Live data from Hacker News

A new team at Reddit

blog.samaltman.com

261–270 of 379 posts

Re: A new team at Reddit

#261
Knowing nothing more about the issue, I honestly believe he's right in wanting to move the office out of the most expensive area in the Bay. It's a strain down the line.

Unless something fundamental changes in city planning I'd expect a certain degree of crowding out of that area.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Which is funny, considering most on Reddit are all about being progressive..

I don't think it's fair to conflate a progressive political ideology with website layout. The two aren't remotely related.

You can subscribe to a progressive ideology and abhor a dramatic redesign of a website. Just because someone is "progressive" doesn't mean they need to accept all change.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#263
post #120
post #85

I realize that this sounds non-credible (and it's certainly one of the craziest professional things I've ever been a part of), but it's actually what happened. Yishan wanted to move the office from SF to Daly City. The board pushed back but said we'd agree to it with certain data (we wanted Yishan to figure out how many employees would stay with the company through the move, get a comparison to other market rents, et…

I don't want it to sound like you are being dishonest about this, and it's possible there were things going on in Yishan's head that you were not aware of, but "a new team at reddit" in 8 days makes it a bit hard to believe this came completely out of nowhere.

i too doubt this was the only thing that suddenly made him resign. there has to be more that went on behind the scene that even altman is not talking about...

Re: A new team at Reddit

#264
post #85

I realize that this sounds non-credible (and it's certainly one of the craziest professional things I've ever been a part of), but it's actually what happened. Yishan wanted to move the office from SF to Daly City. The board pushed back but said we'd agree to it with certain data (we wanted Yishan to figure out how many employees would stay with the company through the move, get a comparison to other market rents, et…

Well paul graham did say "You could parachute [Sam] into an island full of cannibals and come back in 5 years and he'd be the king."

[deleted]

Re: A new team at Reddit

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't really scale well, however - if you're reading dozens of threads over the course of a few days, well, good luck.

In that case I'm pretty sure RES saves the state of the collapsed threads.

Yup, it does.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#266
post #85

I realize that this sounds non-credible (and it's certainly one of the craziest professional things I've ever been a part of), but it's actually what happened. Yishan wanted to move the office from SF to Daly City. The board pushed back but said we'd agree to it with certain data (we wanted Yishan to figure out how many employees would stay with the company through the move, get a comparison to other market rents, et…

Why are you telling the public of his reason for resigning? Isn't that something he should be allowed to do himself?

Re: A new team at Reddit

#267
post #85

I realize that this sounds non-credible (and it's certainly one of the craziest professional things I've ever been a part of), but it's actually what happened. Yishan wanted to move the office from SF to Daly City. The board pushed back but said we'd agree to it with certain data (we wanted Yishan to figure out how many employees would stay with the company through the move, get a comparison to other market rents, et…

I see a lot of negativity on this topic, but I for one am extremely excited about Alexis returning to Reddit in a more substantial way. I've been on Hacker New for a while (with different accounts) but have only recently started to use Reddit. Alexis is one of the most inspiring guys I've met ... lets just say I am a big fan. So, I'm really happy about this.

Me too, and it'll be interesting to see if/how he deals with what's become of his baby, once a democracy but now a "failed state ruled by warlords". He doesn't strike me as someone who'll turn a blind eye to the mod problems like the outgoing guy did.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#268
post #43

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…

Not being able to use redirects = non-starter. The first thing you learn when you work in the advertising industry is not to trust other people's metrics.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#269
This is such a strange thing to resign over. For cooler companies like Reddit and more name brand places like Google and Apple, location is not incredibly important for hiring, but it's HUGE for retention.

When you're excited to start a new job it's easy to overlook the commute. Things come into perspective 6 months later when you're wasting up to 1/12 of your life on a bus/train.

I've personally made this mistake and have noticed when interviewing candidates that one of the top reasons they give for wanting to leave their current position is that it's too long of a commute.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

San Francisco attracts startups and talent because it's a cool, fun, sexy place to live. Bright young talent demands those sorts of conditions. Daly City is a suburban hellhole. If “cities” like Daly were desirable places to live, Provo, Utah and Tacoma, WA would be IT meccas. The traffic in that region guarantees an ungodly commute by car for anyone who wanted to stay in SF and drive to Daly for work (1 hour commute…

SF cool, fun, sexy? Have you ever been there? I found it dirty, scary, and smelly.

Honestly I loathe the place. Not for any of the reasons you just listed. (“scary”? SF??)
Post reply on HN