.

[Toby Luke]

Lewis increasingly also it's real fashion usually like on 20s Shopify store. He's doing really well.

[John O. Bryant]

Is it?

[Toby Luke]

Yeah.

[John O. Bryant]

Lewis Hamilton has a Shopify.

[Toby Luke]

Lewis has incredible style.

[John O. Bryant]

He does have incredible stuff and he did a great job with this F1 movie. It's fantastic.

[Toby Luke]

Isn't that great?

[John O. Bryant]

I watched it three times. My father in law's watched it four times. He's here, he's here. Dr. Dalton's here blowing his. This whole thing is blowing his mind.

[Toby Luke]

I. I Mean I did the race that starts the movie right. Like it's like the 24 hours.

[John O. Bryant]

That's right.

[Toby Luke]

Rolex 24. I've done this, I've done literally the walk he does from his trailer when we are currently in the trailer at the racetrack. So this is my version of the first scene movie.

[John O. Bryant]

It's pretty cool.

[Toby Luke]

And so I'd done this walk at 2am to the race car and they captured it really, really well. So I, I mean this I also love like, like what is wonderful celebration of endurance racing before it then gets into Formula one, which you know, we started.

[John O. Bryant]

So for anybody who's not clear, endurance racing. So sprint racing is what it sounds like. A sprint endurance racing is 2 hours, 6 hours, 12 hours, 24 hours.

[Toby Luke]

Yeah, 24 hours of LE Mans. The biggest race endurance race in the world. Rolex 24. So it's one of the biggest, probably second biggest. And here we are at like the per team Le Mans which is in Atlanta road Atlanta, which is a ten hour race.

[John O. Bryant]

Right. And for anybody who likes to lose weight, here's. This is the sport for you. You lose five to ten pounds in.

[Toby Luke]

A day in a long stand if it's hot.

[John O. Bryant]

So you just did three 45 minute stance. My guess is you lost four to five pounds easily. Easily.

[Toby Luke]

Yeah. I'll have to get that back soon.

[John O. Bryant]

Yeah, we're gonna go eat now and get some of that back. When he got out, he had a wet, a cold, cold pack around his neck. Like an ice pack.

[Toby Luke]

Yes.

[John O. Bryant]

Because you're at over 100 degrees in the car.

[Toby Luke]

It gets really hot. It's cost.

[John O. Bryant]

So as we wrap up, give the audience one or two examples of leadership lessons you've learned in the car that you can let you. By the way, my man has already brought Shopify to IMSA and nascar. He's got shop people he's bringing his business to wherever he goes. And Shopify is already starting to dominate the space. I didn't even know Louis Amazon or Shopify Shop. Why, why am I surprised? But what is a leadership lesson that you've learned from being at race coach?

[Toby Luke]

From my co drivers who are much more experienced than me. The quality and the directness of the feedback they give. I need get out of a car. Like they're just like the small. We have a ritual of after every session, go through it. And the race engineer comes and just listens.

[John O. Bryant]

Yes.

[Toby Luke]

And he's basically. He runs the team, he runs the car. Right. And just listen to the driver and they go to every turn and any, any, any feedback. And then, like, he doesn't do the things we ask him to. He ignores every suggestion. Which, like, like, like that is also a good leadership thing. But he understands every. He will understand the problem. Under the problem. We talk about symptoms like it's understeering. He understands the car at a completely different level and then he goes back and tells his team to do nothing of the sorts of what we said. And somehow magically, the car is now more pointy.

[John O. Bryant]

Or like understeer means that you turn the car but it does not turn with you as much as you'd like it to. By the way, overshares the other. The opposite problem.

[Toby Luke]

Yeah, those are all terms. Like, what do they mean? Doesn't matter. It's just like, these are the race car drivers give feedback to each other and. But it's this thing of this Observe. It's an OODA loop. If you come across observe, object, observe. I can't actually go through the list. It just means that it's basically one of those loops where you figure out what's true and then what are we doing about it and then we do it and then we go back to observe and just it's that. And so constantly improving, constantly improving, always chasing, never settling. I really think that's. I think you see this in all the best teams, but it's a bit muted. It's in the background. It's unacknowledged in a way. Sometimes people talk about it, but then they can go for a long time not talking about it in a race car. It's the entire thing. And I think this inversion is. I think business could use this a little bit more too.

