Reddit Chief Engineer Quits After Less Than Two Months on the Job • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit Chief Engineer Quits After Less Than Two Months on the Job

#101

Post by jedberg » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 4:46 PM UTC

jackgavigan wrote: post #94

cgearhart wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the outside it looked more like Ellen was focused on improving the monetization prospects rather than focusing on growth. In particular, placing limits on abusive content and users would make the site more attractive to advertisers. Firing Victoria fit the same motive -- monetize the most popular product (AMAs). Reddit leadership wanted to explore ways to monetize that feature, and for some undisclosed reason Vi…

What I find intriguing is that fact that they have 160m unique visitors and over 7 billion page views each month, yet they generated less than $8.3m in ad revenue last year. That just feels wrong, somehow...

People have been saying that about reddit for years. They overestimate "average" CPM by about 100x.

People don't pay a lot for ads, and when they do, it's only on a fraction of the page views.

Display advertising will not be reddit's "cash cow", it will be one pillar of many sources of revenue. The good news is, Steve and Alexis both know this.

Re: Reddit Chief Engineer Quits After Less Than Two Months on the Job

#102

Post by JoergR » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 4:47 PM UTC

malandrew wrote: post #72

"The company is growing, and we have the opportunity to improve in many areas — including the number of women in leadership positions. I am confident in our ability to recruit women at the executive level, as we have made a point to do so at Hipmunk, where more than half of the executives are women." I don't know about anyone else, but comments like that make a company less desirable as a place to work because factor…

"I'm 100% in favor of equal opportunity," can never be followed by a but.

Re: Reddit Chief Engineer Quits After Less Than Two Months on the Job

#103

Post by geebee » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 4:52 PM UTC

This is a very interesting departure.

I understand that in the media, especially with the litigation around Pao and the scarcity of women in leadership and technical positions in high tech, that this would take over much of the discussion. Bethanye also mentioned a "glass cliff", so it's reasonable that this would be a big part of the discussion.

I am very interested in Bethanye's business-related decisions to leave as well, though. I'm nowhere near her level in any corporate hierarchy, but I am very frustrated with how difficult it often is for engineers, even senior or director (or "chief engineer") level tech workers to operate with the level of autonomy and decision authority that is often explicitly promised.

Maybe when the dust settles, if people are still interested, a journalist will have the opportunity to talk with Ms Blount about this. As a dweller on the lower levels of the hierarchy, although with "senior" in my title and all kinds of autonomy spelled out, I can see now that aggressively asserting this kind of autonomy is essential to a strong career, and you need to be prepared to 1) fight it up the chain, and 2) walk away, if other wings of the business try to cram you in a box and tell you that your job is purely to execute a technical vision that may collapse, and the upper level decision makers don't have your back.

Unfortunately, low on the ladder often means fewer options, which makes it harder to fight this fight. Higher usually means better severance, stronger networks, a better chance of a good placement in the next gig.

Anyway, as an engineer, this is the conversation I'd really like to have… though again, I understand that the issue of women in technical and managerial positions is also very important (and isn't necessarily unrelated, either).

Re: Reddit Chief Engineer Quits After Less Than Two Months on the Job

#104

Post by nostrademons » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 4:57 PM UTC

Killswitch wrote: post #68

vessenes wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would guess it's more like "I will be building out the product we needed all along, but now with intense board scrutiny, half the budget I wanted, a quarter the timeline we need, and a new CEO (who I may not like). I'm rich enough that I don't have to put up with this shit. See you guys."

> and a new CEO (who I may not like) Spez isn't just a "New CEO" he's the original programmer, CEO and co-founder of Reddit. He understands the community more than anyone could fathom someone could. Of all choices I think he's the best choice. He's focusing on bringing better mod tools, so being the technical lead, I'd be excited for these bumps coming up, not running away with my tail between my legs.

I think Spez is a good choice, probably the best choice, but remember that he's been working on a different, unrelated startup for 5 years now. A lot changes in 5 years. The Reddit community now absolutely isn't the Reddit community that existed 5 years ago, the Reddit codebase isn't the same as it was 5 years ago, the Reddit employee base and corporate structure isn't the same. It'll be interesting to see how well he adapts to the situation as it is now.

Re: Reddit Chief Engineer Quits After Less Than Two Months on the Job

#105

Post by 001sky » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 4:58 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #73

Balgair wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, right!? I'll posit Occam's Razor here and say that it is likely just children being children. From what I have seen on the /r/subredditdrama board they really are just sniping each other. It's like Mean Girls and these people really need to get out more. I have not seen this level of immaturity in a long time. However, my BS klaxon is screaming. These are major players in a top 25 website. They should be more…

"These are major players in a top 25 website." This may indicate the business model is dead. top 25 but no ability to monetize because the business model died while no one was looking. Think about it.. Consider a much more lofty position, like US News and World Report in the newsweekly market, they were top 3 at one point, out of business today. Have to face the facts, the reason for lack of execution in the marketpl…

This is why what Sheryl Sandberg did at facebook is hard. Places like reddit and twitter are fundamentally successful products. The content creators, who are basically working for free, creating stuff that grabs other people's attention.

