I'm probably gonna submit a talk to this summit this year! Been going to GDC as a volunteer since 2005, I've always wanted to talk more about online services development for sometime. So glad to see this happening!
IIRC YouTube Gaming was created to establish streaming on YouTube. When it was created, they didn't allow streaming on the main YouTube app. That all changed in about 2015, when they started bringing the livestreams in to YouTube proper.
I don't think Freedom of the Press is dead. WikiLeaks isn't a news organization, especially when they released campaign emails during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. They have been to be a known tool for the Russian government, even going as far as creating a show for Julian Assange on the state-backed RT TV Network.
Yes, they are a news organization. Covering the election is what a news organization should do, and it's hard to argue the Clinton emails weren't newsworthy.
>They have been to be a known tool for the Russian government, even going as far as creating a show for Julian Assange on the state-backed RT TV Network
This is untrue. There is nothing suggesting that Wikileaks has knowingly coordinated with Russia. And that TV show was indepently produced by Assange, with RT buying some ofthe distribution rights.
If they are a news organization, they do a terrible job of reporting the news. They are a black box repository for leaked data. They were once a great resource for info hackers and leakers to push their data, like back in 2008/2009. But that was before news organizations started using their own secure drop servers for sources. Once WikiLeaks sources started to not go to them, they started to look for other benefactors and sources. They found it in the Russian Government.
Again, nothing suggesting they are knowingly working with the Russians.
Wikileaks quality has surely dropped. They are still the press, and any prosecution by the US will be over things like the Manning links, a direct attack on the freedom of the press.
OK, there is evidence that Assange sold the broadcast rights of a show to a Russian controlled news organization. Do you think that Jesse Ventura should also be prosecuted?
I don't think Assange should be prosecuted for appearing on Russian state TV. (Does anyone?)
While it may be technically true to say that he "sold the rights" to Russia Today, that's arguably a little misleading, as the show first aired on RT, and RT had exclusive initial rights to it.
>I don't think Assange should be prosecuted for appearing on Russian state TV. (Does anyone?
People use his television show to claim he's a paid operative of Russia. The same narrative can be made of Ventura, and any reason Assange should be prosecuted but not Ventura seems sketchy.
>While it may be technically true to say that he "sold the rights" to Russia Today, that's arguably a little misleading, as the show first aired on RT, and RT had exclusive initial rights to it.
They bought the initial rights in several languages, not exclusive, but he did not make the show for RT. That's a fairly clear distinction.
No-one is suggesting that Assange should be prosecuted for making a TV show, so I don't see what you're getting at with the Ventura comparison.
What you can't do is claim that it's somehow normal for someone who claims to be anti-authoritarian to appear on Russian state TV and take Kremlin money. The TV show is one of many examples of unusually close connections between Assange and the Russian state:
>What you can't do is claim that it's somehow normal for someone who claims to be anti-authoritarian to appear on Russian state TV and take Kremlin money.
First, this also describes Ventura.
Second, claiming to be anti-authoritarian while accepting help from a clearly authoritarian Kremlin describes the US in WWII.
None of those connections suggest he's coordinating with Russia, just that their interests sometimes align. I'm sure he'd take US money and appear on PBS too if given the opportunity.
I don't really know anything about Jesse Ventura, and still don't understand why you keep bringing him up. If he's done everything that Assange has done, then I don't like him either.
> I'm sure he'd take US money and appear on PBS too if given the opportunity.
Ah, the Captain Renault defense. (Sure, I collaborate with the Nazis, but I'd just as soon collaborate with the other side if they were winning!)
Ventura has a show that is on RT. You quoted my statement
>Again, nothing suggesting they are knowingly working with the Russians
And replied with a link to Assanges' show. I'll admit, "working" is too vague of a word to use, all my other posts use "collaborate," as selling the show to RT could be called "working with." However, if that contact is the damning evidence that you claim it is, the same evidence is available linking Ventura (and Larry King) to the Kremlin. Why aren't you calling for them to receive the same treatment?
