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Reddit CEO Pao steps down

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kirblar

Member
That's if what Pao is saying is true. Who truly fired Victoria?

The rumors were that Victoria was removed because she was being pressured to add advertitising to IAMA's.
Victoria was reportedly also keeping people from letting PR handlers do the AMAs instead of the individuals.
 

Lashley

Why does he wear the mask!?
Lessee. Going from memory, there was the controversy over her decision to ban salary negotiations (to combat sexism because women are worse negotiators, her words, not mine), those subs got banned under her watch (which I personally find a good thing for reddit), the Victoria firing, she fired a guy for having cancer for too long (and he posts here).

And there's the controversy over her discrimination lawsuit which got dismissed, her hubbys ongoing fraud case and her curious monetary demands from her lawsuits, like demanding millions to stop appealing the dismiss ruling.

Wow. Scratch what I said.

Deserved the firing.
 

Briarios

Member
It's pretty obvious she was a bad fit for a CEO position at reddit. She didn't understand or care about the culture which led to a virtual shutdown of her organization. That will always be on the CEO of a business.

The moment she misread the sentiment on the issue, the writing was on the wall.
 
They chose a strange bunch of subreddits to ban. For example, r/coontown is still around (and Pao even said it wouldn't get banned). Also, the NeoGAF hate sub got banned despite it being an extremely small community compared to other hate subreddits.

Are the subreddits currently allowed to function as hategroups involved in the publication of people's phone number, addresses, etc to instigate brigades? Because that was the behavior that got the small handful of banned subreddits axed, wasn't it?
 
How long did she last, in total?

That's gotta suck when you can't even cut it as an interim CEO.

My impression was that she was brought in as an interim CEO to make the unpopular changes that the board felt needed to happen to move Reddit toward profitability. She gets to be the bad guy and the new CEO gets a clean slate.

I doubt the new CEO will be that different policy wise, but they will be positively received by the community. Things got more heated more quickly than they planned, but my guess is that this still hews pretty closely to the board's original plan.
 

ivysaur12

Banned
Reddit's response to the banning of the fatpeoplehate and related subs was totally unreasonable. Everybody started foulmouthing her. But it was actually a good move (the banning of those subs).

Then Victoria got fired without any explanation. A completely retarded and out-of-touch move. So the hate for Pao grew. In the end, the fatpeoplehate-fans got what they want. But that's not exactly a part of Reddit that you want to encourage. So it's an odd situation.

This is exactly where I am on this.
 

Sober

Member
She made out how she wanted. Aggressively climbed the corporate ladder and called foul for not making positions she wasn't qualified for. She lands this position, and despite still not being competant she now has CEO experience under her belt. She has enough supporters and a bolstered resume. This interim CEO stepping stone is pretty much what she was looking for following the fallout of her previous corporate role.
I'm sure reddit has a chip on their shoulder so if she even tries to do anything now they'll just either doxx her, swat her, or just flood her potential employers full of shit re: Pao to stop her from ever getting hired on anything like a board. I can probably say with a high degree of confidence that even after she leaves there will be people keeping track of her professional (and maybe personal) movements just to kick her back down. Hopefully that's not the case but some people on the internet will hold onto a grudge forever.
 

kirblar

Member
It's pretty obvious she was a bad fit for a CEO position at reddit. She didn't understand or care about the culture which led to a virtual shutdown of her organization. That will always be on the CEO of a business.

The moment she misread the sentiment on the issue, the writing was on the wall.
Bob Nardelli's tenure at Home Depot ended in a similar fashion- he tried to push aggressive Best Buy-style upselling and other types of retail sales (Product replacement plans) on the employees and it just didn't work whatsoever- consumers were completely turned off by it and it didn't fit the established culture of the business.
 

Tacitus_

Member
My impression was that she was brought in as an interim CEO to make the unpopular changes that the board felt needed to happen to move Reddit toward profitability. She gets to be the bad guy and the new CEO gets a clean slate.

I doubt the new CEO will be that different policy wise, but they will be positively received by the community. Things got more heated more quickly than they planned, but my guess is that this still hews pretty closely to the board's original plan.

Old CEO

I'm delighted to announce that Steve Huffman, founder and the original reddit CEO, is returning as CEO.

I'm sure reddit has a chip on their shoulder so if she even tries to do anything now they'll just either doxx her, swat her, or just flood her potential employers full of shit re: Pao to stop her from ever getting hired on anything like a board. I can probably say with a high degree of confidence that even after she leaves there will be people keeping track of her professional (and maybe personal) movements just to kick her back down. Hopefully that's not the case but some people on the internet will hold onto a grudge forever.

Or, you know, this

NBC said:
The woman behind a high-profile gender discrimination lawsuit against a Silicon Valley venture capital firm demanded $2.7 million not to appeal the jury verdict against her, the firm said Friday.

Attorneys for Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers included the figure in court documents filed in San Francisco Superior Court against Ellen Pao, and a spokeswoman for the company said Pao sought the money in exchange for not appealing.
 
