
Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief - jonmarkgo
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/technology/ellen-pao-reddit-chief-executive-resignation.html?_r=1
======
nhf
I think this was the right thing to do from a PR perspective. Having Steve
back as the new CEO will definitely be good for the community.

I also applaud Reddit's announcement for calling the community out on their
childish BS:

> As a closing note, it was sickening to see some of the things redditors
> wrote about Ellen. [1] The reduction in compassion that happens when we’re
> all behind computer screens is not good for the world. People are still
> people even if there is Internet between you. If the reddit community cannot
> learn to balance authenticity and compassion, it may be a great website but
> it will never be a truly great community. Steve’s great challenge as CEO [2]
> will be continuing the work Ellen started to drive this forward.

All in all, a good day I think.

~~~
Patrick_Devine
As an occasional user of reddit, this whole ordeal has confirmed the reason
why I prefer not to hang out in its forums. I have no idea whether Ellen was a
capable CEO, but the vitriol which I kept seeing peripherally (through other
news articles and here on HN) was absolutely appalling.

~~~
sbilstein
Honestly I'm so disappointed that Reddit's management allowed such a crappy
culture to evolve in their forums for so long. I remember signing on in 2010
and just feeling really uncomfortable browsing any of the major subreddits.
Why did it take so long to deal with characters like violentacrez?

~~~
Zuider
>Why did it take so long to deal with characters like violentacrez?

He wasn't dealt with. He deleted his account in a frantic and futile attempt
to avoid exposure.

Violentacres/Violentacrez (had to block him twice) set himself up as king of
the reddit underworld. The admins cast a blind eye to his antics, and in
return he prevented the raw sewage from gushing onto the clean streets of the
reddit front page.

He was a troll from the start, and deliberately so, even in his choice of
username which he had stolen from a popular blogger at the time. This
illustrates the kind of brinkmanship that was his trademark - it is not quite
impersonation to steal someone else's anonymous handle, but it is not quite
ethical either.

His one good point was that he kept the other reddit trolls busy via
interminable (literally) troll-fights.

~~~
vehementi
Wait, who is right, you or danielweber above?

~~~
Excavator
In so far as I can remember he had good relations with many on the staff and
even ended up with a special icon next to his username.

The /r/SubredditDrama posts in regards to the incident are correct as I
remember it:

Part I - violentacrez: [https://archive.is/7ygdr](https://archive.is/7ygdr)

Part II - CreepShots: [https://archive.is/8AVd8](https://archive.is/8AVd8)

Part 2 above ends with a link to VAs alleged last comments with an alt:

[http://i.imgur.com/E8fCA.png](http://i.imgur.com/E8fCA.png)

~~~
jsmthrowaway
The special icon was subreddit CSS added most likely by himself. Give me five
minutes and a subreddit and I'll make your username 72px. The admins didn't
bless him with a flag at any time.

It's a common meme that violentacrez was "special," had some kind of sway with
the admins beyond any other moderator, received instruction from the admins
that was unique and not the usual ban threats that many subs get in modmail,
and so on. Most people who say these things heard it from someone else,
because the _actual_ story is that he was barely tolerated. He even says so
himself in your linked thread.

I don't get the elevation of violentacrez to something special. I see it a lot
(friendly with the admins! The admins asked him to help with creepshots! it's
all over this thread) and I don't get it. He was a power mod. So are hundreds
of others. There are a bunch of Reddit yarns that put the Kubrick lunar
landing to shame; some of them are making an appearance in this thread.

------
MBCook
I don't like this at all.

Even if she wasn't the right person (I don't know), all the worst elements of
the site are going to see this as a victory for their awful behavior and it's
going to get worse.

The people who attacked her with sexism and comments about her personal
relationships. The people who supported FPH even though they were attacking
people in real life and off Reddit, not just posting comments in their
personal corner of 'discussion'.

She didn't do a good job of it, but at least she tried to stand up against
some of the worst of Reddit.

I worry heavily that if the new person doesn't draw a clear line at the start
things are going to get a lot worse in terms of hate/abuse/harassment.

EDIT: After posting this I saw Nilay Patel tweeted basically the same thing:
[https://twitter.com/reckless/status/619620964658245632](https://twitter.com/reckless/status/619620964658245632)

~~~
lingben
> but at least she tried to stand up against some of the worst of Reddit.

I'm baffled at how people misunderstand Ellen's actions in shutting down a few
subreddits randomly.

She did not 'clean' reddit of the worst of reddit nor 'hate' subreddits. In
fact, there are still dozens and dozens of really disgusting stuff on reddit
like /r/gasthekikes and /r/coontown

Let's please stop this false narrative that she was a champion of some kind
who came in and tried to 'clean up' reddit.

Not only are there plenty of reprehensible stuff on reddit still, Ellen's
claim that she targeted behavior and not speech rang hollow for the majority
on reddit because communities like SRS were and are getting away with the same
or worse behavior.

~~~
MBCook
Let's make three categories of things on Reddit. One is innocuous (or
relatively so) like /r/knitting or even /r/politics or /r/atheism. Perhaps
there are big arguments but in the grand scheme of things it's not bad.

Type two is /r/coontown or other hate subs. They're clearly offensive. I
wouldn't let them on my site if I ran it, but they exist. The key here is they
stay mostly to themselves. I wasn't aware of them before all this.