>Ah, the Captain Renault defense. . (Sure, I collaborate with the Nazis, but I'd just as soon collaborate with the other side if they were winning!)
Still no evidence of collaboration has been shown. And nothing like that scenario, I'm sure he'd have gladly had his show run on both channels at the same time. More people would see his views and he'd make more money for his work.
The Vox article you linked has three sections about the "links." The first's conclusion starts
>This isn’t a direct link between Assange and the Kremlin,
The second is the TV show, and the third is just ridiculous. Russia is the place where it is most difficult for the US to access Snowden, basically the same for the bodyguards, and one tweet showing both Assange and Russia are antisemitic? They even follow it by saying
>Again, none of these even hint that Assange is a Russian agent. What they do show, when put together, is that Assange doesn’t see Russia as an enemy or a target.
Which seems fairly obvious. He's not a Russian agent, he just views the country that has passed a law calling him a "non-state hostile intelligence service" to be a bigger enemy.
The ones that caused the DNC chair to step down, showing that the DNC had subverted it's own internal processes regarding impartiality during the primary process.
The ones where it was revealed the Clinton campaign was running the DNC and Sanders never stood a chance. Whether your support that or not I don't think anyone disputes that this was revealed by Wikileaks
Plenty of people dispute this narrative, myself included. The DNC never took any action against the Sanders campaign, despite some disgruntled emails by some DNC staffers venting about Sanders.
I don't really know about that, there are many accounts such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf5ZkGKk9SM that claim otherwise, though I do not know how reliable these are.
As usual, context is critical. By the end of the primary, DWS was a lightning rod of controversy. Hillary recognized DWS was an obstacle to the Bernie wing rallying behind her and so she made a deal with DWS to get her to step down without a fight. She wasn't "forced" out due to wrongdoing, it was purely a political move to put the primary fights to rest and look towards defeating Trump. Had DWS stayed and defended herself, that would have severely weakened party unity. In such cases, truth takes a back seat to reconciliation.
Brazile's case is trickier. Taking everything she says at face value (which is a mistake), the main thing she demonstrated was that Hillary's campaign saved the DNC from bankruptcy before the primary by assuming its debt. Hillary (reasonably) put some controls on the DNC's finances in response to the mismanagement. Brazile had no evidence, nor did she claim that Hillary or anyone directed the DNC to act against Bernie. Besides, with the unfiltered look into the DNCs emails and Hillary's campaign's emails, you would expect to see mountains of evidence of Hillary manipulating the DNC against Bernie. But there was no such evidence whatsoever.
The other issue is the fundraising agreement that combined DNC-raised money with Hillary campaign money. But the fundraising agreement was standard and Bernie's campaign had the opportunity to sign the same fundraising agreement but declined.
> As usual, context is critical. By the end of the primary, DWS was a lightning rod of controversy. Hillary recognized DWS was an obstacle to the Bernie wing rallying behind her and so she made a deal with DWS to get her to step down without a fight. She wasn't "forced" out due to wrongdoing, it was purely a political move to put the primary fights to rest and look towards defeating Trump. Had DWS stayed and defended herself, that would have severely weakened party unity. In such cases, truth takes a back seat to reconciliation.
If DWS stepping down was a purely optics move, then why was she then immediately added as a campaign chair to the Clinton campaign, in probably what was the worst possible optics given the situation.
> Brazile's case is trickier. Taking everything she says at face value (which is a mistake)
"Let's just start off delegitimizing what she had to say, not because I have any evidence to contrary. I just don't like what she said."
> the main thing she demonstrated was that Hillary's campaign saved the DNC from bankruptcy before the primary by assuming its debt. Hillary (reasonably) put some controls on the DNC's finances in response to the mismanagement. Brazile had no evidence, nor did she claim that Hillary or anyone directed the DNC to act against Bernie. Besides, with the unfiltered look into the DNCs emails and Hillary's campaign's emails, you would expect to see mountains of evidence of Hillary manipulating the DNC against Bernie. But there was no such evidence whatsoever.