[John O. Bryant]

So to summarize what you're saying or wrap it up, we were talking earlier about how things could be better at society and you're saying in his business, he'll take a low performing group and basically say, okay, this group doesn't exist anymore. We created a new group. Now you can apply to the new group. I encourage you to apply to the new group or not, but I'm creating a new group because I don't like this one's way forming, constantly improving. And people always want to try to step up to that new group and perform and hopefully look like they've been reborn.

[Toby Luke]

Exactly. It's a refounding event. It's fun to be part of something new.

[John O. Bryant]

Yes.

[Toby Luke]

It's stressful to try to bend something that's going in a different direction. It takes a long time. It's sorted. Book everyone Knows okay now we are going to do change management for whatever. It's annoying. I found you can compress all. I mean you are compressing pain. It's a harder conversation to say hey, something ends if you're doing something new. 15 minutes of deep uncertainty can replace months of agony. And I think that just is like it's way better for everyone and it's just more fun because now you get to say afterwards it's working everyone's now it's a new department. We are doing this new thing. And then you can say for instance your career is like you have been art of you know, maybe working with me, working with at Shopify Refounding like a department that ended up becoming an important part of the company. And like that's. I mean that sounds even better on your CV like just language wise. But it's also true and I think that's like giving like creating as many opportunities for people. Like that is one of the things that has really been not bearing all obviously the short journey and can be done.

[John O. Bryant]

Absolutely. This is inspiring. Hopefully you guys have gotten some. Some fun to saw a fun part of Toby that you would not have seen otherwise. But also learn a little bit about life and leadership and courage. Courage is what you do. I mean basically what you do when you have all the facts. But really courage is oftentimes what you do in spite of your insecurities and your fears. When I first got into a race car I was petrif but I wanted to overcome very few things scare me. So I sort of was attracted to the fact that here's this excellence, this excellence machine that I don't yet master other people have. I think I can learn to do it. I got to get out of my own way to do it. I got to get out of my own fear. I got to believe and have confidence in the tires and the mechanics and the system and myself and. And then when all that comes together.

[Toby Luke]

Magic do something like I think my advice to everyone is like try to do hard things surrounded by friends. Like that can be a company. It can be like a hobby and find the thing that like scares you a little bit and it seems really hard and you know you're no good at because writing up that like learning curve is the entire point. It's the best thing in the world. It's. It's only annoying or it's only scary for a while after you start climbing it, after you start with improvement. Yes, it's nothing. Yes, you got.

[John O. Bryant]

She's got a master class in Some Food as a more Racing Love and Light.

[Evan Ratliff]

Foreign.

[John O. Bryant]

Wealth with John o' Brien is a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the Black Effect Podcast network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Hunter]

Short on time, but big on true crime. On a recent episode of the podcast Hunting for Answers, I highlighted the story of 19 year old Lachey Dungey. But she never knocked on that door. She never made it inside, and that text message would be the last time anyone would ever hear from her. Listen to Hunting for Answers from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Hot Money Narrator]

Did it occur to you that he charmed you in any way? Yes, it did.

[John O. Bryant]

But he was a charming man.

[Toby Luke]

It looks like the ingredients of a really grand spy story because this ties together the Cold War with the new one. I often ask myself now, did I know the true Yan at all?

[Hot Money Narrator]

Listen to Hot Money, Agent of chaos on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Toby Luke]

The Rich Russians Falling out of Windows podcast is back. Sad Oligarch Season 2 Since we left you in 2023 after season one, many politically motivated Russian millionaires have continued to die in suspicious circumstances. Season two gets very weird. Listen to Sad Oligarch on the iHeartRadio.

[John O. Bryant]

App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Evan Ratliff]

When news broke earlier this year that baby kj, a newborn in Philadelphia, had successfully received the world's first personalized gene editing treatment, it represented a milestone for both researchers and patients. But there's a gripping tale of discovery behind this accomplishment and its creators. I'm Evan Ratliff, and together with biographer Walter Isaacson, we're delving into the story of Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna, the woman who's helped change the trajectory of humanity. Listen to on crispr the Story of Jennifer Doudna with Walter isaacson on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Hunter]

This is an iHeart podcast.