Live data from Hacker News

Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

redditblog.com

381–390 of 393 posts

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#381
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> shareholders only get tickled So, how can we become shareholders of your company?

Get employed in their company, and after certain seniority and performance you'll possibly be able to negotiate share ownership.

Quite. We will never set the world on fire. No one is likely to become a millionaire but we all sleep at night and earn enough to be comfortable.

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#382
post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Section 2750.3 of the California Labor Code was added by AB5, and specifically excludes board members as employees.

Like many things around AB5, that's not straightforward. They'd have to severely limit his actual involvement to avoid employee status. https://www.natlawreview.com/article/do-directors-avoid-empl...

A director of the company will easily pass the ABC test anyway. Especially given that he's a director at lots of other companies and has an existing full time job.

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

While your comments on race being a reasonable factor are fair enough, you seem rather blind to the absurdity of another upper middle class ivy League democrat from a very elite clique being shuffled into another senior tech position on "my turn" basis being considered meritocratic. Let's not be too rose-tinted here...

I am not blind to it. I specifically mention it repeatedly in this thread. But I am calling out how that isn’t slung at most white executives with the frequency or strength of conviction that is directed at minorities. There is a baseline assumption that certain people must have the baseline competence to warrant getting an opportunity it just so happens the baseline fits things that white men have had greater access to in the past elite education, prestigious work experience, social networks of friends and allies among other markers. I am glad Michael had elements of those so he can ply a role in progress. I hope he uses that position to help others of all demographic backgrounds. I trust he will.

What’s your solution then? Easy to question the balance of my argument and not actually propose a constructive solution.

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be both. Humans are complex as are human institutions. Increasing representation won’t happen if we ignore human nature to hire people we know. Alexis knows Michael, he trust him from a shared history of working together. Unfortunately, there have not been as many minorities in the settings where these types of relationships are formed. But steps like this will increase that over time. So yes. I am clear. 1. P…

> It can be both. Humans are complex as are human institutions. I mean, yes, sure, but really not if you're reducing everything into very simple explanations like "it's the white heterosexual men". You can't claim "well, things are complex" when your explanation runs head first into the wall, your explanation claimed that they are not, that they are simple: that was the explanation. It's a problem when this explanati…

I am not reducing it in that way. I am saying that questioning whether michael is qualified is an oversimplification.

Why is Alexis saying he wants a black candidate the only factor people look at when their ready to declare this an unmeritocratic act? Why do they get to reduce this situation to one factor and ignore who Michael is and what he has done?

Claiming this is just about class ignores the reality of current circumstances of race and power in America and the arch of history. Class and race are tightly coupled in America by design.

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>I’m quitting >Hire a white guy to replace me If the roles were swapped, everyone would (rightfully) say he only got the job for being white. If your argument is that blacks don’t get jobs because a strict majority of whites harbor secretly racist attitudes and don’t hire blacks for non-meritocratic reasons, I’d say there’s no evidence to support that theory. In fact, Affirmative Action has made the opposite true. Ab…

But roles are reversed all the time which is my entire point. No one questions a white Ivy League educated board members qualifications because there is a baseline assumption that they must be qualified. Yet there is evidence that implicit bias plays a role in putting them there in the first place.

There is no evidence of racial bias except a ton of psychological research showing most people having elevated stress responses around people of different races, a ton is sociological research showing the lingering effects of past policies like Jim Crow, red lining, highway placement in large cities that decimated black businesses districts... on and on and on.

It’s naive to say all these clear effects exist, and there is a clear causal explanation in racial discrimination, but there is no evidence. The evidence is in the effects.

Do me a favor make duplicate copies of your resume with two different names. One a typical English/Anglo name and one of any other culture. Let me know if you get equal responses. I’ll bet you $10,000 you won’t get equal responses.

My dad did this in business school, and when he saw the results, he changed our family name.

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that no one says white people that hire friends--most of which are white friends from their childhood and school background--are racially motivated and yet the impact is white people hire more white people. This implicit bias might not be intended to be harmful, but it is racially informed. If we, as a society say we need to make a conscious effort to have more decision makers from a variety of backgrounds so…

"Except that no one says white people that hire friends--most of which are white friends from their childhood and school background--are racially motivated and yet the impact is white people hire more white people. This implicit bias might not be intended to be harmful, but it is racially informed." Except they do. In fact, you're saying it right now.