> The other issue is the fundraising agreement that combined DNC-raised money with Hillary campaign money. But the fundraising agreement was standard and Bernie's campaign had the opportunity to sign the same fundraising agreement but declined.
You fundamentally misunderstood the scandal it seems. What Brazile revealed was the full extent of the issues with the Hillary Victory Fund, and why that happened. These aren't two different issues.
The way the HVF worked was as a way to subvert maximum donor limits. You as a donor can normally only donate $2,700 to a campaign. Instead the HVF allowed you to donate simultaneously to each of the 50 state's individual DNC parties, who then immediately donate that money to the national DNC, who then immediately donated that money to the Clinton campaign. Yes the same deal was available to the Sanders campaign, in that they were also essientially allowed to donate ~$100 to the Clinton campaign for every dollar they raised. Yes, the setup was that all VF money was to make it's way to the Clinton campaign. I wonder why they didn't take that wonderful offer.
Nothing about that was standard.
This setup of giving VF money during the primary had never previously happened, was against internal bylaws, and is the main reason why we lost the house so bad. She had been pilfering funding for down ticket races in order to fund the primary campaign.
>If DWS stepping down was a purely optics move, then why was she then immediately added as a campaign chair to the Clinton campaign
It was a part of the deal to get DWS to resign. Hillary created a token position for DWS. It's like you don't understand politics at all.
>Yes the same deal was available to the Sanders campaign, in that they were also essientially allowed to donate ~$100 to the Clinton campaign for every dollar they raised. Yes, the setup was that all VF money was to make it's way to the Clinton campaign. I wonder why they didn't take that wonderful offer.
Yeah, that's bullshit. I'm gonna need some real sources for this one.
I don't believe they are a news organization, but they are something very similar that should be protected with the same freedoms. Their contributions during 2016 were highly biased but they released information that wasn't false, while it isn't wrong to call them partisan they still provided a valuable service.
If they had received the emails, discovered they were forged and then released them anyways, then I think there'd be a different story. News outlets need to provide true information, they can be opinionated if they are open about it but blatantly lying (i.e. National Enquirer) is the only thing I think is objectionable.
It specifically mentions that 12 russians conspired "with persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury" to "stage releases of the stolen documents to interfere with the 2016 US election".
You don't have to be a genius to infer that one of those "persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury" is Assange.
>Can we agree that an indictment is much more than "nothing" and indicate a strong belief on the part of prosecution that they have a winnable case?
Sure. Wikileaks still is not mentioned as the prosecution does not feel they have a winnable case against the organization, and these indictments do not show Wikileaks knowingly coordinated with Russia.
If they are "Organization 1," which yeah they almost certainly are, they are called that as they are not even being accused of a crime. Everything in the indictments could be true and you still haven't shown that Wikileaks knowingly coordinated with the Russia.
Where is the suggestion that Wikileaks knew what the source was and coordinated anyway? The indictments suggests that the source was Russian, nothing points to knowing coordination.
I know that's Assange's line, but that's basically just how all TV is made. Nobody would claim Saturday Night Live isn't an NBC show because it's actually produced by Broadway Video.
RT's logo has a producer's credit in his show's credits. It's an RT show.
Wikileaks isn't a news organization. They don't do reporting. They are a publisher, which still has first amendment protections.
No, it is not. It may have been preffered if some of the less relevant emails were not shared, it's also unclear who should make the call of what is "relevant" and either way their release was news.
All governments use the media, that does not mean the media should not be free. Even journalists from Russia Today should not be imprisoned for what they write, for example.
