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

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

#91

Post by eco »

tptacek wrote: post #69
yokohama11 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kind of important to realize that those same users were angry at her for getting rid of a different woman. That was the trigger, being upset about a well-liked woman being fired with no warning. That kind of destroys your premise, IMO. The vitriol is terrible, but that's more a function of people being angry on the anonymous internet and saying whatever inflammatory things they can come up with to express that.

This would be clever had Pao been the person who fired Taylor. Wait, no it wouldn't. But either way, Pao's boss fired Taylor.

The only person claiming Alexis was responsible for firing Victoria was Yishan who hasn't worked there for 8 months and he based that on the fact that Alexis is Ellen's boss so he's ultimately responsible. Former employee kickme44 pointed out that Alexis actually reported to Ellen, despite his role, and Yishan then back peddles on his claims somewhat.

The fact of the matter is that we just don't know how or why Victoria was fired and we will likely never know. Everything so far is just speculation.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3d2hv3/kn0t...

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

#92

Post by onedev »

minimaxir wrote: post #2

To repost my comment from a previous submission: There's been a lot of meta discussion how Yishan Wong, Alexis Ohanian, and Ellen Pao have been talking trash to each other about Reddit and seemingly ignoring every NDA in the book. The comments made in the linked interview trashing a former employer seem to perpetuate this culture. It's weird . (although if you're planning on starting your own startup after a bad job,…

Even Sam Altman became furious and started talking trash to Yishan.

Though to be fair it was after Yishan accused him of perpetrating a "long con" to regain control of reddit.

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

#93

Post by disantlor »

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 women (i.e. more diversitiy of opinion and experience) in leadership positions?

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

#94

Post by jackgavigan »

cgearhart wrote: post #34
vessenes wrote: post #12

A recurring, and not-commented-on theme in each of these communications is that the board wants more growth. Reddit closed a $50MM round in fall of 2014, and has never had a strong monetization story. If the investors came in expecting major growth (since this is not a business with a great monetization story) it's not surprising that there's pressure and turnover right now, almost a year later. And, it may well be t…

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...

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

#95

Post by EliRivers »

Cacti wrote: post #61
amyjess wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible that she resigned after she tried that and they blew her off.

True, and if that's why she left that's fine with me.

You'll be pleased to hear that she really values you being fine with it, as do we all.

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

#96

Post by smrtinsert »

tvon wrote: post #74
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…

Not that I disagree, but it's worth mentioning (for anyone who doesn't frequent reddit) that firing Victoria was apparently Alexis Ohanian's decision, and not Pao's[1][2], which suggests that the pressure is coming from the board and not an endeavor specific to Pao. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/3d6asv/former_r... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3d2hv3/kn0t...

I find it extremely rare that the board is not involved directly in every hiring/firing for startups under some sort of business duress.

Total tangent: I did not understand the outrage at reddit. The management clearly let her be thrown under the bus by the conspiracy wackos.

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

#97

Post by tptacek »

eco wrote: post #91
tptacek wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be clever had Pao been the person who fired Taylor. Wait, no it wouldn't. But either way, Pao's boss fired Taylor.

The only person claiming Alexis was responsible for firing Victoria was Yishan who hasn't worked there for 8 months and he based that on the fact that Alexis is Ellen's boss so he's ultimately responsible. Former employee kickme44 pointed out that Alexis actually reported to Ellen, despite his role, and Yishan then back peddles on his claims somewhat. The fact of the matter is that we just don't know how or why Victo…

No. Long before Yishan's post, Ohanian posted on Reddit saying he both owned the reorg of AMAs and flubbed the transition with Victoria Taylor. It's not speculation. Consider also that by Ohanian's own direct words, the chairman of Reddit had an operational role over one of the most visible parts of the site. Pao was in a situation that would have been difficult to manage even if things had been going smoothly.

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

#98

Post by rsynnott »

Cacti wrote: post #47
mrgoldenbrown wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no basis on which to attack her character. Circumstances have changed significantly since she started. Why is your first assumption that she's weak? Victoria was fired for standing up for users. Maybe Bethanye was being put in a similar position and wanted to leave on her own terms rather than compromise her ideals.

He now, I'm not attacking her character, and I'm not calling her weak. What I'm saying is that there is no possible way anyone in that position, in that span of time, with all the personnel changes going on, could possibly understand the problem well enough both in technical terms and in terms of the management and resources and budget, to come to a reasonable conclusion that it's just impossible. Now, perhaps there…

She may well just have no confidence in reddit's current leadership, of course. Given the recent amazing behaviour by the founder and various ex-CEOs, that would hardly be entirely unreasonable. The whole thing looks like a complete mess.

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

#99

Post by spikels »

muglug wrote: post #32
jgrowl wrote: post #20

From what I've seen, being a CEO, CTO, etc is almost inherently a glass cliff. You either keep things running smoothly or you will get let go. Besides, Ellen wasn't even fired. She resigned no?

Ellen Pao resigned under intense pressure from the site's users. There was a petition with 250,000 signatures calling for her resignation, and a board which (according to media reports) was essentially letting her take the blame for unpopular decisions she had not made. Her position was therefore untenable, even ignoring the vile racism and misogyny directed her way by the worst of the reddit community.

The change.org petition got to 213,446 supporters when it was stopped shortly after her departure. Not need to exaggerate the facts to express an opinion.

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

#100

Post by rsynnott »

arprocter wrote: post #35
nateberkopec wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they've turned over something like a third of their workforce in the last nine months. It isn't just these people leaving, though they've certainly been the most public.

The media seems to like the gender war angle - the cynic in me wonders how many news stories have been written about the male employees who have left.

Well, the women who've left have been more prominent, by and large. In the case of Pao and Taylor, they were also extremely abrupt. The guy who organised the secret santa thing got some press, though.
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