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Comment by kennywinker | Hacker News Reader

Shopify’s founder and their coo both fund far-right extremism, and its founder thinks only rich people should be able to vote. But anyway, they switched databases.

https://www.techwontsave.us/episode/340_shopifys_leaders_are...

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The link you shared is just a podcast and does not contain even contain “far right”. Can you provide specific concerns, otherwise I don’t see anything wrong with a CEO of the most successful tech company should not be concerned about a horribly performing country from a GDP perspective.

You should be concerned what they spot as the problem and what they propose as the solution

https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/article/shopify-ceo-draws-cr...

The problem he was reacting to (local decisions dominated by people with locked-in benefits and low future exposure) is real. His idea there is silly but I think treating a couple of provocative X replies as some far right agenda is its own kind of overreach.

> The problem he was reacting to (local decisions dominated by people with locked-in benefits and low future exposure) is real

So like, idk, people over 60yrs old voting against climate action? Or maybe people making over $500k/year voting against a social safety net?

Those seem like far more consequential groups exerting influence than the very poor (who as a demographic don’t actually vote much anyway).

But anyway, whatever group you’re talking about disenfranchising, the fact that you’re talking about disenfranchising anybody makes you an enemy of democracy.

I included a link to a podcast because that's a good high level overview of the topic. If you want to dig into it further, the podcast episode page I linked to has links to more reporting and plenty of keywords you can type into google.com if that's not enough.

But here's another link if you need something that includes the phrase "far right": https://pressprogress.ca/shopify-executives-right-wing-media...

Anyway, if you think a country having a low gdp per capita is how you measure if it should suspend voting rights for disabled people and stay at home parents, then I suspect you're not actually reading any of this.

Yeah it's an awful place to work unless you're a far-right bro. My old director used to use slurs and vape in the office. The founder hires pro gamers with no technical expertise because he thinks they're cool.

Are you implying that vaping is far right?

I think that was part of the “bro” bit, not the far right bit

Sounded to me like they were saying people vape in the office, which would make a bad work environment on top of the far right bros.

> people vape in the office

It's famously a fully remote company.

Do you think that means they don’t have offices?

Shopify has employee "ports" (company jargon for employee workspaces/offices) in Toronto, Ottawa and New York.

Don't get shy now. Which slurs?

Why are you trying to get someone to repeat slurs?

Because "slurs" is vague and covers a wide variety of utterances that run the gamut from unprofessional to unemployable and I had a tingle of Spidey sense that OP might have chosen the vague phrasing specifically to inflate the sins of the nameless Shopify director in the mind of the reader.

Which slurs are ok, and which aren't?

Great question. It's a vague term and a moving target that not everyone agrees on.

For instance, retarded is now considered a slur. If OP is saying "my director said the R word," then I would question whether OP spared the gory details out of concern for polite company or if they're being oblique in service of their point.

And if managers at Shopify are dropping N-bombs, I want to know that too.

I... guess that's possible? Summarization doesn't really seem suspicious to me.

Let's say some racial ones (including hard-r n-word) and some ableist ones? Guy also talked about jerking off a lot and joked about rape.

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