Are the subreddits currently allowed to function as hategroups involved in the publication of people's phone number, addresses, etc to instigate brigades? Because that was the behavior that got the small handful of banned subreddits axed, wasn't it?

From what I can tell, the NeoGAF hate sub never posted anyone's info (after all, it'd have to be posted here first). They mostly just mocked every thread that got posted. And like I said, it was a very small sub.

Did r/fatpeoplehate ever post anyone's info either? I thought it was pics only. R/punchablefaces is basically the same thing and that's still up.
 
Can someone explain how the Chairman Pao joke was racist, and not simply a funny usage of her name akin to "PAO! RIGHT IN THE KISSER!"? She was also compared to Hitler. It seems more like dictator name + name pun.
 

injurai

Banned
Wow. Scratch what I said.

Deserved the firing.

I'm sure reddit has a chip on their shoulder so if she even tries to do anything now they'll just either doxx her, swat her, or just flood her potential employers full of shit re: Pao to stop her from ever getting hired on anything like a board. I can probably say with a high degree of confidence that even after she leaves there will be people keeping track of her professional (and maybe personal) movements just to kick her back down. Hopefully that's not the case but some people on the internet will hold onto a grudge forever.

So yeah, even though she was in the wrong over a number if issues. It doesn't change the fact that so many people have aligned themselves with malicious and unfair intent against her. Although she as an individual is megalomaniacal, there are a bunch of people co-opting the issues for their own bigotted message. Of course that will come with subsequent attacks as you've said. In some ways she has made her bed professionally, but it's a shame non-neglible population of the mob is maliciously vindictive.
 

aeolist

Banned
Can someone explain this whole reddit thing to me like I'm 5?

Cheers.

reddit is a shitty business that constantly loses money

they hire an interim CEO from a venture capital firm to try and make themselves profitable

she has an unrelated sex discrimination lawsuit going against her former employer, this makes reddit insane because clearly she is going to impose her feminist values on their site

a series of unpopular decisions are made, all blame is placed on pao accompanied by sexist and racist language by the metric ton

she resigns and a co-founder takes over
 
From what I can tell, the NeoGAF hate sub never posted anyone's info (after all, it'd have to be posted here first). They mostly just mocked every thread that got posted. And like I said, it was a very small sub.

Did r/fatpeoplehate ever post anyone's info either? I thought it was pics only. R/punchablefaces is basically the same thing and that's still up.

The neogaf subreddit had something to do with posting a minors pictures or information or something like that. There were a few posters that they specifically would harass.
 

Tacitus_

Member
From what I can tell, the NeoGAF hate sub never posted anyone's info (after all, it'd have to be posted here first). They mostly just mocked every thread that got posted. And like I said, it was a very small sub.

Did r/fatpeoplehate ever post anyone's info either? I thought it was pics only. R/punchablefaces is basically the same thing and that's still up.

The whole shitstorm started when they posted imgur.coms staff info on their sidebar. imgur was a image site basically made for reddit since everything before it was ass and the creator wanted a better hosting site for reddit.
 

Fox318

Member
The OP suggests that the board wanted to make money more aggressively and she stepped down because she disagreed. The main criticism against Pao is that she is making decisions that are bad for the community in order to make the site more money. Unless you think the explanation is a lie, isn't this "bad" even if you don't like her, because her board-appointed replacement would be even more aggressive with trying to make money?
Except the decisions she made want against how the site was making sure money.

She basically wanted to turn the ama feature into a curated video blog and animated employees that created services that got reddit famous to begin with (redditgifts for example).

The amount of gold users bought in the ama subreddit paid for tons of server time and due to the curated nature of each subreddit they don't have a hard time selling ads.

Pao was trying to expand their mobile platform in a way twitter did in trying to establish a 1st party app and new mobile website as well as making their search highlight communities first instead of related posts in the hope that users would stick to a subreddit for hopes of targeted ads.

Part of the reason pao got so involved with community moderation was because of the new money she helped raise and they wanted to implment dmca takedowns for articles and regardless of whether or not you think that is good or not part of a major contingent of users migrated over that so after the digg shitstorm.

Her biggest mistake was completely ignoring the volunteers that hold that site together. They spent too much time trying to sell reddit as a product for angel funds than trying to maintain the community that has made them such a huge pretense on the web.
reddit is a shitty business that constantly loses money

they hire an interim CEO from a venture capital firm to try and make themselves profitable

she has an unrelated sex discrimination lawsuit going against her former employer, this makes reddit insane because clearly she is going to impose her feminist values on their site

a series of unpopular decisions are made, all blame is placed on pao accompanied by sexist and racist language by the metric ton

she resigns and a co-founder takes over
She did make a huge deal out of changing the policy on salary negotiations.

That firing of that admin on their most public subreddit with zero communication to those mods and talking with media first before the community was what really did her in.
 

sangreal

Member
She was a shitty CEO and a pretty shitty person in general, so good riddance. Not that I have much faith in the Reddit founders either
 
Man, I really don't know how to feel about this. On one hand it shows the Reddit admins are serious about improving communications and mod tools. On the other hand the really awful bigots on Reddit will be enamored by this, and I don't really think Ellen Pao did anything wrong as CEO. I don't think it's fair to place her solely responsible for the firings (especially since her resignation post implies the board of directors were somewhat involved with that.) Not to mention the vitriol she got from the anti-SJ crowd was ridiculous.