Type 3 are problem subs. Things like /r/FPH. There often offensive, but on top
of that they branch out to act in the real world or in other subs. They don't
stay confined to their one little corner but actually make things worse for
everyone. Never if your topic isn't flat out offensive doxing or causing
actual harm fits here.

What they did was a small hit against some of category three. It wasn't much,
but it's the most I've seen in a long time on Reddit. Given the amount of
stuff I've seen in the last year against various people in the games industry
in other places, some of that organized on Reddit, I'm happy to see something
done.

There are still tons of subs in category three that they haven't done anything
too. The vast majority of them. And I really don't care about category two
things, I'd be fine if I didn't wanted to ban those too.

By no means did she clear up Reddit. But at least I saw she tried to do
something, dipping her toe into the battle. And I'm worried I'll be back
sliding on that.

~~~
ori_b
> By no means did she clear up Reddit. But at least I saw she tried to do
> something, dipping her toe into the battle. And I'm worried I'll be back
> sliding on that.

The main problem I think most people had with it wasn't that there was action
taken. It's that it was arbitrary, there were no guidelines given, and there
was no consistency.

If there had been a set of community guidelines published, a week given for
moderators to rein in their members, and then the ban hammer had come down, I
doubt anyone would have cared.

It was probably incompetence rather than malice -- same as firing Victoria --
but the fact is that there were arbitrary actions taken with no explanation,
warning, or chance for people to prepare.

~~~
vehementi
> The main problem I think most people had with it wasn't that there was
> action taken. It's that it was arbitrary, there were no guidelines given,
> and there was no consistency.

There were all of these things. There just wasn't _completeness_ \- i.e. they
didn't (yet?) ban _every_ sub that was in "category 3" harassing people IRL.
It was not arbitrary: those ones were actively harassing people. There were
guidelines: they existed before, and she posted them in response. There was no
inconsistency: subreddits failing to meet these criteria were not banned under
this policy. 100% of people upset on these grounds are in the wrong.

------
pkorzeniewski
_“Ellen has done a phenomenal job, especially in the last few months,” he
said._

What exactly "phenomenal" has she done? Reddit works pretty much the same as
it worked several years ago, but in the meantime she managed to piss off the
majority of community, which is the only reason Reddit exists

~~~
lingben
Considering that it was Sam who brought in Ellen, what do expect him to say?
if that isn't enough to warrant 'corporatespeak' over-drive, consider that
Ellen really enjoys suing her employers and she still hasn't been able to
completely pay her legal fees for the last case she lost.

Do you really want Sam to speak honestly about Ellen in public and open
himself and reddit up to a lawsuit?

~~~
pavs
I think it was Yishan (former Reddit CEO) who brought in Ellen.

~~~
lingben
Yishan referred or suggested Ellen Pao, Sam and the board made the decision:

[http://blog.samaltman.com/a-new-team-at-
reddit](http://blog.samaltman.com/a-new-team-at-reddit)

------
bane
Right or wrong, fair or unfair, or whatever you think about Ellen, I think
most people agree that she had become personally and professionally toxic to
reddit as a brand and community and even if she did a great job from here on
out, it was going to be an uphill battle to restore community confidence in
her as a CEO.

I personally don't believe she had the right qualifications to lead a
community-driven site like reddit as it is today, but would have the right
qualifications if reddit was going to start making a serious pivot to a more
lucrative money making direction via commercial partnerships, advertising,
etc.

Reddit may _still_ go that direction, but Huffman won't have the same baggage
weighing him down.

(note: this will also likely feed the conspiracy that her turn in the head
office was a convenience for her lawsuit, now that she lost, she has no reason
to stay in that position)

I agree with other comments chastising the community for the
racist/sexist/whatever nature of lots of the negative comments against her. It
was childish and dangerous. She had enough issues worthy of reasonable
criticism that it wasn't even necessary.

I think this is a good thing for reddit.

------
notsony
> _Sam Altman, a member of Reddit’s board, said he personally appreciated Ms.
> Pao’s efforts during her two years working at the start-up. “Ellen has done
> a phenomenal job, especially in the last few months,” he said._

This is clearly nonsense, otherwise there wouldn't have been a grassroots
campaign to remove Ellen Pao from her role.

If Sam Altman honestly believes that Ellen did a "phenomenal" job, he should
reconsider his own position at YCombinator.

~~~
vanessa98
Seems like just yesterday!

[http://blog.samaltman.com/a-new-team-at-
reddit](http://blog.samaltman.com/a-new-team-at-reddit)

> I am delighted to announce the new team we have in place. Ellen Pao will be
> stepping up to be interim CEO. Because of her combination of vision,
> execution, and leadership, I expect that she’ll do an incredible job.

~~~
venomsnake
It is still incredible what she managed to do ...

------
devindotcom
Maybe I missed it, but was there ever any information on why Victoria was
fired, or whether Pao actually had anything (or everything) to do with it?

From where I was sitting, it seemed like no one actually learned the full
story, which might be confidential or take time to contextualize/safely
explain, and everyone immediately threw it on Pao's lap and downvoted any
holding maneuvers she and the rest of the staff tried to attempt. It was
poorly handled, sure, but it seems like there was a lot of finger pointing
before anyone knew what was actually happening. For that matter, do we even
know now?

If I'm wrong, though, happy to correct my ideas here. (grammar edit)

~~~
ncallaway
It was not made public why Victoria was fired. Neither of the parties are
talking about it, so generally it's unknown.