By selectively prosecuting non-violent speech, a state denies freedom to all journalists, because it asserts itself as the ultimate censor of what is acceptable to publish and what not. You get a massive dilemma: are the other, non-imprisoned journalists, the "real" journalists or are they simply afraid to say the truth because truth lands you in prison?
Why would a "credible" news organization have released them?
They weren't released to show evidence of any particular wrongdoing, nor did they show any illegal activity. They were simply dumped in order to fuel the fire of the impression of wrongdoing, and in hopes that some smoking gun or salacious material could be found to use against her politically.
And yet, those are still legitimate actions for media. As a general rule, if Fox News can do it, so can Wikileaks - and it was precisely traditional media that made the dump politically damaging as opposed to Wikileaks itself, which is an obscure web repository the wast majority of the public will never access.
The purpose of the DNC, as with the RNC, is to choose a candidate they feel is most likely to win. I don't believe choosing Obama over Clinton would have been any less political than choosing Clinton over Obama, or Clinton over Bernie. I don't believe that political calculus or meddling or special privileges granted to high-ranking party officials is actually atypical for either party.
Of course, Wikileaks never released any data dumps from the Republicans, so we can't really know, I guess. Maybe the Republican Party is just a paragon of virtue and their opsec is perfect.
I think we should talk more about it though. People can make a difference. Even if we can't keep this train from derailing, maybe we can slow it down a bit before impact.
And before they choose, they're supposed to determine who is more likely to win. And they admitted they didn't do that fairly as they were being run by Clinton campaign.
News organizations wouldn't drop all the emails at once. Previous enormous leaks have been handled by ICIJ members with great care, going for years of investigations, careful verifications, and publishing only pertinent stories.
DNC misconduct etc. would have been reported by traditional organizations. I think people wonder why it was good that Wikileaks released Podesta's iCloud password, his risotto recipe, doctors appointments of random staffers, and so forth.
For the same reason that if you found yourself with access to someone's diary that you thought might be guilty of wrongdoing, you might convince yourself to look through it possibly with a lawyer friend and report on if anything illegal went on, but you might shy away from publishing the whole thing online "just in case".
One option at least pays lip service to legal and ethical considerations.
A news organization has a responsibility to present information in an informed manner in order to prevent misunderstandings and misrepresentations. Wikileaks' purpose was to paint an impression of widespread wrongdoing despite any hard evidence. Dumping a bunch of irrelevant emails all at once aids misrepresentation.
A credible news organization would have tons of fact checkers and editors to make sure the relevant facts made it in to any article they wrote. They wouldn't, blindly, release tons of unedited emails, including some that were doctored to make the DNC and the Clinton Campaign look bad.
Doesn't need to be state-sponsored (and most news organization aren't "state-sponsored" ... unlike RT, for example) to be credible.
Since when does the constitution require journalists publish information in a manner agreeable to you? Hell, there was a court case years ago that decided news can knowingly publish falsehoods.
Which emails were doctored? I hadn't heard about that. My understanding is that the "doctoring" done by Wikileaks consisted of selectively releasing information obtained from Democratic sources while concealing similar information related to the Republican side ( https://www.wired.com/2017/01/russia-hacked-older-republican... ).
If true, that's the point at which Assange and Wikileaks departed from the path of legitimate journalism.
Pretty ironic when the first comment got deleted. WikiLeaks is of course a news organisation. There is no "especially" when it comes to freedom of the press. Besides, it's not medling to show the truth. Btw. state owned or not (hint: the BBC is also "state-backed") RT is also a news organisation.
>They have been to be a known tool for the Russian government
Known by whom? Its been over 2 years and there has still been absolutely no evidence released at all proving this. Claims made by the CIA, the US government or anyone else are proof of nothing, despite what you may think.
>even going as far as creating a show for Julian Assange on the state-backed RT TV Network.
