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Shopify CEO offers an internship to an esports pro purely because he respects StarCraft skill

Git gud enough to get a job

Starcraft 2

An ex-pro player of StarCraft II has been offered an internship at Shopify by its billionaire CEO, Tobi Lütke on Twitter. And I’m just as confused as you are. After ex-StarCraft pro Kevin Ryoo – also known as SeleCT – tweeted that he was looking for an internship in the general field of software engineering, Lütke, CEO of the ecommerce site Shopify straight up offered him a position on their internship program.

Kevin Ryoo wasn’t just a StarCraft II pro. In his pro days, he came top in some Warcraft 3 tournaments and Dawn of War competitions, alongside from his Terran victories. After leaving a career of notable success in videogames, he has turned to coding as a passion and is currently attending the University of Washington for Computer Science.

Lütke may have also been inspired by Ryoo’s portfolio, which was linked in his bio on Twitter. Or maybe the Shopify boss truly respects StarCraft skill that much – or the 16 thousand followers Ryoo’s amassed.

As someone who has applied to internships, worked internships, and has never had a successful esports career (Team Liquid call me), I am incredibly jealous of this entire interaction. The circumstances surrounding this are so mind-bogglingly strange that it’s the sort of thing Kevin might be telling his hypothetical grandkids.

But as all interns nervously do, Ryoo has responded with more questions about how to apply, or a possible referral. It’s something I think all potential interns would fret about – it’s relatable content, as the kids say.

In any case, Lütke is quite amused by the Reddit response the whole interaction has garnered. What we’ve learned from this is that if you too, want an internship, get really good at a videogame, quit said videogame and then go on Twitter. Totally foolproof.