The design choice to give whales quadratic (votes x votes) influence
No, the post payouts are determined by some function based on sum(votes)^2 not sum(votes^2) so user stake weights are basically linear. Post weights are quadratic giving the "lottery" payoff effect (also necessary to ensure that people who vote for themselves with no agreement from others end up losing on average), but it doesn't matter if one person votes with 10X stake or ten people with X stake.
An earlier version of the function was more heavily weighted toward larger stakes but that was removed (even though the extra weighting is a positive in some ways).