The /r/iama mods were not upset that she was fired. They were upset that there
was no transition plan in place.

> it seems like there was a lot of finger pointing before anyone knew what was
> actually happening

There was finger pointing _because_ nobody knew what was happening. Functions
that Victoria was performing fell through and — according to the /r/iama mods
— jeopardized the functioning of the AMAs that week.

~~~
pkfrank
This is what many/most have overlooked. Victoria _was the straw that broke the
camel 's back_. Her firing was indicative of the lack of appreciation /
recognition given to the moderator's, and was just another example of the
disconnect and (perceived) exploitation of moderator time/effort without the
proper support and tools.

~~~
magicalist
> _Her firing was indicative of the lack of appreciation / recognition given
> to the moderator's, and was just another example of the disconnect and
> (perceived) exploitation of moderator time/effort without the proper support
> and tools_

Which long predated Pao at reddit. But even giving her the responsibility for
this, nowhere is the apparent gross incompetence apparently seen by those
calling so vociferously for Pao to be fired.

------
minimaxir
Ellen Pao gives the reason for leaving on /r/self:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/3cudi0/resignation_tha...](http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/3cudi0/resignation_thank_you/)

> _So why am I leaving? Ultimately, the board asked me to demonstrate higher
> user growth in the next six months than I believe I can deliver while
> maintaining reddit’s core principles._

This is believable because there have been odd business decisions under her
watch, not just policy decisions. RedditMade, one of the intended revenue-
generating models for Reddit, failed while she was interim CEO. Alienating
/r/IAMA probably did not help.

~~~
kolbe
Reading between the lines and viewing her resignation in the context of what
she's had to go through in the past few months, she was harassed out of the
job by the user base.

~~~
return0
E. Pao and Brendan Eich are the two polar examples why the word 'harassment'
has lost its meaning.

~~~
j_baker
You're not trying to say the two are comparable are you?

~~~
return0
In what way are they not?

~~~
vruiz
Objectively? Pao was criticised for her present actions while at the job, Eich
because someone pointed at his past.

~~~
return0
... and he did a good job for years while she doesn't have much to show.
What's your point?

edit: i figure u re saying one was harassed more than the other?

~~~
vruiz
I was just answering your question. Some might think that context matters. As
in, what happened to Pao just comes with the job while what happened to Eich
was purely personal.

------
noir_lord
This entire debacle and the 'communities' (the small vocal part that acted
horribly) response pretty much hammered the last nail into the coffin for me
when it comes to reddit.

With the exception of a few niche subreddits and the (few) incredibly
moderated major subreddit's the whole place has become a negative pit with
horses beaten so badly to death Findus put them in their lasagna.

Twitter often feels the same way as well (I'm pretty much at the unfollow as
soon as someone acts like an idiot stage now).

Ironically the only social network I don't hate is Facebook and that's because
I have about 20 people I consider true friends on there, all signal no noise.

~~~
jerf
"With the exception of a few niche subreddits and the (few) incredibly
moderated major subreddit's"

Sometimes I don't recognize what y'all are talking about, and I almost want to
defend reddit, then I remember: I've _long_ since adjusted my reddit to be
virtually nothing but niche. My largest is ~320,000, but it's just a "Deals"
reddit. I've got two at 150,000, both very focused. And it goes down from
there.

I'd hardly know this was going on except /r/blog is essentially forced on to
your reddit front page.

It's just like Usenet was... subscribe to politics.vitriol.hate.anger and
rec.sports.flame, and yeah, you're gonna get idiots. Subscribe to
comp.lang.niche_language, get almost nothing but signal. Times never really
change.

~~~
azernik
What's wrong with Reddit is that politics.vitriol.hate.anger has a very large
presence in the default subreddits.

~~~
jerf
I strongly believe causality runs the other way... becoming a default reddit
puts you into an Eternal September that no community could possibly survive.

But in the end, the result is the same.

~~~
InclinedPlane
AskScience is a default sub, I think, and they've survived alright.
Interestingly, AskHistorians asked to not be a default sub-reddit for
precisely the reasons you've given.

~~~
noir_lord
They have something like 500 moderators though so there is that.

~~~
thelamest
They used to ruthlessly remove everything without an academic source, however
interesting - these days I feel more and more fluff is getting through.

------
dvt
Pretty much had to happen. To say that the Victoria situation was mishandled
is a severe understatement. I wonder what will happen with communities like
FPH and others (that have since moved to Voat). Will reddit lessen their
censorship efforts?

Time will tell. IMO, the problem at hand is that reddit is still trying to
make advertisers their bread and butter. And advertisers will never be overly
attracted to censorship-free spaces.

Even though I may not agree with her aggressively politically-correct agenda
(nor does most of reddit), I think it may have been a smart move from a
business dev. perspective.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _Will reddit lessen their censorship efforts?_

I doubt it. Garbage like FPH should have been dealt with _much_ sooner. The
reason there was a backlash about that at all, imo, is because they let it
drag out too long. Reddit was the friend-parent for so long that when it
finally came time to enforce some discipline, it came as a shock and felt like
a betrayal.

