Naz Mottaghian
Jul 10, 2017 · 2 min read

Dear Tobias,

I hear your message; but, things are simply not adding up.

I am sure you are aware of the commonly discussed racial diversity gap in Shopify’s employee pool. I see the responses from your HR director and the positive push to be more inclusive. I am loving the effort and cannot wait to see the results.

I see the amazing work that Shopify is taking on everyday to help minorities in technology (women) to gain confidence and shatter the glass ceiling.

I am inspired by your story as an immigrant turned entrepreneur and I admired your ambition when you said one day, Shopify will buy Google instead.

All of that great work.. and then, your position on this; it doesn’t add up.

Let’s say nobody proactively and critically review and set a moral standard, who then, would draw the line between hate and free speech?

Without defining morals, we can do one thing at least: learn from history. There is no single decision or event that starts a war or a genocide. It’s years and years of micro-decisions, supposedly sporadic and unrelated events, a pattern of behvaiour, thoughts, actions and inactions that picks up momentum; and a group of righouts folks truly good-hearted folks who thought they were doing the right thing, all along, caught by surprise.

This one merits more than a black and white view. Please, do not pretend that you cannot do anything in your power without stomping free speech.

You can strike a balance. You can delete and remove some items that are known to advocate for and enable certain destructive behaviour.

Naz Mottaghian

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I am a computer engineer by training. After a few pivots, I now work as a product manager. In my spare time, I tinker with new tech & code for fun!