
Reddit's CEO Allegedly Fired a Worker for Not Recovering from Cancer Fast Enough - bennyluo
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3c0idl/i_am_dacvak_former_reddit_employee_and_leukemia/
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rhino369
Pao needs to be replaced. Whether the hate the community at reddit has is
justified, it does exist.

The company is begging for a reddit clone to pop up and steal the users.

~~~
bane
Her optics at this point are _terrible_.

\- CEO of a community-based site where the community doesn't like her (to put
it nicely)

\- Lost a very public lawsuit against a previous employer that revealed quite
a bit about her personal and work habits -- and it wasn't exactly glowing,
often downright damning.

\- Tried to recoup legal costs for the lawsuit she started and lost

\- Was ordered to pay legal costs to her former employer because of the
wrongful lawsuit she brought against them

\- spent most of the first parts of her Executiveship at reddit fooling around
with the lawsuit

\- It's strongly suspected that the damages she claimed in her lawsuit were to
cover her husband's financial problems

\- Her husband appears to be a real piece of work too

\- Fired a community manager in the middle of a community event, regardless of
the reason for firing her, it could have waited.

\- and now fired a cancer patient

On top of these perceptual problems. She also doesn't appear to have any
relevant leadership experience for running such a company. It's not like she
worked her way up to the top position by starting in the mail room and through
moxy and determination worked her way up through the management ranks.

She was a lawyer for 2 years, then spent about 3 years in BD/sales, then
managed a BD team for a few years and then spent the rest of her time at
Kleiner Perkins representing their VC investments before returning back to BD
at reddit.

Basically she went from a very short career in law, to a career in BD. She has
a total of 4 years of any kind of measurable management experience. A
transition from BD to CEO is fairly unusual.

Somebody previously here on HN said it feels like reddit is being taken over
by marketers, it's just as bad, it's being taken over by a Business Developer.

What's really going on here is that Ellen is trying to "clean up" reddit to
make it more palatable as a strategic partner for other companies to work
with. Reddit's wild-west reputation makes it difficult for many companies to
work with them. This is what her focus is, probably with the ultimate goal of
cleaning up the image for some kind of M&A. This is what BD people care about.
Not about the ins and outs of running a company.

Reddit _should_ be a much more valuable company, and I have a feeling the
board is trying to pivot it into more of a sales channel for corporate
partners to pump astroturfed advertisements to and to host special sales
events or mod dedicated company/product subs for a fee. There's not much
reason to continue to tolerate her at this point except that this is what they
want.

It's kind of what Digg tried to do, and it may be inevitable for these kinds
of narrow margin community-based sites that to start really capitalizing on
the community, they go this way. But maybe they're hoping they can make the
jump without screwing up as badly as Digg did. It's not looking that way
however.

> The company is begging for a reddit clone to pop up and steal the users.

This has been true for a _long_ time before Pao came on board. It's not really
clear what the reddit devs seem to be doing, but empowering the mods to better
manage their communities is not one of them. Something like Reddit is _not_
terribly complicated software-wise, the large number of alternate communities
(this one included) kind of goes to show it's an understood technology. It's
basically a community-in-a-box at this point. The network effects will
determine what happens next.

As far as these firings go, she can't reverse them. That kills any authority
she may still have.

~~~
icpmacdo
And now new Digg is capitalizing on the drama

[http://digg.com/2015/talk-to-us](http://digg.com/2015/talk-to-us)

~~~
mahouse
This is pretty pathetic. Also, if you look at Digg's front page, it looks
nothing like Reddit. I wonder how they will steal any user from them.

~~~
ironlady
When digg stole from reddit it was different, when reddit stole from slashdot
it was different... People are more likely to move to something new and
different, as strange as that sounds.

~~~
true_religion
But... reddit stole from digg.

I'm not sure if Digg ever stole from Reddit since I think Digg came first in
popularity for a long time.

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doe88
Assuming this is true. I don't know what it takes to make such a despicable
action, this is character defining. There was so many decent alternatives
there is no excuses for this behavior.

------
lcswi
Submitted site adds pretty much nothing to the original source:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3c0idl/i_am_dacvak_fo...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3c0idl/i_am_dacvak_former_reddit_employee_and_leukemia/)

~~~
dang
Thanks. URL changed to that from [http://nextshark.com/ellen-pao-reddit-
dacvak-ama/](http://nextshark.com/ellen-pao-reddit-dacvak-ama/).