Re: Reddit Chief Engineer Quits After Less Than Two Months on the Job

#106

Post by malandrew » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 5:09 PM UTC

malandrew wrote: post #72

"The company is growing, and we have the opportunity to improve in many areas — including the number of women in leadership positions. I am confident in our ability to recruit women at the executive level, as we have made a point to do so at Hipmunk, where more than half of the executives are women." I don't know about anyone else, but comments like that make a company less desirable as a place to work because factor…

FWIW, the litmus test I use to judge these things like what Huffman is engaging in is not my own self interest, but the self interest of my kids when I choose to start a family. I have a basically 50/50 chance of having a boy or girl. If I have a girl, I don't want her to inherit the world we have. If I have a boy, I don't want him to inherit the world we're creating.

Re: Reddit Chief Engineer Quits After Less Than Two Months on the Job

#107

Post by scrollaway » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 5:11 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #86

cgearhart wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the outside it looked more like Ellen was focused on improving the monetization prospects rather than focusing on growth. In particular, placing limits on abusive content and users would make the site more attractive to advertisers. Firing Victoria fit the same motive -- monetize the most popular product (AMAs). Reddit leadership wanted to explore ways to monetize that feature, and for some undisclosed reason Vi…

>In particular, placing limits on abusive content and users would make the site more attractive to advertisers. I see no problem with this. I purposely avoid recommending or even mentioning reddit to the people in my life because of all the horrible content on the site. I won't promote these subs, but there are many, many popular racist subs and subs that promote violence against women and, hell, one that is dedicate…

> I can imagine videos games, e-cigs, energy drinks, etc advertising there as these things already have a lousy reputation

Holy hell, you need to walk outside your bubble a bit.

Re: Reddit Chief Engineer Quits After Less Than Two Months on the Job

#108

Post by jedberg » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 5:11 PM UTC

thearn4 wrote: post #66

minimaxir wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That seems like an awfully low bar for someone in that position Given that Reddit has repeatedly said "our infrastructure/codebase is super-complicated" every time users have complained about server stability and the lack of features, that might actually be the truth, and being Chief Engineer is a task that's doomed to fail.

whoo boy, I recently did a contract job deploying a clone of reddit (directly using their source code on Github), and yes... it is a gigantic mess of ugly crap code and bizarre design decisions. I'm kind of surprised it works as well as it does.

It was last designed eight years ago and the design hasn't changed much since. It's not surprising that you found it messy.

Re: Reddit Chief Engineer Quits After Less Than Two Months on the Job

#109

Post by malandrew » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 5:12 PM UTC

disantlor wrote: post #93

malandrew wrote: post #72

"The company is growing, and we have the opportunity to improve in many areas — including the number of women in leadership positions. I am confident in our ability to recruit women at the executive level, as we have made a point to do so at Hipmunk, where more than half of the executives are women." I don't know about anyone else, but comments like that make a company less desirable as a place to work because factor…

There are so many subtle factors working against non-white-men that it's impossible to be totally aware of them all. Making a point of correcting (even if it's somewhat of an over-correction) is not a perfect solution but realistically its better than pretending there isn't an issue, or saying your for equality as if that's all it takes. You'd vote to remove Steve because he said one are to improve is in having more…

It's not longer more. His "making a point" has already exceeded 50% by his own admission. That's over-correction and he doesn't see a problem in that?

I'm in favor of people who try to achieve equality. When you adopt a policy that results in over-correction and don't steer back to a position of equality, then the side effects are indistinguishable from the disease it was meant to cure.

Re: Reddit Chief Engineer Quits After Less Than Two Months on the Job

#110

Post by jedberg » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 5:15 PM UTC

dimino wrote: post #62

Keyframe wrote: post #57

Apparently reddit has 71 employees. I would really like to know why reddit needs that many employees. It looks to me like an operation of maybe 20 people at most. That includes devops, engineering, social stuff and ads.

What's that quote about when Digg invited them to lunch awhile back? That Digg had a few floors, and were blown away by the fact that Reddit's staff could fit in a car? I'm guessing the old Reddit guys aren't touching this comment section with a 10 ft pole, but they tell it better than what I just wrote. I wish I could find the comment...

> I'm guessing the old Reddit guys aren't touching this comment section with a 10 ft pole

I'm a glutton for punishment. :) The comment was that they were shocked that the entire reddit team fit in a Toyota Yaris, including the beer we brought.