Anyways, as long as the smaller communities I hang around remain clean I guess I'm fine with whatever.
 
Why is there so much hatred thrown at her? And why is her removal from her position a good thing?

Edit:
She was a shitty CEO and a pretty shitty person in general, so good riddance. Not that I have much faith in the Reddit founders either

What made her a "shitty CEO" and what made her a "shitty person in general?"
 

sangreal

Member
this is the shit i don't understand, how on earth can you claim to know her personality well enough to make this kind of judgment?

Due to their numerous lawsuits, there is tons of detailed public information on her and her husband and their personalities.
 

injurai

Banned
this is the shit i don't understand, how on earth can you claim to know her personality well enough to make this kind of judgment?

Her outward facing role as the CEO of Reddit took a megalomaniacal form. Which isn't what people wanted or needed. I doubt every waking minute she is channeling that, but it comes through in her work life.
 
the problem is that there are valid complaints to be had, but 99% of the commentary on pao is racist and sexist garbage

Yep, the internet.

I wish people would get, a LOT of that stuff does not come from a place of racism or sexism. But just from a place of, "Hmm, how can I most quickly hurt or annoy this person". People just like to pick the easiest most personal parts about someone and attack it, because a lot of internet people are shit.

So she is just getting the brunt of, "how can we hurt her?". The internet is shit, there is no fixing that.

(YES I GOT BANNED FOR THIS OPINION)
 
Lessee. Going from memory, there was the controversy over her decision to ban salary negotiations (to combat sexism because women are worse negotiators, her words, not mine), those subs got banned under her watch (which I personally find a good thing for reddit), the Victoria firing, she fired a guy for having cancer for too long (and he posts here).

And there's the controversy over her discrimination lawsuit which got dismissed, her hubbys ongoing fraud case and her curious monetary demands from her lawsuits, like demanding millions to stop appealing the dismiss ruling.

You should clarify. Her completely unfounded discrimination case requested almost exactly the amount that her husband was being sued for fraud. She brought that case up to demand money to pay for her husbands pending fraud litigation. They started planning for it awhile ago.

She's just not a good person.
 

sangreal

Member
Edit:


What made her a "shitty CEO" and what made her a "shitty person in general?"

As an example:

Kleiner attorney Lynne Hermle on Wednesday showed the jury an e-mail Pao wrote after her secretary said she would be late because she was helping her landlord who was in a car accident outside her apartment.
‘Help Your Landlord’
“It is great that you want to help your landlord,” Pao said in the message. “It would be better for me if you would come to work on time.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...estifies-of-conflicts-with-several-co-workers

Her miserable tenure at Reddit is what defined her as a shitty CEO.
 

Trouble

Banned
All those redditors thinking the next CEO is going to be on 'their side'.

6s37aO0.gif
 

Ri'Orius

Member
The whole shitstorm started when they posted imgur.coms staff info on their sidebar. imgur was a image site basically made for reddit since everything before it was ass and the creator wanted a better hosting site for reddit.

As I understand it they only posted the staff's photos?

Granted, imgur probably has leverage over Reddit due to the latter's dependence on the former, but as I understand it fatpeoplehate didn't dox anyone.
 

Crosseyes

Banned
A lot of redditors felt she was running a business and they want someone who can run a community
Yeah the lack in communication with their community leads was probably the breaking point. At least I would hope so. Else that would mean being ousted for not fostering the sexist, racist and criminally malicious sizeable parts of reddit that a good number of people on reddit want.
 

sangreal

Member
As I understand it they only posted the staff's photos?

Granted, imgur probably has leverage over Reddit due to the latter's dependence on the former, but as I understand it fatpeoplehate didn't dox anyone.

Yes, imgur banned fatpeoplehate so fatpeoplehate posted the staff photos from the imgur website and called them fat.
 
Did r/fatpeoplehate ever post anyone's info either? I thought it was pics only. R/punchablefaces is basically the same thing and that's still up.

Yup.

FPH images started to be removed from imgur because they didn't want to be involved with hate like that. So, in response, FPH started a campaign to harass the people running imgur. At the time the subreddit was banned, the admins had put names and information of imgur staff into the subreddit's sidebar.

So not only were the subreddit's mods complicit by not cleaning up that shit, they were directly involved in it. And that's what got them banned.
 

Fox318

Member
I do find it funny that they used the take it out with the trash or mentality of eelasing this on a Friday afternoon when arguably more people will be on reddit during the weekend than any other time.

Not really burying the lead there.
 

MrBadger

Member
From my perspective people were just using Pao as a face to direct all the rage at because people were upset about their fat hatred subreddits being closed down. Do people think this new CEO will re-open all the banned subs and encourage fat people to be harassed? lol

I didn't miss Chooter getting sacked, that was shitty. But the FPH banning is what got people obsessed with photoshopping Pao onto swastikas
 

Valnen

Member
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