Seems to boil down to "we don't trust Andre[0] and btw Shopify totally didn't make us do this[1]".

I still don't understand the mistrust of Andre though. Also, the second point seems a bit disingenuous when their own board member speaks about a specific deadline[2]. He says it's something they agreed to, so it's necessarily external. That and the teams of reports of other people saying they've heard it's Shopify putting pressure for this specific point makes me look for a higher standard of rebuttal than "dude trust me". Explain why it was urgent. Explain what the deadline was.

[0] A recent access review had revealed that many systems were under the control of a single individual, which we determined presented a risk to the security and operational sustainability of those systems.

[1] The Board acted independently, and financial support was NOT conditioned on taking these steps.

[2] https://apiguy.substack.com/p/a-board-members-perspective-of...