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

341–350 of 393 posts

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#341

Post by cmdshiftf4 »

username90 wrote: post #337
username90 wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non American I don't know how you label things, but can this guy even be considered black? He looks like a regular person from southern Europe. https://news.yale.edu/sites/default/files/styles/horizontal_...

My point was, if they really wanted someone who have experienced discrimination against blacks why pick a mostly white African American who most would consider white if they weren't told otherwise?

Outside of the US, most people's experience with black people is with first-generation African migrants, or their second generation children. There are exceptions of course, but it largely holds true.

The US, however, has had a large black population for many generations now. Over time, many have mixed with other races in the US (as with every race there really) and consequentially you may have people that are 1/4 black genetically but who hold strongly to their identity as a black person. Often this has stemmed from racism i.e. if someone's child is a quarter black, they're seen/treated as black by other races and therefore it's the identity they form for themselves.

Shaun King, a prominent black activist, is an example of someone who on sight many outside the US (and many inside the US, from what I've seen), would absolutely not consider a black man, but genetically he apparently is and it's central to his identity.

Photo: https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150819225407-black-li...

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#342

Post by conradfr »

leesec wrote: post #134

Please get rid of the flow where it shows me other threads when I click on the comments of a current thread. I'm never going to switch to a new thread from the comments. I just want to read the comments.

The Twitter mobile site does this and it's infuriating. You read the thread and suddenly the content does not totally makes sense in the conversation, until you realize the dark pattern and that you actively have to click a link above to see the rest of the thread.

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#343

Post by cmdshiftf4 »

0-O-0 wrote: post #309
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am almost unwilling to advertise this, out of fear that they might disable it if it gains a lot of traffic. But... reddit has older versions still online. Desktop: old.reddit.com Mobile: reddit.com/.compact In fact you can just append the '.compact' to any reddit link on mobile and it will render it more sanely. The day either of these features get disabled, is the day I will stop using the platform. edit: typo

For now you can opt-out from redesign in reddit settings.

There's also browser extensions that will redirect all traffic to reddit.com to old.reddit.com, for those of you who want to browse the site in its ok-to-use form and not create an account.

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#344

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

antihero wrote: post #312
vecter wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very little in terms of day-to-day, unless a board director decides to make it his/her mission to change something at that very low level. The board meets typically quarterly (monthly depending on the circumstances?) and is generally focused on higher level questions like the company's growth trajectory and forecasts, major problems, compensation strategy, hiring key executives, fundraising, M&A, etc. Like I mentione…

So if they have a meeting every 3 months, what is the rest of their time spent doing? Sounds like a pretty cushy job.

Usually, the type of person who sits on boards sits on several. They collect a fist full of equity for coming to each meeting, and lending their supposed business expertise to steer crucial decisions. In the Fortune 500 world, they're ferried around by company-owned aircraft to boot. Yes, it's a cushy lifestyle.

And when you realize that it's these sorts of bozos who made the plans to acquire your company, lied to the shareholders about their intentions, and then raped and pillaged it, and sold it all off for parts, and ruined what was an awesome place to work, and you get bitter about this particular societal inequality. ;-)

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#345

Post by Emma_Goldman »

username90 wrote: post #337
username90 wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non American I don't know how you label things, but can this guy even be considered black? He looks like a regular person from southern Europe. https://news.yale.edu/sites/default/files/styles/horizontal_...

My point was, if they really wanted someone who have experienced discrimination against blacks why pick a mostly white African American who most would consider white if they weren't told otherwise?

This strongly conflicts with my perception. I live and grew up in Europe and, to me, he looks like a black person. I really don't think people would ordinarily perceive him as white. Plus, he worked for the head of the NAACP at one point, and is a friendly, supportive and encouraging guy.

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#346

Post by marcinzm »

jstgord wrote: post #87

Dear Reddit, for the love of Mike .. PLEASE treat reddit as a web-first platform. You are killing the golden goose by trying to force people toward the app - by gradually removing features and usability from the mobile web site and constantly reminding people they "should" use the app. I don't want reddit as an 'app', I want reddit to be readable/scrollable on mobile and web without any form of coercion.

>You are killing the golden goose

There was never a golden goose, Reddit revenue numbers are not good and have never been good.

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#347

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

jstgord wrote: post #87

Dear Reddit, for the love of Mike .. PLEASE treat reddit as a web-first platform. You are killing the golden goose by trying to force people toward the app - by gradually removing features and usability from the mobile web site and constantly reminding people they "should" use the app. I don't want reddit as an 'app', I want reddit to be readable/scrollable on mobile and web without any form of coercion.

This is precisely the sort of strategic, business-wide direction that is decided and set by boards of directors.

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#348

Post by Conan_Kudo »

rswail wrote: post #315
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?

They represent the shareholders. They usually have the power to hire/fire the CEO and other CxO level management. They run "the company on behalf of its members". They're expected to set the company's strategy, are responsible for the company's regulatory compliance, ensure that the company is properly reporting its performance to its shareholders, that it doesn't trade while insolvent, etc. There are "executive dire…

> There are "executive directors" that have management responsibility, eg the CEO and "non-executive directors" that do not. In the US, often the CEO and the President of the board are the same person, but that's less common elsewhere and is considered a flaw in corporate governance.

Older and bigger companies tend to have the CEO and President be different people (T-Mobile, IBM, etc.)

Usually, when the company is smaller, they are the same person.

Whether they are the same or separate people does not really matter very much in practice, since the board will often reset both roles at the same time in any circumstance where they do not like management.

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#349

Post by luckylion »

digitaltrees wrote: post #259
jimbob45 wrote: post #254

The most unmeritocratic job filling I’ve seen. He got the job for being black. They should have just employed the Rooney Rule to make things seem fair. This will just spurn the opponents of Affirmative Action that much harder, myself included. Weird that the NFL has the better idea here.

He got the job because he is friends with powerful people. He is friends with powerful people because he worked hard to be in situations with opportunity and proved himself repeatedly by delivering extraordinary results. The only reason his race is coming into play is that people realize that this self selection of white men will continue as long as the decision makers are white and chose to hire people from their ow…

> He got the job because he is friends with powerful people.

> The only reason his race is coming into play is that people realize that this self selection of white men will continue as long as the decision makers are white and chose to hire people from their own limited social circle, peer group, college, previous employer etc.

It feels like you need to make up your mind whether he has been hired because he's part of "the circle" or whether that circle is the evil white patriarchy that excludes people like him and Ellen Pao.

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#350

Post by johannes1234321 »

shubb wrote: post #338
johannes1234321 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even outside formal meetings board members typically use their network (connections or board posts in other companies) to push the company's agenda. Which can lead to business deals or have effect on law or whatever.

This makes a lot of sense now I think about it, but it does seem like institutionalized corruption? "We have 300K - shall we spend it improving our product or hiring an NED who happens to be VP at a big target enterprise customer?"

When (ex-)politicians take a board seat corruption certainly is an issue. (I don't say that it's always a problem, but still a common issue)

Within the economy itself board seats are given by the shareholders. Typically to tie investments together. If a fund is investing in company A and B they certainly want cooperation between A and B and place board members with such relations in there. This comes problematic if a strong shareholder uses this to shuffle revenue away from other shareholders into another company where they have a stronger majority (say investment fund F owns 50% of A and 90% of B and then fills A's board in a way to encourage the A company to buy as much consulting from B as possible) There (similar to democracy) minority rights and supervision by authorities like SEC is important. (While there is a school of thought, which argues that the minority shareholders simply should leave and the free market will handle this as an overpaying A won't survive in the market)

Post reply on HN