~~~
post_break
Where is the limit? Coontown, does that get banned? Sexwithdogs? Incest? SRS?
They seemed to hide behind the vail of harassment and not peak behind the
curtain of what reddit really is. Reddits problem is they said anything goes,
and then years later they saw what they created.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _Reddits problem is they said anything goes, and then years later they saw
> what they created_

Isn't that basically what I said?

> _Where is the limit? Coontown, does that get banned? Sexwithdogs? Incest?
> SRS?_

I genuinely do not know, but they need to find that limit, they need to be
transparent about how they came to that decision, and they need to be
consistent and fair about applying it to subreddits.

Like I said above, they tolerated it for too long, and then swung the hammer
down hard. If you don't house train your dog for three years, and then start
screaming at it for peeing on the rug, the dog isn't going to react well.

~~~
jellicle
Banning a number of subreddits that you can count with the fingers on one
hand, and zero users, is swinging the hammer down hard? What would be a light
touch, then?

~~~
chazu
FWIW tons of users have been shadowbanned for relatively light infringements
(posting about TPP on /r/news, posting negative news items about Pao on
various subreddits) since the 5 sub-reddits were shut down.

------
onewaystreet
> “It became clear that the board and I had a different view on the ability of
> Reddit to grow this year,” Ms. Pao said in an interview. “Because of that,
> it made sense to bring someone in that shared the same view.”

Does this mean that the board thought Pao was being too aggressive in pushing
growth or _not aggressive enough_? If it's the latter then the Reddit
community is in for a shock.

~~~
josso
Not aggressive enough:

> So why am I leaving? Ultimately, the board asked me to demonstrate higher
> user growth in the next six months than I believe I can deliver while
> maintaining reddit’s core principles.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/3cudi0/resignation_tha...](http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/3cudi0/resignation_thank_you/)

~~~
calbear81
I can see how growing users organically was going to be tough, especially with
the new community guidelines:

1) Pushing commercial IamAs was going to have a two-fold effect: increasing
revenue and increasing traffic. Traffic would have basically come from Fortune
500 brands paying to drive traffic to Reddit via TV, online ads, etc.
Companies today drive users to their own sites or to branded channels on
YouTube or Facebook but not to Reddit. Sponsored IAmAs might have helped
create a new stream of mainstream users but would have generated a large
backlash with the moderators and the current rules on IamA (non-commercial).

2) Banning morally dubious but wildly popular content - The Fappening BROKE
reddit. It drove so much traffic and introduced reddit to so many new users
that by holding themselves to now a different standard of community policing,
they are also banning from content that drives a lot of traffic growth.
Celebrity, gossip and scandal brings all the eyeballs and $$$ to the yard.

The only logical place for the type of growth they are looking for is mobile
hence the push for more video content and anything that capitalizes on how
people consume content now-a-days.

~~~
danielweber
#2 reminds me how reddit clamped down on the unauthorized nude photos, and
then shamed the community for its behavior (correctly, IMHO). But then someone
asked if reddit was going to refund all the gold purchased during and because
of it, and AFAIK the admins just stopped talking about that. (If they did any
more than say "that's a tough call" I missed it.)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/2foivo/every_man_is_r...](https://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/2foivo/every_man_is_responsible_for_his_own_soul/)

It's tough to have a conscience when you are getting funding for violating it.

------
puranjay
As someone who frequents only a couple of subs on Reddit (which were
completely insulated from this fiasco), I have no idea why people were so
pissed off.

So she made a bad decision. Big f _cking deal.

"She's killing the community!". Well, if your idea of 'community' is making
public rape threads (while you use a throwaway) and threaten to kill a person,
then maybe your community deserves to die.

Reddit has a _lot* of good. I've been there long enough to see it. But it has
a lot of absolute low-lifes clogging its sewers as well.

~~~
tmerr
I think users were pissed off because of the lack of transparency. No one knew
what the admins were deleting. It was up to the community to find out which
subreddits were banned and why. Further the admins never logically explained
their decisions, for example, to ban fph over srs. From the outside it seemed
like an arbitrary power trip. And for what? Reddit's moderation system is
perfect: let users form their own communities and moderate them as they wish.
Some of the communities will be terrible but that's the beauty of it; you
don't have to go to them. This system is what let reddit grow to the size it
is today. While hackernews takes a different approach (moderation at the admin
level isn't unusual) that is only manageable for a site of a smaller size.

~~~
jonlucc
It seems to me that HN is more like a single subreddit than Reddit as a whole.
The admin action on HN feels more like mod action on Reddit, because there is
no larger umbrella above HN.

------
iblaine
Being the CEO of reddit is a political position. And Ellen Pao has too much
drama in her life to be a good politician. Losing a sexual harassment case,
marrying a crook who stole millions...those are events that don't happen by
accident.

------
tacos
Yup, she did awesome Sam. Especially recently. (Makes me wonder how bad one of
these people would have to screw up in order NOT to get the happy handwave as
they're booted.)

I didn't even know who she was until "the last few months." Which have been a
parade of increasingly-negative press and idiotic behavior. And that's from
reading Reuters and the NY Times -- I don't even use Reddit.

\---

Sam Altman, a member of Reddit’s board... “Ellen has done a phenomenal job,
especially in the last few months,” he said.

~~~
tsotha
>Makes me wonder how bad one of these people would have to screw up in order
NOT to get the happy handwave as they're booted.