Larry King has a show on RT too, is he an agent of the Russians also? The fact is that RT gives all sorts of people shows - especially people who make us look bad. What is really unfortunate is that so many of those shows are able to make us look bad without lying at all. They just have to give a platform to people (like Chris Hedges) willing to report on the many misdeeds we have, and continue, to commit.
The Russians are no angels and neither are we. The very heart of this case is about freedom of the press and free speech. If we let the government decide who is "legitimate" and who is allowed to publish then there is no "freedom of the press" at all.
This shit is easy to lookup ... and the fact of the matter is, trying to claim that "we" are as bad as the Russians is the same shit Putin does to dispel any criticism against his fucked up regime's actions. No matter how bad the US has been in Wars and sticking their fingers in democratic elections, the Russians are 10 times as worse and they know it.
Just because you italicize "sigh" doesn't make you any more right. I've found it easier just to assume that the heads of national security are lying. They've been caught perjuring themselves too many times to count.
Not sure what part of "claim" you don't understand. It doesn't matter who makes the claim. Claims by the Secretary of State or the CIA are no more credible than claims by you or I if they don't come with evidence we can independently scrutinize. Older people should have learned this lesson in 2003 with the WMD debacle. Those of us who are even older should have learned it at the Gulf of Tonkin.
>trying to claim that "we" are as bad as the Russians is the same shit Putin does to dispel any criticism against his fucked up regime's actions.
Demanding evidence I can scrutinize is not "dispelling criticism". If you trust the evidence- free claims of the government (or anyone else) - on any matter - you are incredibly naive. Unfortunately you aren't alone.
When it was done with the intent of influencing the 2016 election, that tends to fall under conspiracy and espionage ... especially when it comes from a former adversarial government.
> When it was done with the intent of influencing the 2016 election
Reality check - partisan newspapers, news channels, and news organizations publish partisan nonsense with the intent of influencing elections. All the time.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, freedom of speech does not mean 'Freedom of unbiased speech.' If it did, then you could shut down the entire media establishment tomorrow.
Unlike you, the law does make a distinction between expressing political opinion and unlawful interference with election process and we have independent judicial system to apply those laws.
And the distinction is usually as follows: speech that threatens or criticises those in power is generally illegal, and the speech that supports it is legal.
First, that was the Washington Post that released the tape, and second, that is more for the fitness of the candidate (at the time). Third, and more importantly, it was obtained legally, without having to break in to a server to get it.
> second, that is more for the fitness of the candidate (at the time)
How are we distinguishing influencing the election and fitness of the candidate? I'm not seeing a substantive difference between the two, other that the source (if anything, their campaign practices seem more relevant).
Wikileaks didn’t break into the server. No one knows how the emails were obtained. Your reply demonstrates your hypocrisy nicely. Clearly you just don’t like what Wikileaks has to say.
Some of the emails were altered by Russia for the purpose of spreading misinformation. Russia used Wikileaks to lend credibility to the conspiracy theories they were sowing in the run-up to the election.
NY Time has a great 3-part video series about Russia's history of spreading fake news. Each video is about 15 minutes but it's well worth the watch.
I didn't say the emails were fake. I said they were altered. The metadata, specifically. According to the NY Times they were alter to make it look like they were downloaded directly from a computer in the U.S. and to change the date the documents were obtained.
And publishing false information is not illegal. Knowingly aiding a foreign government in their efforts to undermine an election is treason.
I don't believe citizenship is a requirement to be convicted of treason. There are a lot of members of the U.S. military who are not citizens. Surely they would be guilty of treason if they divulged secrets or aided a foreign country. People with green cards as well. Not that either of those situations apply to Assange.
I've definitely read several news articles that say he stands accused of both treason and espionage, though. I do wonder how that works for a foreigner. Has he ever even been to the United States?
Yes, none of those scenarios apply to assange. How does it matter if he has visited the US at some point in the past. It would be hilarious if he gets charged with treason. That might encourage MBS to charge Erdogan with treason!
