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A new team at Reddit

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Re: A new team at Reddit

#281

Post by BinaryIdiot »

dragonwriter wrote: post #254
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No this is not something to respect someone for. This is unprofessional and a liability; if anything Yishan said wasn't documented and documented really well the OP has a libel case. It doesn't even matter how true it was. He also publicly spoke out about someone's work ethic and performance of which we're only getting one side of the story anyway. If his real name is associated with his reddit profile then future em…

> if anything Yishan said wasn't documented and documented really well the OP has a libel case. It doesn't even matter how true it was. In the U.S. it does, since untruth is a required element of libel.

> In the U.S. it does, since untruth is a required element of libel.

The employer would have to prove it's true in a suit hence my comment. Paper trails are king.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#282

Post by jackmaney »

mcfunley wrote: post #83
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."

That was a thoroughly classless move on his part. The reddit or HN community might eat that kind of thing up, but it's recruiting poison. Anyone contemplating taking a job at reddit would have to think twice about working for someone who would permanently and capriciously destroy the SEO of a former employee like that.

Agreed. I don't think Reddit could afford to pay me the kind of money that I'd require to work there. What an awful place. Hopefully it'll be better now that Yishan Wong is leaving.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#283

Post by bane »

turnip1979 wrote: post #231
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No this is not something to respect someone for. This is unprofessional and a liability; if anything Yishan said wasn't documented and documented really well the OP has a libel case. It doesn't even matter how true it was. He also publicly spoke out about someone's work ethic and performance of which we're only getting one side of the story anyway. If his real name is associated with his reddit profile then future em…

Total outsider and I felt very uncomfortable how the dirty laundry was being aired publicly. I don't get this new model of business in the Bay area. One person posts stuff online. Then someone posts something online as a rebuttal. Don't these people realize stuff online stays with you forever and has consequences? Heck .. I change accounts every little while on HN (losing all my precious karma) to make sure I don't m…

> Don't these people realize stuff online stays with you forever and has consequences?

I call it "thinking with your tattoos". People simply aren't cognizant that decisions and actions have long-term consequences. You may really want that tattoo on your face, but it will make you virtually unemployable for the rest of your life. They're simply unable to project out complex interactions of consequences, their brain simply can't do the calculus or views it as overstimulus or something simply filters out everything to do with long-term planning and executive function.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#284

Post by hugs »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #270
legohead wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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??)

I was born in New York City, grew up in L.A., started a company in SF, and live in Chicago, but the only place I've ever been held up at gunpoint was in San Francisco at 4th and Mission.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#285

Post by bane »

scelerat wrote: post #167
bane wrote: 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?

> In the grand scheme of things office locations aren't that big a deal. Location is a make-or-break proposition for a lot of people. If you have employees with lives outside of the company, location will matter quite a bit. From the top, it might be easy to rationalize a decision that adds 20 minutes to an employee's commute time, but (hopefully) your employees aren't stupid. Time is money, and what they see is that…

I hear what you're saying. As an employee location does matter to me a lot.

As the CEO of a company that doesn't get my way w/r to where I want the office? Is the appropriate reaction to rage quit?

It's just weird, CEOs need a calm hand on the tiller, even if they're directing the ship towards bold maneuvers.

After this and the public employee debacle, I would not picture him as C-level executive material of a small company, let alone one the size and potential of reddit.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#286

Post by PavlovsCat »

jo_ wrote: post #48
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.

I'm guilty of abhorring UI changes. Very rarely do I see them as justified. I largely prefer incremental UI changes rather than grand overhauls. The latter seems to be a minimal increase in functionality and a maximal increase in glitz. I think Reddit has been taking the incremental approach, especially when it comes to rolling functionality into the main engine from all the (now less useful) browser plugins. That sa…

Personally, I feel it could be a bit more tabulated or lined up, if that makes sense? One tiny thing would be to change "submitted 10 hours ago by $username to $subreddit" to "$subreddit - 10 hours - $username", which I would argue is less "glitz", it's slightly less informative for newcomers to the site, but friendlier on the eye for repeated use, at least for me.