Meh. It's traditional. There's nothing to be gained from running down your
outgoing CEO. Besides, they hired her, so the worse she looks the worse their
own judgement looks.

------
robot22
The one take away I have from this situation is that we have an honesty
problem. People criticize Reddit as a platform of hate and vitrol, but as in
reality this only partially describes the entirety. They complain that people
on the internet are too free to speak their minds, but perhaps this is a
reflection on our society a place where honesty and the free exchange of ideas
is discouraged.

Response to material: [http://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/reddit-is-a-
shrine-to-...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/reddit-is-a-shrine-to-
the-internet-we-wanted-and-thats-a-pro#.mkVMY61GKa)

Food for thought:
[https://www.facebook.com/psiljamaki/posts/10153334440110516?...](https://www.facebook.com/psiljamaki/posts/10153334440110516?notif_t=like)

------
mcintyre1994
> “The attacks were worse on Ellen because she is a woman,”

@sama, how do you explain this claim without ignoring the community's enormous
support for Victoria Taylor?

~~~
reustle
Those two are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

~~~
Doji
This is nothing unusual. Ballmer and many other male CEO's have been treated
abusively. People only notice it more because she's a woman.

------
trhway
Seems like Reddit hired Ellen without checking up her references at the
previous job, ie. Kleiner, and now they harvest the same results -
insufficient performance and high scandals.

(note: there is nothing about her sex here - just read the case materials and
you'll see that she behaved just like a jerk at Kleiner - for God sake she
complained there that some assistant was using company fax to send brain scans
of dying from cancer mother)

~~~
jellicle
If you read the case materials, you discover her peers and superiors generally
rated her performance as exceeding expectations.

~~~
trhway
i did read the materials and discovered that they clearly understood that a
rattlesnake they've got on their hands and were very cautious to not get that
rattlesnake angry (and thus in particular very carefully worded reviews with
nowhere close to real "exceeding expectations") and were just waiting for her
to leave on her own ( they even paid her to do that if I remember correctly -
ie. she was more worth to them being gone than working for them )

------
ljk
It's interesting how fast people go from hating[1] /u/kn0thing to love[2] him
again

[1]:
[https://np.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/3bwgjf/riama...](https://np.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/3bwgjf/riama_set_to_private_over_mod_firing/csqg24d)

[2]:
[https://pay.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3cucye/an_ol...](https://pay.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3cucye/an_old_team_at_reddit/csz1gcn)

~~~
edkennedy
And then Ellen echoed his statement:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/3cudi0/resignation_th...](https://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/3cudi0/resignation_thank_you/csz1krm)

~~~
ljk
what is happening, not used to reading positive interactions on reddit with
that account...

------
return0
Isn't it already too late? How can a new captain save the sinking ship? The
new CEO would be standing on a double edged sword. If he reverses course
immediately claiming reddit an absolute free-speech enviromnent, the people
who wanted a safe-space will be disillusioned, if he doesn't the rest of the
users will keep seeking for another platform.

~~~
arprocter
I'd suggest that the 'safe spacers' are on the wrong site.

When anything gets as big as reddit there will always be unsavory things
posted - flying the banner of 'free speech' for so long and then suddenly
doing a 180 is what has made people annoyed

~~~
knorby
The site banned posting personal information has enacted various community
standards long before anything that happened recently. There is a pretty clear
history, intent, and common sense around banning communities from using the to
organize harassment and bringing other vile things into the world. They could
have communicated that better, but there is no 180 to speak of.

------
ksenzee
Reddit would do well to hire someone with experience in the association
management field. Those folks specialize in managing fractious communities
such that the volunteers not only stick around, they're happy to pay for the
privilege.

~~~
CamperBob2
But where are they going to find someone like that? Guess it's time to put an
ad on Craigslist.

------
sergiotapia
Ellen Pao was a scapegoat. She was the face of a lot of changes that didn't
sit well with the community. Now the people clamor, they remove her, and the
people are happy again.

Notice how they didn't mention anything about reverting the bad changes to the
website. ;)

------
lisper
So... who is replacing Steve at Hipmunk?

------
ChickeNES
Announcement on Reddit:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3cucye/an_ol...](https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3cucye/an_old_team_at_reddit/)

~~~
001sky
_Friday afternoon, eh? Someone took a PR class in college!_

\-- Top Comment on that thread

------
muglug
Will the anti-corporate brigades in these large community-driven sites make
turning a profit impossible in the long-run?

~~~
mindcrime
I don't think so, because the degree of "anti corporate" sentiment varies
dramatically from sub to sub. The thing is, it almost doesn't even make sense
to talk about "The Reddit Community" as though it was any one, unified,
cohesive whole, because it largely isn't.

~~~
muglug
Agreed, but there's a subset of the reddit community that passionately rallies
against comprehensive attempts to make the site more commercial in nature. And
now, with this resignation, they're likely to feel emboldened.

~~~
oldmanjay
I'm not sure that keeping them around matters a whole lot to reddit as a
company. People who resist monetization so heartily are unlikely to be
anything but a drain on resources anyway.

------
smitherfield
I'm sorry to see it go down like this. Redditors treatment of her got _really_
ugly (/r/all after the FPH banning was shocking) over the past few weeks, and
it's disheartening to see people's bad behavior rewarded.

~~~
throwaway54984
What about her bad behavior which affected many redditors?