------
claudiug
is possible in USA to get fired with no procedures, or not getting any money?

~~~
dragonwriter
Yes. Most of the US is employment-at-will by default, which means that you can
legally be fired without cause, notice, or compensation other than that due
based on work prior to the moment of termination.

(Now, there are still reasons for which it is illegal to fire people, and, in
part to avoid disputes over whether one of those were involved -- and, on the
procedural end, in part to actually work to resolve issues that might be
resolved short of firing -- employers will often apply substantial procedures
before firing, and even when firing offer a severance package, potentially
explicitly contingent on an agreement not to sue.)

~~~
iofj
It baffles me that it is legal to offer somebody anything "contingent on an
agreement not to sue". How are disputes resolved ? Especially in this case
there is almost a guarantee of a dispute, isn't there.

How would an employer defend that this agreement wasn't made under duress ?
That both sides were equal partners in the negotiation about such a contract ?

I'd think the right to sue about anything is the most fundamental of the
inalienable rights, because without it, the other rights wouldn't effectively
exist.

~~~
CyberDildonics
When leaving a company they can't make you sign something, because no one can
make you sign something.

But of course they can give something in exchange for signing something. You
can think of it as a mini settlement.

I don't think it is great, because many people will just sign things thinking
they have no choice, and the timing and mechanics of how these things happen
are often used against people.

I've had exit contracts given to me. They were full of things that benefited
the company and had nothing that benefited me. I said 'There's no benefit to
me signing this, what do I get if I do?' They didn't offer me anything, so I
didn't sign.

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paulhauggis
"In early 2012, he was supposed to move to San Francisco when he was diagnosed
with Leukemia."

"Fortunately, reddit’s then-CEO, Yishan Wong, allowed him to keep his job and
continued paying him until he was ready to work again"

So he worked for the company from 2012-2015..3 years. It sounds like at least
a year of this was spent in and out of the hospital and he continued to get
paid. It's not like he was fired on the spot.

Reddit gave him plenty of recovery time..and it just didn't work out in the
end. I see no problem with what they did.

"Victoria (aka /u/chooter) was, without question, one of the nicest, most
passionate, most efficient workers at reddit, and I honestly can’t fathom why
she would have been terminated. It was such an honor to work with her, and as
many mods have already stated, she truly took her work to heart and tried to
provide a service to the community. She was one of the most well-known admins
and was just incredible at her job. Without her, there would be hundreds of
incredible AMAs that would have never happened."

We only see one-side of the story. Why was she let go? We still don't know.

~~~
georgemcbay
The fact that we only know one-side of the story* is actually the biggest
"wtf?" in all of this, in my opinion.

That the reddit executive staff hasn't really addressed this entire shitstorm
publicly and officially by now is absolutely mind-boggling given what reddit
is. They are giving the impression that they still see this just as a
conversation between mods and admins and are basically ignoring the public
spill-over (except for Alexis' dismissive comments).

*(really we know less than one side of the story since AFAIK Victoria hasn't really talked about it publicly, which from her side is totally understandable for either legal [if severance is involved] or just not wanting to get blackballed reasons).

~~~
dogma1138
Do you really think that any legal department would allow anyone to comment in
such case?

Anything they say might lead to a law suit, in such cases if they comment on
anything it will be in the form of the most anemic press release possible with
every fact checked about 10000 times before hand.

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sp332
That emotionally sucks, but the guy hadn't actually done his job for almost a
year and still felt entitled to it?

~~~
itg
"During this time, I had sat down with Ellen Pao (current reddit CEO) to
discuss my future at reddit and when I was able to move. I had told her that
it would still be at least a month (but probably closer to 2 or 3) before I
was finally able to move to SF, and she said she was 100% fine with that. We
discussed my position, and ultimately determined that I would be returning to
the Community Management team. I met some of the new members of the team, all
was well, and then I flew home on day 3."

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heimatau
Can HN not get caught up in the drama of reddit? Please. (Btw, instead of just
down voting because you disagree, how about you try to discuss why you think
being caught up in the drama is a good thing)

~~~
dominotw
No. This is one of the most significant events on the internet today . A first
of its kind social phenomenon. This needs to be analyzed like everything else.

~~~
heimatau
Getting caught up in the drama won't add any value to the adolescence nature
of reddit. We could posts analysis talking about the details regarding the
matters at hand. But this submission is adding fuel to the fire of childish
behavior.

~~~
dominotw
>Getting caught up in the drama > childish behavior

You are the one who seems to be caught up on the drama by taking sides .

~~~
heimatau
No. This submission is clearly smearing one side, the CEO of reddit. This
submission is not showing a balanced view of anything. I'm not taking her side
nor am I taking the accuser's side. Both are being very emotional and I'd hope
that instead of being emotional and pointing fingers, that we'd be a little
more mature in the HN community.