I'd also some subtle visual cues to separate posts from each other. I know it's not modern, but I still like the look of forums; lots of little boxes to me actually feel less cluttered than lots of little boxes with no clear boundary around them. And I feel similarly about HN, which could do with some application of max-width on the comments the very least (if not the "boxes with subtle gradients and tasteful hints of shadows" style I am so fond of)

Some things do help guide the eye, even a subtle gradient for example is a cue where you are scroll wise in a post that is larger than the screen; not that useful, but still not nothing, and I believe such things add up in addition to being friendlier to the eye. It's not about "design" for me, I don't like when that gets in the way of functionality either. Just keeping on iterating and smoothing things out.. I also don't like big overhauls, but I also always thought that while Craigslist proved that websites don't have to be shiny, it wouldn't have hurt it to have been made it a bit nicer over time. There is a lot that can be done without changing the location on the screen of any of the elements, just the looks and the space between them.

But since no userbase that big will ever agree on anything and the default is no change.. maybe give users an easy way to create and share their own styles, and use them on some or all subreddits? Subreddit styles are one thing, a wonderful thing, but I bet you this would spawn a whole new wave of creativity and fresh designs, and who knows, maybe that in turn can give pointers on how to improve the default look (or simply provide several as options). Even as is, there are many subreddits which are perfectly greyish white and decent, but still a lot nicer looking IMHO than the default.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#287

Post by strlen »

pbreit wrote: post #248
strlen wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the conflict is more cultural than people realize: an office in Daly City is tremendously easier to reach and if you're coming from South Bay -- essentially you exit the freeway and park. On the other hand, getting to a point in SF from the freeway and parking usually takes at least 30 minutes (in addition to the 30+50 minute drive from the starting point in the South Bay or Peninsula). SOMA area is reachable…

I commuted on Caltrain for 5 years and found too reliable!

Let me put it this way: I found Caltrain to be reliable on average, but the 75th percentile to be terrible. Major delays are going to happen multiple times a month.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#288

Post by strlen »

strlen wrote: post #218
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?

I think the conflict is more cultural than people realize: an office in Daly City is tremendously easier to reach and if you're coming from South Bay -- essentially you exit the freeway and park. On the other hand, getting to a point in SF from the freeway and parking usually takes at least 30 minutes (in addition to the 30+50 minute drive from the starting point in the South Bay or Peninsula). SOMA area is reachable…

s/but completely meaninglessly/but _NOT_ completely meaninglessly/

oops.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#289

Post by weixiyen »

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…

It's expensive. Difficult for commuters, even if you live in the city, just to get around. It's style over substance, and it attracts brogrammers, not "bright young talent", which can exist anywhere.

The guy grew the company 5x. I don't think attrition is the issue.

I assume he left because it wasn't his company anymore, it was run by the board. If the board can override his will as CEO and accept losing the CEO over office location, that by default means the board did not really value him. I would expect that hurts. Some things you can't prove with data, these are subjective decisions that fall into the realm of a CEO's responsibilities to look out for his team. It wouldn't be so far fetched to believe that Yishan felt that the board did not allow / trust him to do his job.

It's almost certainly not really just about office location.

Re: A new team at Reddit

#290

Post by phillmv »

rinon wrote: post #271
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #238

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…

"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?

You have to contextualize those demographic moves.

The post-war American suburban drive was in large part driven by economics and policy. Mortgage subsidization from the 30s with the Home Owners' Loan Corporation and the GI Bill in the 50s made loans available to mass consumers, while the HOLC's discriminatory redlining policy and the deindustrializing of cities (driven chiefly by lowered shipping costs) caused dense urban areas to become less desirable.

Mixed in with this you also had suburban-oriented urban planning (lots of highways, little public transit investment), brand new car driving infrastructure, low energy costs, lots of cheap land to expand to and in the 70s and 80s rising urban crime.

If you were looking to live somewhere, you had lots of incentives to prefer the suburbs. Today, most of these trends (energy cost, crime, job markets) have changed course.

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