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A new team at Reddit

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: A new team at Reddit

#271

Post by rinon »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #238
anon808 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Daly City is 9.7 miles from the reddit office, for all practical purposes it sounds like Yishan wanted to just move offices in the same city; the Daly City part doesn't seem like it's important. Or am I missing something?

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…

"Suburban hellhole?" It's important to realize that many people hate cities, and would much rather live in suburbs. Why are there so many huge suburban areas around (most) large cities in the US?

Re: A new team at Reddit

#272

Post by golergka »

calimac wrote: post #115
minimaxir wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

October 1: Yishan wants all employees to move to San Francisco. Early November: "jk, we're moving to Daly City." Even though Daly City is a BART away, the fact that this decision happened in 1 month is absurd.

Moving an office like this scenario and timeline can and in most cases, does cause tectonic shift in the company's dynamic. There's a ripple effect through far reaching aspects of the employees lives that effect there work. On another note- Office location can be the most personal aspect of business to an exec processing the decision. A territorial undercurrent is in play.

Last company I've worked in moved headquarters 6,500 km. Most of the business-critical employees and developers moved with it.

All this drama about relocating office a couple subway stops seems ridiculous.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#273

Post by jmtame »

zorpner wrote: 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 )

I can say firsthand that company location is a much bigger deal than you'd imagine. Some people don't care, but others are extremely opinionated about it.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#274

Post by Cookingboy »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #238
anon808 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Daly City is 9.7 miles from the reddit office, for all practical purposes it sounds like Yishan wanted to just move offices in the same city; the Daly City part doesn't seem like it's important. Or am I missing something?

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…

"cool, fun, sexy"? It's a disgusting place with a corrupted government and 40 years old development policy and an even older infrastructure. Fun, sexy? How about not being able to find a single coffee shop open after 9:30PM on a freaking Saturday near Market St?

Any real world class metropolis like Hongkong, Shanghai, Tokyo or New York would blow SF out of the water in the "cool, fun, sexy" department.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#275

Post by JeskaD »

asaramis wrote: post #228
sama wrote: 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…

Ellen Pao. Harvard Law, Harvard MBA, time at Cravath (very, very fancy law firm) and partner at Kleiner (which I imagine most of us know) is now to be the head of Reddit? I am a firm believer that most media out there is not extracting enough value from their audience, or "under-monetizing", to use a ridiculous term. However, Reddit truly is different. I simply can't imagine someone with Ellen's professional upbringi…

She's been involved in Reddit for some time (at least a year before they hired her in early 2013) as second in command, I think she can handle it.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#276

Post by cma »

sama wrote: 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…

Re: "he had the original product vision for the company"

I thought Alexis et. al. originally started a company doing something else at the beginning of their application and acceptance to YCombinator, and Paul Graham had the idea for reddit and convinced them to do it instead of their original plan.

When Aaron Swartz was fired (edit: used to read quit) and the other founders of reddit tried to remove his founder status I remember being convinced by their arguments and being disappointed in Swartz.

When I later read the thing about it being Graham's idea it really changed my mind--the other founders' original idea was their own sort of Infogami (Swartz's original startup), and while they switched to developing reddit a little before Swartz, they ended up holding a much weaker exclusivity claim.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#277

Post by clavalle »

jacquesm wrote: post #257
anon808 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Daly City is 9.7 miles from the reddit office, for all practical purposes it sounds like Yishan wanted to just move offices in the same city; the Daly City part doesn't seem like it's important. Or am I missing something?

Sounds like a nice bike commute. Especially with the weather there.

There's nothing like biking 10 miles in the cold fog along a freeway...

Re: A new team at Reddit

#278

Post by thrownaway2424 »

golergka wrote: post #272
calimac wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving an office like this scenario and timeline can and in most cases, does cause tectonic shift in the company's dynamic. There's a ripple effect through far reaching aspects of the employees lives that effect there work. On another note- Office location can be the most personal aspect of business to an exec processing the decision. A territorial undercurrent is in play.

Last company I've worked in moved headquarters 6,500 km. Most of the business-critical employees and developers moved with it. All this drama about relocating office a couple subway stops seems ridiculous.

Daly City is a world away from 520 3rd. There is nothing of any kind worth mentioning in Daly City. There is culture, entertainment, education, recreation, and all the benefits of real city life steps away from Reddit's current office. In addition the building at 520 3rd has a tradition of housing famous Internet companies.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#279

Post by thrownaway2424 »

jarek wrote: post #225
SamReidHughes wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

9.7 in San Francisco miles is a long commute.

Also strongly depends if "Daly City" was "Daly City three minutes walk from BART" or "Daly City in an office park by a freeway somewhere"

Which is practically all of Daly City.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#280

Post by shostack »

ryanmerket wrote: post #181
shostack wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just playing devil's advocate here, and please know I mean this with all due respect, but you are a Product Manager who has been there 4 months according to LinkedIn. I do not claim to know the inner workings of Reddit, but can you really be 100% certain that you were privy to all of the meetings, etc. where such signs may have been observed? Again--zero disrespect intended here, but it strikes me as uncommon that a…

The culture at reddit is one of openness. We're also a super small team (about 30 in SF), so any kind of issues/arguments are easily recognized. Through the relocation announcement, the ex-employee issue on reddit, handling of the #celebgate, all employees and the board were supportive of Yishan for the most part. If there was any animosity, it certainly wasn't enough to call for his resignation. What Sam is saying i…

"This was the sole reason for Yishan's resignation, as I know it."

Thanks for the response. I think the above quote is the salient point here though. Everything you said may be accurate, but without actually hearing Yishan's side, I don't think it is realistic to expect everyone to take this at face value, despite Sam and Reddit's reputations.

Even if Yishan were to make a statement, I think there would still be skepticism as to whether people were getting the full story, vs. the "I still hold equity, am seeking new employment, and don't want to agitate the situation" version.

Not sure on whether he still holds equity or how that works, but would you agree that it is reasonable for people to be skeptical given the circumstances and recent events? The more I think about it--I'm actually not sure what could be done to prove beyond a doubt what actually happened. This seems like a black eye for Reddit regardless, and I and many other Redditors have valid concerns about Reddit's future as a result.

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