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A new team at Reddit

blog.samaltman.com

31–40 of 379 posts

Re: A new team at Reddit

#31
post #8

Why did he write: "It’s interesting to note that during my very brief tenure, reddit added more users than Hacker News has in total." Was that a dig at Hacker News?

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Re: A new team at Reddit

#32
post #4

Nice words, growing it 5x is great. Resigning over office plans sounds like a last straw sort of thing. In the grand scheme of things office locations aren't that big a deal. But then again, Reddit has had some weird dis-coordinated public communications, maybe more cohesion really was necessary?

I think "growing it 5x" is referring to headcount, not traffic. That's certainly been my impression given the site is still just as unreliable and poorly administrated. Seems like someone is trying to revive "reddit the startup", with the VC cash infusion, dickhead move to the bay and Sam Altman asking Alexis to "finish the job" (what ridiculously embarrassing wording).

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Re: A new team at Reddit

#33

Relevant context: Wong wanted everyone who worked at Reddit to move to San Francisco in an attempt to increase cohesion. http://venturebeat.com/2014/10/01/after-raising-50m-reddit-f... Some speculated that the move was to please investors, especially after a fundraise. This announcement indicates that the investors...disagreed?

Odd, onewaystreet claims Yishan didn't want the company moved to SF: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8603996

Re: A new team at Reddit

#34
Wow, didn't expect this. The original founding team of Reddit were awesome.

1) Personally responded to feedback emails.

2) Actually cared about sensible moderation, instead of the terrible moderation practices that have taken over in recent years. Examples of reddit's recent problems: certain subreddit moderators perpetrating massive multi-million dollar scams by banning people who warned about scamming businesses. Moderators spamlisting competing photo sharing websites so that their own sites can get more traffic. All kinds of shady non-transparent moderator actions. I doubt these would have happened under the original founders' watch!

3) Generally seemed like nice guys. Too rare.

Hoping for great things!

Re: A new team at Reddit

#35
post #4

Nice words, growing it 5x is great. Resigning over office plans sounds like a last straw sort of thing. In the grand scheme of things office locations aren't that big a deal. But then again, Reddit has had some weird dis-coordinated public communications, maybe more cohesion really was necessary?

I think "growing it 5x" is referring to headcount, not traffic. That's certainly been my impression given the site is still just as unreliable and poorly administrated. Seems like someone is trying to revive "reddit the startup", with the VC cash infusion, dickhead move to the bay and Sam Altman asking Alexis to "finish the job" (what ridiculously embarrassing wording).

No, it's traffic. 35MM to 175MM.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#36
post #8

Why did he write: "It’s interesting to note that during my very brief tenure, reddit added more users than Hacker News has in total." Was that a dig at Hacker News?

I think it was a humorous factoid rather than a dig; I don't think Sam Altman is attacking HN, nor do I think he thinks, or expects anyone reading his post to think, that HN / reddit scale comparisons are meaningful given their very different intended audiences.

Fair enough! I was thinking that theres not much of a comparison to draw as the hacker news crowd are quite different to the reddit crowd. I'd come here for an informed discussion and expertise... and assume I'd get mildly humorous trolling, lolcats and memes on reddit!

Re: A new team at Reddit

#37

Does this mean that Reddit will start evolving again? It's been stagnating for years with few user-facing changes. The UI is a complete mess. From the outside at least, it looks like they've stopped investing in it and are just milking it until it dies.

This had little to do with Yishan, and more to do with having a user base that abhors changes.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#38
post #12

Heh. I love the conceit that anyone would believe Wong resigned only over "location and amount of money to spend on a lease". Previously from @sama: "Yishan Wong has a big vision for what reddit can be. I’m excited to watch it play out. " ( http://blog.samaltman.com/reddit )

Wong didn't want to move the company to SF. The board did. That's no small thing to disagree on.

I could absolutely believe that, and if it's the case that's what should have been said, not some technically-correct-but-obviously-downplayed pablum that insults the intelligence of every reader.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#39
post #8

Why did he write: "It’s interesting to note that during my very brief tenure, reddit added more users than Hacker News has in total." Was that a dig at Hacker News?

It's an odd comment given the fact that HN has never really tried to grow. There's a certain audience for HN, and it seems to be understood that growth for growth's sake can sometimes put that at risk. (anybody remember back when PG would ask everybody to post really obscure stuff for a few days when HN was seeing an influx?)

Re: A new team at Reddit

#40
post #12

Heh. I love the conceit that anyone would believe Wong resigned only over "location and amount of money to spend on a lease". Previously from @sama: "Yishan Wong has a big vision for what reddit can be. I’m excited to watch it play out. " ( http://blog.samaltman.com/reddit )

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