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I am Steve Huffman, the new CEO of Reddit. AMA. (2015)

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Re: I am Steve Huffman, the new CEO of Reddit. AMA. (2015)

#21

Post by Moto7451 »

echelon wrote: post #13
faeyanpiraat wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money corrupts, I guess?

Steve Huffman exited once before. Did he get equity to return again as CEO? I don't understand why he'd return instead of starting something new.

He surely did. It’s usually part of comp packages for any member of the C suite.

I was the second engineering hire at a lifestyle business turned VC funded startup. After we went public and I could see disclosures including how many shares were paid out to the C Suite. The board and some first time C Suite members got the same level of equity in their comp package that I had received over six years of working there.

Some replacement/new C Suite positions that had been in the C Suite prior received a few times what I received to start and received additional packages every year.

Rank has its privileges.

Re: I am Steve Huffman, the new CEO of Reddit. AMA. (2015)

#22

Post by FormerBandmate »

meepmorp wrote: post #10
lobochrome wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a private company. What else was it supposed to be about? Distributing VC money to users?

You could run a company that sustains itself and its employees, maybe makes a modest profit. You could just make something valuable that people like and want to use, and have that mostly be the end goal. You probably won't get incredibly rich, though.

Reddit has a fiduciary duty to it's shareholders. Spez is an employee, Reddit is mostly owned by a cable/magazine company lol

Re: I am Steve Huffman, the new CEO of Reddit. AMA. (2015)

#23

Post by t-writescode »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #19
deaddodo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the past few years, it's been getting less and less enjoyable for me, and since I stopped visiting on Monday, I've been feeling better, and I don't think I'll be going back. The reddit experience I've had in the last few days is actually the best I've had since I signed up 12-13 years ago. All the smaller niche subreddits I forgot about are back to front and center, all the community interaction is on AskReddit,…

Why will Reddit going back to normal stop you from enjoying the smaller subreddits? I use Reddit all the time and literally never see anything from those monstrous multi million user subreddits.

Discoverability. There’s a very real value in stumbling upon places you wouldn’t know to search for.

Re: I am Steve Huffman, the new CEO of Reddit. AMA. (2015)

#24

Post by PepperdineG »

lobochrome wrote: post #6
wackget wrote: post #5

His response to the top comment: > reddit has a lot of cash. Monetization isn't a short-term concern of ours. Yes, we will continue to experiment with different efforts so that when time is right we know what works and what does not. So it was always about money. Guess their "experiments" have concluded that pissing off your entire user base is a strategy which works.

It's a private company. What else was it supposed to be about? Distributing VC money to users?

Yes, in fact the most successful social media companies do just that. Reddit doesn't seem to be aligning its interests with the interest of power users unlike other social media companies. Reddit is really putting itself in a position of getting what it pays for, which it doesn't pay for moderators while at the same time is taking their tools away and also seems to be insulting them too. Treating major contributors as slaves hasn't exactly been shown to be the key to social media riches but the alternative has. Different solutions work for different companies, but one way or the other you have to align your interests with your users - especially power users - or else you'll just limp along, which this would seem especially true for social media companies.

Re: I am Steve Huffman, the new CEO of Reddit. AMA. (2015)

#25

Post by chubot »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #9
wackget wrote: post #5

His response to the top comment: > reddit has a lot of cash. Monetization isn't a short-term concern of ours. Yes, we will continue to experiment with different efforts so that when time is right we know what works and what does not. So it was always about money. Guess their "experiments" have concluded that pissing off your entire user base is a strategy which works.

> Monetization isn't a short-term concern of ours To be fair, we're not in the short-term horizon of 2015.

But I've been curious for the last week -- why isn't Reddit profitable anymore?

Did something change about ads since 2015 (likely) ?

Did their cloud costs go way up ? (possibly, since the redesign seems extremely slow and resource heavy, compared to the old site)

Re: I am Steve Huffman, the new CEO of Reddit. AMA. (2015)

#26

Post by bombcar »

babyshake wrote: post #17
baby wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that with massive communities like that, good feedback is lost in the ocean of shitty users overreacting. At some point you build up a shield and can't really have meaningful interactions with your users. I bet this is what happened with Facebook.