And I am getting down voted more than ever before on HN. You really expect me to believe that people question white candidates credentials anywhere near is frequently as minorities? How would you propose we identify an Ivy League candidate that benefited from a legacy boost or a large donation?

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#387
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do know that analogies very often compare too very unlike things for the express purpose of their difference, right? “Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face” is very rarely compared with cutting off actual body parts.

Metaphors, similes, idioms, etc are not the same thing as analogies. To make an argument by analogy the things you're analogizing have to be at least somewhat analogous. These plainly aren't. It's possible rayiner thought Siebel would become reddit's CEO. But other than that, it takes a great deal of weird intellectual contortion to compare 'captain' to 'board member'.

> To make an argument by analogy the things you're analogizing have to be at least somewhat analogous. These plainly aren't.

Plainly to you, but perhaps your mind is just overly constrained when it comes to analogies? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analogy

Captain is to ship as board member is to ______?

Captain is to helm as board member is to ______?

Captain is to first officer as board member is to _____?

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deep links are only hard because the base concept is semantic organization of your content, so you can deep link to one thing in an organized way. If your app isn't structured to present content like this, if it has many deep workflows or ordered stages of screens/states, then yeah it's gonna be hard to deep link into page 5 of the 11 page workflow you built, that also requires authentication and a bunch of data load…

I think we can safely say that Reddit content is organized in a way that should be conducive to deep linking (each post and comment thread has a unique and permanent URL). Their deep links generally work well for me though, unlike some other apps. I once had to implement deep links for a React Native app and, while I’m by no means a great mobile dev there were plenty of thorny bits. For example, I think iOS doesn’t o…

Someone already said it above, but I don't know if the blame lies entirely with Reddit since deep links from Safari to the app work fine for some of us. I've never had issues getting linked deep into any comment thread, for example.

YouTube links, on the other hand, never work for me. They always open in Safari and then I have to find a way to trigger the app link by opening one of the menus on the YouTube website.

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#389
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing good comes out of reddit that is not put into reddit from the outside. The good that comes from inside Reddit is the curation, as much as everyone likes to complain about it. They have become more proactive about banning hate and grief subreddits and have a system for reporting and shadowbanning bad faith individuals. If anything one could argue they come down a little too hard on borderline controversial s…

ah yes, come for the news, stay for the censorship

Cesspit echo-chamber anymore. A reflection of the communist society in which we're quickly headed. The doublespeak and gaslighting has a lot gotten worse...

Re: Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It can be both. Humans are complex as are human institutions. I mean, yes, sure, but really not if you're reducing everything into very simple explanations like "it's the white heterosexual men". You can't claim "well, things are complex" when your explanation runs head first into the wall, your explanation claimed that they are not, that they are simple: that was the explanation. It's a problem when this explanati…

I am not reducing it in that way. I am saying that questioning whether michael is qualified is an oversimplification. Why is Alexis saying he wants a black candidate the only factor people look at when their ready to declare this an unmeritocratic act? Why do they get to reduce this situation to one factor and ignore who Michael is and what he has done? Claiming this is just about class ignores the reality of current…

> Why is Alexis saying he wants a black candidate the only factor people look at when their ready to declare this an unmeritocratic act?

Because that's what he said. If he had said something about wanting somebody that can bring the community together, fix reddit's problems etc etc and then they came up with Michael Seidel, that would've been much better optics. This way, the only stated criteria was skin color. People tend to assume that the only stated criteria is the only important criteria.

> Why do they get to reduce this situation to one factor and ignore who Michael is and what he has done?

Because it has no relevance to the question. He could be the greatest person for the job in the history of humanity. They're not arguing he's a terrible fit. They're suggesting he wasn't hired because he's great at what he does, but because he has the right skin color.

> Class and race are tightly coupled in America by design.

That's obviously bullshit. If it were true, you'd have an upper class that makes up 60% of the population. Surprising fact: you don't.

Post reply on HN