Do you have any source for that? I'm not saying it's a fact that the data had been altered but I'm saying reasonable minds can draw that conclusion based on the information we have available.[1] You're oddly defensive of Assange and don't seem to have come to this thread with any interest in discussion.
Here's the link to the video I mentioned in my original comment. I think they discuss how the metadata was altered in the second video of three but no promises I'm remembering that correctly. To be clear, I'm not saying the emails were inauthentic. I'm saying they were altered to make the source of the materials appear to be an internal leak from within the DNC as opposed to a hack. The alterations were (allegedly) for the purposes of Russia covering their trail.
Intentions and prior knowledge matter in a situation like this. It would be wise to see what information the prosecutors have before declaring the death of free press.
True, they are not a news organisation in the common sense, they are a leaks organisation which comes pretty close however.
> especially when they released campaign emails during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election
As a leaks organisation this is what their job is about: leaking information, emails this time.
Was Wikileaks biased on what they released? Probably, but to my knowledge they did not release anything false - this would be similar to prosecuting say the guardian people for publishing the Snowden leaks, after all some would consider them "left wing" and "biased". I believe that especially America that was founded on the principle of freedom should take the principle of free speech more seriously.
And on top of that, WikiLeaks solicited the Trump campaign for a few pages of Trump's tax return with the explicit intent making WikieLeaks seem more non-partisan so as to make the emails inflict more harm.
Leaking documents with the intent to "do harm" shouldn't be illegal. You're treading into advocacy of making mal-intent toward The Party a Thought Crime.
As a fellow self-taught developer, I agree. We see the need for showing possibilities that exist without a degree. As for Canadian companies? We’re in Canada and started with the big guys in our own backyard. However, career search can be done on any path for users in pretty much any location. American companies will be added soon with better localization.
Also a self-taught developer here. I'm not sure how old you are, but do you worry about how not having a degree might affect your chances of finding work later in your career?
I'm 30 with about 8 years of professional development experience under my belt (including a couple of nice contracts with some respectable companies). Being self-taught has both helped and hindered my career/job searches of late. It's helped get me interviews, because recruiters see the years of experience, and gain some side contracts. It's hindered my career/job searches because everyone assumes I've got a comp sci degree during the interview. I get asked questions that are very specific comp sci questions, and I don't know how to answer them, even though I may have used those concepts in the past.
So, to answer your question, Yes ... and no. I do worry, but I hope to be moving toward a management position (or running my own business) instead of being a code monkey for the rest of my life.
I will agree with Volunteerism. That was the best thing to help my mood, because, while I wasn't getting paid for it, I was among people who were genuinely happy to see you and talk to you.
> I'm very curious to see if Alexis is responsible for the firing, then shouldn't the backlash against Ellen Pao change to be against Alexis Ohanian?
Yes and no. Yes there should be outrage directed at him but the buck ultimately stops with the CEO and the firing was simply the straw that broke the camel's back. I have not doubt Alexis shares some of the blame but Pao had failed the moderators and the community at large in other ways and her leaving was probably best for Reddit.
The Board is the CEO's boss, and he is the leader of the board, I think it's pretty straight forward. I guess I'm not sure of what you mean by he is also 'below' her on the org chart? Regardless of whatever responsibilities he held at Reddit that might be below the CEO that never changes the fact that he is Executive Chairman of the Board, which should completely clear up any ambiguity of authority.
EDIT: Thanks for clearing up this those comment links. But, my original sentiment still stands in terms of the power dynamic being clear. Just because in some capacities he is under her doesn't diminish his ability to influence her firing/hiring. If anything being in that position could prompt him to take action as a board member because he didn't like decisions she made in his role working under her. And I think Alexis mentioning that is him trying to divert attention away from the real power he actually has.
And yet he has never received the sort of backlash or vitriol that Pao has. I've always been up and down about how much gender and sexism has played a part in all this, outside that it a "small" minority of Reddit is influenced by it. But the idea that while not always popular but Alexis always seems to get a pass from the Reddit community (at least compared to how Pao was treated) is really telling.