------
myrandomcomment
As a CEO she chose to take actions in manner and method that allowed things to
spiral out of control. It was her job to control the message and blowback. She
failed at her job, therefore she needed to go. It is really that simple.

------
gesman
Wow, I applaud this development!

Now, if Victoria is coming back too - that's would be 200% right move for
reddit!

------
tptacek
Converting large-scale investor dollars into compelling returns using the
world's most entitled and monomaniacal message board: not, in fact, an easy
job. Pretty sure very few of us could do it either.

------
slr555
I think the take away may be that Ellen Pao is not the executive that
someone's hype machine purports her to be.

------
slg
I will be interested to see if anything changes regarding the management of
Reddit or at least the communities opinion of it. I wonder if the community
will chalk this up as a win and suddenly forget all of the reasons they have
been complaining which really have nothing to do with Pao in the first place.

------
kolbe
After seeing what Ellen went through, I think Sam will need to raise some more
funds to offer a significant pay bump to entice even mediocre talent to fill
her void.

~~~
tsotha
I doubt it. In a lot of ways she created her own problems.

What they need is someone who focuses on the business side. People on reddit
shouldn't care who the CEO is, and they _wouldn 't_ if they didn't feel the
CEO was making the site worse.

------
goldfeld
So can someone summarize the ordeal?

~~~
unchocked
Ellen Pao has been CEO of Reddit for 8 months. A month or so ago, Reddit
banned several subreddits for organized harassment behavior. Since Pao had
recently lost a gender discrimination lawsuit, aspects of the reddit community
pattern-matched the occurances as "Social Justice Warrioring" and engaged in
an organized hate-fest on Pao.

About a week ago, Victoria, the admin who coordinated Reddit's "ask me
anything" subreddits (interviews with celebrities for the most part) was fired
for unknown reasons. The optics of this were handled poorly, and the community
got enraged. Since the buck stopped with Pao, and she was already weakened due
to the backlash on the earlier issue, this second backlash revealed her to be
politically compromised, and thus untenable as CEO.

Edit: corrected tenure

~~~
GhotiFish
> this second backlash revealed her to be politically compromised

could you elaborate on this?

~~~
allthetime
In a very short period of time, a very vocal and visible part of the reddit
community basically took over the site lashing out against Pao (you couldn't
go there without reading about how Pao was ruining reddit). This happened once
with the subreddit bannings, and then couple weeks later with Victoria's
firing.

This powerful section of the reddit community's opinion of Pao is basically
ruined at this point, and any further perceived transgressions on her part
would no doubt lead to even larger, more damaging backlashes.

It seems the protests have had their intended effect and demonstrated to
reddit's management that the community is essentially what drives the site's
success (or failure) and that they need to keep this in mind when forming
plans for the future. Keeping Pao on as CEO was only fracturing the community,
so she had to go.

------
musesum
I wonder if a Law Degree runs counter to running a social network? Where
authority bumps up against anarchy. Imagine Peter Thiel running reddit. Both
Thiel and Pao have law degrees. Both have been lightning rods. I suspect a JD
comes in handy for some ventures. Such as Thiel running Paypal or Pao sourcing
funding for RPX. In both of those cases, it is about removing ambiguity. For
social nets, the opposite holds true. Because, ambiguity is the main product.

------
brock_r
Reddit: The world's largest drunken mob.

------
chaostheory
I'm not even going to debate whether or not she was an effective CEO. At the
end of the day it's about the lawsuit, and I'm not going to argue the merits
of that either. The only thing she should have realized from the start was
that you can't have your cake and eat it too. You either choose reddit or the
lawsuit. You can't divide your focus between both or you lose both.

------
Grue3
Friendly reminder that this very website widely supported a campaign to make a
black woman leave a board of a tech company. [1] And she actually didn't do
anything questionable while being on board, to warrant such an outrage.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7566069](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7566069)

------
15step
Great to see Steve back in the fold

------
golergka
So, there are two stories people use to sum all the affair up: either "the
witch is dead", or "pitchfork mob got what they wanted".

But neither of these stories really fit the information we have right now.
Both of them fit some of it, and look realistic — unless you look at the whole
picture.

The best conclusion we can have here is that we don't actually know what's
_really_ going on, just a bunch of facts and a couple of theories.

------
nohat
That article was more suited for editorial than technology. Pao was hated
mainly for things either done by reddit before her, or done by her before
reddit. Unfortunately, as leaders often are, she was held responsible for
both. That being said she was interim, and was apparently not aligned with
reddit culturally. That's an internet thing, not, as this article was so quick
to claim, a gender thing.

------
scobar
In the 24th Upvoted by Reddit podcast, Steve and Alexis talked about all the
great content and communities hiding within Reddit that go undiscovered. I'm
excited to see how they'll try to solve that problem, and hope they find a
great solution. Reddit is really great, and it's very cool to see both Steve
and Alexis back to enjoy and advance it.

------
luckydude
I posted this over on reddit but it got lost in the noise:

Cool, I guess. But after having spent some time on voat.co I think reddit will
get less and less of my attention (not that anyone gives a shit about me but I
suspect I'm not alone).

Reddit's management has destroyed any sense of trust I had in Reddit (I'm
looking at you /u/kn0thing, it's not just Ellen, my understanding is you fired
Victoria, right? And then grabbed popcorn [I know, cheap shot, but it appears
like you really fell out of touch]).

