I'm surprised anyone agrees to be CEO of Reddit these days. No matter who holds the position, they always end up being vilified by both Reddit's users and its detractors.
Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors
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Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors
#52I am sorry for him. I know as a fact that he’s brilliant and fully deserves the position, but given the circumstances (Ohanian resigning and calling for someone black to replace him) he will always have to live with people having the reasonable doubt that he didn’t arrive there for merit alone.
I am not sorry for him. What is your definition of merit for a board position?
As far as I know, board positions are often filled based on explicitly subjective criteria, e.g. such subjective criteria might be: Who is currently on the board and what personality/skillset/experience does the board need in order to balance its membership? Who does the company & board need in order to: raise as much money as possible, be introduced to the desired go-to-market partners, look good to customers, [insert any other subjective criteria here] etc.
I am not aware of the concept of objective "merit" when it comes to board of directors appointments.
~corrected for bad grammar~
Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors
#53Why stick to the insular Silicon Valley club and not get someone who's devoted their life to civil rights? There are a ton of community activists who could actually bring a fresh perspective.
EDIT: I do not mean to question his particular qualifications or his commitment to change, only to comment on the fact that it could have been someone from a different walk of life. Tech leadership in Silicon Valley does not appear inclined to affect change.
Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors
#54I am sorry for him. I know as a fact that he’s brilliant and fully deserves the position, but given the circumstances (Ohanian resigning and calling for someone black to replace him) he will always have to live with people having the reasonable doubt that he didn’t arrive there for merit alone.
I doubt it. Anyone with the slightest knowledge about Seibel knows that he is super competent. What Reddit will judge him on will be what they perceive as hypocritical policy making; loss of subreddit and user power; and the lack of transparency.
I think most of the world doesn't have the slightest knowledge of him, though. This is really sad because everyone I see on here who does know him is saying great things about him.
Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors
#55Serious question - since Ohanian has publicly stated that he urged the board to replace him with black candidate, is there a possibility that could face an EEOC charge? Perhaps this doesn’t apply, as there may not be “applicants” depending upon how their bylaws are set up - without applicants I’m not sure who would have standing.
Just because Ohanian asked doesn't mean they had to do it. One can therefore conclude that they still chose a suitable candidate and would have chosen a differently colored candidate could they not find a suitable black candidate.
Reddit publicly committed to selecting a director based on race.[0]
Hiring and firing in the US based on race is typically unlawful, even if the candidate is qualified. You can’t use race as a qualification.
It’s a challenge to the laws, and I assume Reddit(or Conde Nast) wants to raise it.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&...
Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors
#56I really hope this doesn't mean Hacker News will start getting inspiration from Reddit, or that Alexis Ohanian doesn't get dillusions of grandeur and wants to turn this into what Reddit is (a profiteering social media company fuelled by ads and astroturfing). We really don't want that. What we have here is something quite special, and as far as I can see, unique on modern internet. It is a tiny slice of what the "old…
I mean, HN isn’t really relevant as an asset to ycombinator besides a advertising asset, right? It has a couple million monthly users, maybe 1 new feature a year, and runs on a single core. It’s more of a demonstration of Arc than anything, right?
HN is an asset to YC because the partners are degenerate HN junkies like the rest of us on here, many are worse.
More seriously it helps a lot with YC recruitment and is actually how they run a lot of YC. It also allows for YC company job listings as others have mentioned.
I don't think it's been written in Arc for a while.
Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors
#57Posing the question to gain more familiarity with African-Americans in tech: who were the other candidates for this position?
Do you not care about Asian-Americans or Indian-Americans in tech? You might need to check your privilege, your comment comes across as very racist.
Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors
#58Why stick to the insular Silicon Valley club and not get someone who's devoted their life to civil rights? There are a ton of community activists who could actually bring a fresh perspective. EDIT: I do not mean to question his particular qualifications or his commitment to change, only to comment on the fact that it could have been someone from a different walk of life. Tech leadership in Silicon Valley does not app…
Presumably the duties of a Silicon Valley board member would center on running a Silicon Valley company, which a Silicon Valley CEO would be uniquely qualified to do.
Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors
#59I am sorry for him. I know as a fact that he’s brilliant and fully deserves the position, but given the circumstances (Ohanian resigning and calling for someone black to replace him) he will always have to live with people having the reasonable doubt that he didn’t arrive there for merit alone.
I doubt it. Anyone with the slightest knowledge about Seibel knows that he is super competent. What Reddit will judge him on will be what they perceive as hypocritical policy making; loss of subreddit and user power; and the lack of transparency.
I think people are interpreting this comment as suggesting what this HN user will judge Seibel on. I don't think that's what arkitaip is conveying. I believe they are just stating the parameters that Reddit has often judged high-profile executives or board members on, e.g., Ellen Pao. The keyword here is "perceive."
Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors
#60Canonical source: https://redditblog.com/2020/06/10/reddit-welcomes-michael-se...
Ok, we'll change to that from https://angel.co/today/stories/reddit-names-y-combinator-ceo.... Normally we don't move in the direction of corporate press releases, but in this case the original article has so little information that we might as well.
Also, the other article's title ("Reddit names Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel as Alexis Ohanian's replacement") seemed to be leading to all manner of misunderstandings in the comments, such as Michael becoming Reddit's CEO, or Reddit taking over HN.