A new team at Reddit • Hacker News Board

Re: A new team at Reddit

#71

Post by hiou » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 9:14 PM UTC

2 months after a $50 million round of financing and the lead investor of said round steps in as temporary CEO. You would have to be very, very naive to believe that this was solely a dispute on the cost and location of a new office. It seems fairly obvious that with the new round of investment Wong saw his control of reddit significantly reduced and his decision making second guessed and overturned finally culminating in his resignation. He likely already knew his days as the CEO of reddit were numbered.

This is purely speculation, but it's definitely not just a dispute about the office.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#72

Post by smackfu » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 9:15 PM UTC

heathwblack wrote: post #17

tdicola wrote: post #11

So do reddit employees still have to move to San Francisco in a month?

we are asked to move to the Bay Area still, but timing is flexible per employee. That's been the case since before Yishan stepped down.

Of course, once everyone is on site, it's very dangerous to be the one employee left offsite.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#73

Post by paulhauggis » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 9:15 PM UTC

gordon_freeman wrote: post #42

Recently watched the video of Ben Horowitz in How to Start a Startup class where he talked about How as CEO it is very important that you should take the perspective of Employees too. Got to know from recent article in NYTimes that Mr. Wong made mistakes twice : first by requesting company's global employees to move to SF and then replying aggressively on fired ex employee's post to justify the reasons. Mr. Horowitz'…

"then replying aggressively on fired ex employee's post to justify the reasons."

To be honest, this is what he should have done. One-sided stories without any sort of opposition on Reddit end up starting Internet mobs and people get fired over it (or forced to quit due to threats). This is exactly what happened with the Mozilla CEO. The culture of Internet mob mentality has created this environment.

"first by requesting company's global employees to move to SF"

I can see his point. I've worked remotely and not remotely more than a few times. When you work remotely, you really don't feel connected to the rest of the time and communication and overall progress does suffer over time. No matter how much you try to stay connected, it's just not the same.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#74

Post by Cookingboy » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 9:15 PM UTC

paulhauggis wrote: post #46

minimaxir wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relevant context: https://np.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2iea97/i_am_a_former_r... From the NYT: "That incident, according to people close to the company, made some of Reddit’s current employees uncomfortable."

He was being honest and I actually respect him more for putting a former employee that obviously was trying to get sympathy from the Reddit community, in his place.

Was he being completely honest? It was really a case of his words against another's words, and we don't know which parts were true or half-true or plain lies, from either party.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#75

Post by reduce » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 9:15 PM UTC

paulhauggis wrote: post #46

minimaxir wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relevant context: https://np.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2iea97/i_am_a_former_r... From the NYT: "That incident, according to people close to the company, made some of Reddit’s current employees uncomfortable."

He was being honest and I actually respect him more for putting a former employee that obviously was trying to get sympathy from the Reddit community, in his place.

Reddit is a magnet for people who have an unhealthy appetite for over dramatic "justice porn." That's all I'm going to say about your feelings.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#76

Post by thrillgore » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 9:17 PM UTC

benmathes wrote: post #62

thrillgore wrote: post #19

This came out of the blue and unannounced on reddit.com. I have a feeling there's more to this than announced. I will remind you a few weeks back Yishan shit all over an ex-employee on /r/ama.

though, it seems, that employee was incorreclty shitting all over reddit. The situation appears far grayer than "CEO shits on employee"

Agreed, but it is very very uncharacteristic to show up and just respond in kind.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#77

Post by cpeterso » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 9:17 PM UTC

zorpner wrote: post #38

onewaystreet wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The disagreement about "location and amount of money to spend on a lease" sounds like code for "disagreement on whether we need an SF office big enough to consolidate all our remote workers or not."

Re: A new team at Reddit

#78

Post by mschaecher » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 9:19 PM UTC

rsync wrote: post #43

brianpgordon wrote: post #26

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.

Also, let me point out that advertising on reddit is a royal pain in the ass. They have all kinds of broken processes and weird quirks that have not been fixed since we started trying to advertise there in 2011. We recently went back to try some new campaigns there and none of it was fixed. I'm sure if you're doing big media buys (ie., you're microsoft) they will just do it all for you, but from the standpoint of the…

This. I've been back multiple times over the years to run some small campaigns for some big startups there and can't believe how bad and rough around edges their tools and processes are.

If I didn't love reddit so much there is no way I would've put up with them to run a small campaign.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#79

Post by debacle » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 9:19 PM UTC

smackfu wrote: post #65

brianpgordon wrote: post #26

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.

"Stagnating" with huge user / traffic growth is bad thing?

When you're never going to be profitable, yes.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#80

Post by humanrebar » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 9:20 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #49

[deleted] wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Having a PR drone respond on Reddit would be like throwing yourself into a river full of piranhas. The response was appropriate based on the culture of the community (i.e. "no bullshit").

> ...based on the culture of the community (i.e. "no bullshit").

I didn't realize Reddit has the same culture as Bill O'Reilly.

In all seriousness, the Reddit culture is "only my bullshit", just like any "no spin", "no bias", "no B.S.", "straight talk", etc. community/person out there.