It appears that it is all about making money which I think is going to be the
end of Reddit for some of us. Reddit could have a decent revenue stream on
reasonable ads but that wasn't enough, it had to be more. That is really
troubling because the next thing you might decide to "monetize" is what each
of your users reads. That would make the NSA look amateurs and would be a
massive invasion of privacy. It would also be very easy to monetize. Given all
that has been going on, it would appear to be just a matter of time before
"user optimized marketing" appears.

Welcome back but the existing management has dug you a mighty big hole. I
don't trust you any more.

~~~
luckydude
Huh. I may have to walk that back. I just got back from cleaning up some Greg
Chesson's computers (he passed on) so I haven't been watching stuff.

Caught up and read Steve Huffman's stuff, he seems like the real deal, he
seems to care, be all over it, maybe he'll fix it. He at least sounds like
someone who gives a shit about the right things.

So maybe I'm wrong, it happens.

------
rayalez
Sometimes internet-hate is completely arbitrary.

Maybe she screwed up some things, I don't know, but from reading posts on
reddit it felt like an arbitrary cat video going viral - the amount of
attention was not warranted by the "causes".

Remember PG getting all the shit on twitter because of his misunderstood
statement about women?

Outrage is a powerful emotion, and people enjoy participating in revolutions
when it doesn't require any effort and can be done from the safety of a
computer screen.

I'm pretty sure 99% of people participating in this shitstorm had no good
reason to care about it at all, and did it just because it felt "fun" to
participate in something like this.

Also - way to teach an angry mob that they can get what they want if they yell
about it enough by giving in to their demands.

------
atarian
Even on the internet, mob mentality wins.

------
rocky1138
We keep hearing over and over again about how it's a small minority of vocal
people who spew vitriol in any community, but how about providing some real,
hard data?

Reddit has enough data and skill to identify approximately the percetage of
users who engaged in this type of behaviour at the very least.

I'd rather see the numbers myself than read a press release simply stating
something and being asked to believe it.

------
osetinsky
rough year for her

------
alhenaworks
Perpetual PR nightmare averted.

------
thirdreplicator
That's what you get for trying to turn the internet into Disneyland.

------
multinglets
Hey I've got an idea:

Let's all cry together because someone said something mean about a public
figure. In fact, I'm incapable of discussing any other aspect of this event
until this unspeakable atrocity has been addressed.

------
electricarc
This NYT report is as much detached from reality and propagandist as reporting
on support for the 2003 Iraq war. Is Victoria, the popular Reddit employee
fired, in support of whom all this affair happened, a male?

Attempting such a propaganda in this connected day and age is supremely
stupid.

------
neur0tek
quelle surprise

------
bedhead
During the KP trial I had always kept an open mind towards her
arguments...until I later learned she was married to Buddy Fletcher, one of
the biggest scoundrels and thieves in the investment world in recent years.
The character and judgment of a person who would fall in love and wed someone
like that says more than I can articulate. It's oddly reassuring to see my
(and many, many others') skepticism about both her judgment and motives
validated.

~~~
lingben
Everything about their saga is bizarre. Did you know that up until his
marriage to Ellen, Buddy had lived as a homosexual? he was living with a
partner of multiple years (Hobart “Bo” Fowlkes) and was openly gay. Not that
there is anything odd or wrong about that.

It is just rather strange how these two polarizing figures came together in a
union.

For more info and details see:

[http://www.vanityfair.com/style/scandal/2013/03/buddy-
fletch...](http://www.vanityfair.com/style/scandal/2013/03/buddy-fletcher-
ellen-pao)

And then there are the KP employee reviews and other internal documents which
became public as a result of the trial she lost that show Ellen Pao to be a
thoroughly unproductive and toxic employee who was given every opportunity to
shape up but was too busy engrossed in the internal office politics and making
'enemy lists'.

If someone made a movie about this stuff and the people involved, most would
think it too unrealistic.

~~~
golergka
> Not that there is anything odd or wrong about that.

I find it really strange when people talk about someone's personal life
details and then say that there's nothing odd or wrong about it. Especially
when right before that they say that their personal situation is "bizzare",
and the reader kinda expects to learn, what is so bizzare about it.

So, why did you bring his bisexuality up in that comment?

~~~
adventured
How do you know he's bisexual?

You're guilty of making a vast assumption about the context.

What would be wrong with a marriage of political or business convenience
involving no sex, if that's what it is? Obviously nothing. You've matter-of-
fact labeled his sexuality without knowing either way.

~~~
golergka
I just used the word to refer to the point made in the original comment. I
didn't really make any statements or assumptions about this person, and my
comment wasn't even about this person at all — my comment was about the
semantics of the parent comment.

------
generic_user
The knife cuts both ways. The clickbait media and various groups are trying to
paint the now predictable narrative of '50 white male racist misogynist neck
beards' who want to chase women out of tech again. Over 200,000 people with
legitimate concerns sign a petition to have Pao step down yet they still carry
on with there charade.

People are sick and tired of the media and a small group of militant activists
trying to silence people who they disagree with. They engage in all forms of
harassment, trying to get people fired, posting addresses and family pictures
etc. The most critical things against Pao and her husband I have seen are
posts about there phony extortion sexism and racism law suits. All of which is
factual information available to the public and even the media has to admit
these things are facts.

The clickbait media has to be called out more then anyone for trying to turn
every issue no matter how banal into a black and white battle between good and
evil and then fanning the flames on both sides. Its extremely cynical mostly
to drive traffic to there sites. There is zero accountability in the media
today and zero ethics. Everyone needs to be much more sceptical about what
they read in the press and there motivations.