This also happens frequently with celebrities and pop stars. I'm impressed by the likes of Taylor Swift who at least appear to have a genuine love for their fans despite what must be a lot of pretty crazy behavior on the part of the most extreme fans.

Some of whom sue her, hehe.

Re: I am Steve Huffman, the new CEO of Reddit. AMA. (2015)

#27

Post by joshstrange »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #19
deaddodo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the past few years, it's been getting less and less enjoyable for me, and since I stopped visiting on Monday, I've been feeling better, and I don't think I'll be going back. The reddit experience I've had in the last few days is actually the best I've had since I signed up 12-13 years ago. All the smaller niche subreddits I forgot about are back to front and center, all the community interaction is on AskReddit,…

Why will Reddit going back to normal stop you from enjoying the smaller subreddits? I use Reddit all the time and literally never see anything from those monstrous multi million user subreddits.

It's like some people don't understand Reddit. You get to choose what you want to follow, you can create a multireddit with a subset of them, you can create a new account and hide all the big subs to let the little ones filter through. The world was always your oyster and yet people act like it took subs going dark to do that, it didn't.

If someone says they only see crap on Reddit it's their own fault. It doesn't take a ton of effort to cultivate what you want.

Re: I am Steve Huffman, the new CEO of Reddit. AMA. (2015)

#28

Post by colmvp »

deaddodo wrote: post #12
bittercynic wrote: post #8

I think reddit has run its course for me, and I don't think they're losing anything of value when I stop browsing. I've been using old. for years, and always been pretty strict about blocking ads. In the past few years, it's been getting less and less enjoyable for me, and since I stopped visiting on Monday, I've been feeling better, and I don't think I'll be going back. Reddit is saving a little on bandwidth since I…

> In the past few years, it's been getting less and less enjoyable for me, and since I stopped visiting on Monday, I've been feeling better, and I don't think I'll be going back. The reddit experience I've had in the last few days is actually the best I've had since I signed up 12-13 years ago. All the smaller niche subreddits I forgot about are back to front and center, all the community interaction is on AskReddit,…

Wow that brings me back. I remember being on AskReddit when it was relatively small (maybe a few hundred thousand subscribers).

My favorite contribution to that subreddit was one of the first logos. They held a contest and my submission was a drawing of Snoo with his bum facing the viewer with a dollar in between his cheeks. Ass Credit.

I can't believe people voted for it lol, but that was when the subreddit was a lot less serious.

You can still see the remnants of that work by going to old.reddit.com/r/askreddit: Hover over the Snoo's talking and wait for the tooltip.

Re: I am Steve Huffman, the new CEO of Reddit. AMA. (2015)

#29

Post by PragmaticPulp »

wackget wrote: post #5

His response to the top comment: > reddit has a lot of cash. Monetization isn't a short-term concern of ours. Yes, we will continue to experiment with different efforts so that when time is right we know what works and what does not. So it was always about money. Guess their "experiments" have concluded that pissing off your entire user base is a strategy which works.

> So it was always about money.

I'm more surprised that anyone thought it wasn't about money.

Reddit is a business. An unprofitable business. They have to do something to turn a profit eventually.

Re: I am Steve Huffman, the new CEO of Reddit. AMA. (2015)

#30

Post by mlyle »

chubot wrote: post #25
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Monetization isn't a short-term concern of ours To be fair, we're not in the short-term horizon of 2015.

But I've been curious for the last week -- why isn't Reddit profitable anymore? Did something change about ads since 2015 (likely) ? Did their cloud costs go way up ? (possibly, since the redesign seems extremely slow and resource heavy, compared to the old site)

Reddit was weakly profitable but now has done a ton of hiring in hopes of building a huge business and chasing the IPO money train.

They have 2000 employees now. They had fewer than 200 in 2015.

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