Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

redditblog.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 393 posts

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#71

Post by ProAm »

tmpz22 wrote: post #22

I struggle to see any successful path for reddit that doesn’t devolve into being more like Facebook. Godspeed to the new CEO and I look forward to hearing their vision for the company.

What more is there to do with reddit? All their new ideas in the last 5 years have been poached from other social sites that did it first. It will always be a cesspool in the same manner that twitter and facebook with always be cesspools but that's more a reflection on society than management. They will always be pawns in the bot game, political game and advertising/sponsorship game because they are conduits only. Nothing good comes out of reddit that is not put into reddit from the outside.

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#72

Post by httpsterio »

mindfulplay wrote: post #17

A dumb but serious question: what powers does a board of directors have? In terms of day to day operations, engineering, product, marketing and so on?

The board basically control the management and directors of the company and sets the strategies and long term visions that the company directors then implement. In a day to day level, the way if achieving the goals are usually left to the CEO but sometimes there's also a so called operative board in which case the board is also present on a more direct level. The C-letter executives are responsible for hitting their targets set by the board, thus the board basically has a full say on everything that happens in a company.

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#74

Post by alexbanks »

whatshisface wrote: post #58
henryfjordan wrote: post #53

Why 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.

Which isn't great, because more of the same means more of the same.

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#75

Post by henryfjordan »

whatshisface wrote: post #58
henryfjordan wrote: post #53

Why 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.

This is exactly my point. They brought someone in who presumably is going to see Monthly Active Users as the metric to live or die by when what the world needs from Reddit/Twitter/FB is a more social-good focus. It might be worth it to shed a few users and lose a few ad dollars to make positive change on their platforms but with a Silicon Valley CEO on the board that is unlikely to happen.

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#77

Post by wpietri »

Digory wrote: post #55
adewinter wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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&...

One, you can't use race, gender, etc unless it's relevant to the job, but here it could be seen as being relevant to the job. Two, a board director position is not a job, and so it's not covered by this law.

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#78

Post by rat87 »

LyndsySimon wrote: post #16

Serious 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.

No

For one thing a board position isn't a job.

Also for some reason whenever a company tries to fight discrimination some people accuse them of discrimination, it's wierd

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#79

Post by airstrike »

mindfulplay wrote: post #17

A dumb but serious question: what powers does a board of directors have? In terms of day to day operations, engineering, product, marketing and so on?

Board of Directors represent the interest of shareholders. Management's incentives aren't perfectly aligned with those of shareholders so they are there to manage management, so to speak, and the long-term value of the company (to shareholders above anyone else, in the end)

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#80

Post by dang »

scythe wrote: post #51

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.

Board member, not CEO. The previous title seems to have created some confusions (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23483666).
Post reply on HN