~~~
squeaky-clean
> . The most critical things against Pao and her husband I have seen are posts
> about there phony extortion sexism and racism law suits.

What about the subreddit comparing Ellen Pao to Pyongyang [0].

Jokes about Pao with over a +4000 positive score [1] [2] Jokes comparing Ellen
Pao to Hitler. [3] I remember a post to /r/pics or /r/funny of Hitler's
Wikipedia page, with Pao's photo instead of Hitler.

I ran into some old coworkers (who take Reddit WAAAY too seriously) at a bar
during the weekend this whole thing was first blowing up. They were literally
talking about how Pao needs to die. Then they got drunk, forgot they had
ranted about her, and told me again how she needed to die.

This whole thing was really disgusting and made me hate the average Reddit
user. I'll still browse some of the smaller subs, but I won't be touching the
frontpage ever again.

[0] [http://www.reddit.com/r/paoyongyang](http://www.reddit.com/r/paoyongyang)

[1]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3c03y8/ellen_paos_car...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3c03y8/ellen_paos_career/)

[2]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3c05wq/what_sound_doe...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3c05wq/what_sound_does_reddit_make_when_it_blows_up/)

[3]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3c0b5p/whats_the_diff...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3c0b5p/whats_the_difference_between_ellen_pao_and_hitler/)

~~~
natmaster
What exactly is sexist about comparing someone to Hilter? Would the sexism
change if the person being attacked fit under another demographic? Is it OK to
criticize say Christopher Columbus because he is a white male. Please
enlighten me.

~~~
squeaky-clean
It's not sexist, it's just plain offensive.

~~~
natmaster
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bwGsOBTlhE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bwGsOBTlhE)

------
ElComradio
PR that comes out of corporations cannot be trusted. We cannot trust Altman is
being honest that he appreciated her efforts. We can't trust that her and her
husband were in love. All of this that comes out of spokesmen is carefully
crafted as a result of a numbers game.

When do we hear "so and so CEO did a horrible job and was forced out by the
board."? Never. So are we to believe there is no such thing as a terrible CEO?
Will we hear Sam saying "We made a terrible decision putting her in charge."?
Never. Even if it was the actual truth.

Pao does not get a pass on this dynamic for being a woman.

~~~
justizin
> Pao does not get a pass on this dynamic for being a woman.

It seems like she's been the subject of vitriol primarily for being a woman,
since a lot of the vitriol predates the past few days.

~~~
oldmanjay
As someone who has only watched this popcorn feast, I have the sense that she
was the subject of vitriol primarily for taking actions that people didn't
like. Many of the insults may well have targeted her gender, but that is not
the same thing at all.

I have seen literally no evidence that she was harassed simply for being a
woman.

~~~
Joeboy
It seems like the major source of antipathy towards her was the firing of
Victoria Taylor, which happened on her watch, but was actually done by a man
who is still at the company, and nobody seems to want him fired. It's entirely
possible I have some or all of my facts wrong, but this is what I understand
to be the case.

~~~
zo1
The point of leadership is to deal with these sorts of issues, and take those
hits when they don't pan out. It's like having your cake and eating it. On the
one hand, we use the excuse: "just doing his/her job" or "just following
orders", and then on the other hand: "Happened on his/her watch, by a
subordinate", as if it makes it okay. The blame needs to be shared (if
appropriate), and not shoved around depending on which side we are currently
arguing for/against.

------
scotty79
Corporations are like sea of cockroaches on the dark floor. They look vast.
Roaches have their little fights and wars, but when they make some random
noise and draw outside attention, it's funny to look how individual
cockroaches run away from the spotlight.

------
justonepost
Don't piss off Kleiner perkins, that's all I can say...

------
istvan__
I am opening a bottle of champagne and at the same time answer my own
question: it took 3 weeks for the community to get rid off a tyrant. Well done
Reddit!

Friendly reminder that if you are using downvotes for disagreement than you
are doing it wrong.

~~~
prawn
PG has posted on HN saying that downvoting for disagreement is fine.

~~~
istvan__
Any link or should I just believe you? I really like to believe everything I
read on the internet btw. :)

~~~
caminante
I found PG's comment[1] from over 7 years ago. Granted, HN has undergone
subtle voting changes since then.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171)

edit: yeah, the downvote threshold system was bumped up ~1 year after PG's
comment.

------
yegor256a
Who is Ellen Pao?

~~~
reddytowns
She is Reddit's Chief.

------
arprocter
I hope reddit has good legal representation...

------
pfisch
The real question is will Ellen Pao sue reddit now?

------
post_break
I think most people just let out a sigh of relief.

------
tosseraccount
There's a fine line between being polite and being so boring that it's
stifling. Every commenting site has it's herd mentality and punishment of
thought crimes.

Reddit users just wore it on the their sleeves and trying to suppress them was
silly.

It might turn into DIGG 2 pretty fast and might not recover.

The investors and the "community" are just too far a part on this.

------
kaa2102
That was quick but the corporate agenda being pushed flew in the face of the
Reddit community. Power to the people!