This was my main takeaway from the article. Ellen's changes to hate speech rules caused some backlash, but it sounds like she had nothing to do with Victoria's firing.
> Ellen's changes to hate speech rules caused some backlash
What changes to "hate speech rules?" Reddit still allows hate speech. What they curtailed were subreddits who existed primarily to harass people both on and off the site (e.g. other Reddit users, YouTubers, game streamers, people with public Facebook profiles, random members of the public, the entire Imgur staff, several Reddit admins, you name it).
That's why whenever this topic gets brought up people link to e.g. racist subreddits which still exist today, and then ask "well, why was XYZ banned, if those aren't?!" while entirely ignoring the fact that the banned subs were banned for HARASSMENT, not for having controversial opinions.
Subs still exist with the same controversial opinions as those who got banned. The difference is that the mods in the ones which survived actively follow Reddit's rules and don't harass innocent people. The mods on the banned ones were actively involved in the harassment and frankly should have been banned.
I agree, they should have and should continue to be banned. It still caused controversy. Yes, their reasoning is that these subs have users that leave their cesspools and harass other people.
> What changes to hate speech rules? These changes
You linked to a page titled: "Removing harassing subreddits" that talks about harassment and doesn't contain the term "hate speech." Can you clarify why you think this has anything to do with hate speech rather than harassment?
On the other hand, the CEO of a company should at least be vaguely aware of personnel changes that would affect strategic parts of their business. And AMAs are definitely strategic to Reddit.
The question then becomes whether Pao didn't know about it because she wasn't paying attention to her business, or because Ohanian and/or other parties deliberately hid the information from her until after the proverbial stuff had hit the fan. I'd consider the latter a fireable offense, but YMMV.
How do you know she didn't know about it? And what level of involvement do you expect a CEO to have in personnel decisions of random departments? You think Tim Cook hears about even 1% of the people Apple fires, or that Craig Federighi can't fire a senior manager directly below him on the org chart?
From what's been said publicly by principals in the story, we know that Ohanian had taken the AMA section into his personal portfolio. By the way: that by itself is weird: the chairman doesn't usually have an operational role in the company, among other reasons because it's a conflict of interest. Regardless of who he was, he had ownership of the department Victoria Taylor worked in. In most well-managed companies, that makes hire/fire his prerogative, and coordination of personnel changes his responsibility.
When people screw hire/fire up and cause disruption, the CEO normally fires or demotes them, and gets extra careful about future promotions and delegations to keep there from being a pattern of poor decisions about delegation. Here, neither thing was allowed to happen: Ohanian is effectively unfireable, and Pao wasn't given a chance to not delegate more stuff to him.
That's so odd that Ohanian was allowed to be chairman of the board, as well as be an employee, I can't imagine having to dance around that situation of having to manage someone who effectively has the ability to manage you. If the 'rumors' are true, he's effectively running the company from behind the scenes. Which is weird? Or is this type of situation normal?
>You think Tim Cook hears about even 1% of the people Apple fires, or that Craig Federighi can't fire a senior manager directly below him on the org chart?
I'm sure that she doesn't have to approve every dismissal, but there's a pretty big difference between Apple and Reddit. Last I heard Reddit only has a few dozen employees. I'd expect the CEO to know most of them by name.
They have a page listing their employees, and there are more than 65 of them. That is way past the point at which VPs can hire/fire without the CEO intervening. And this wasn't a VP: it was Pao's boss.
> what level of involvement do you expect a CEO to have in personnel decisions of random departments? You think Tim Cook hears about even 1% of the people Apple fires, or that Craig Federighi can't fire a senior manager directly below him on the org chart?
Apple has what, 45,000+ employees? Reddit has around 70. (Assuming https://www.reddit.com/about/team/ is accurate, at least.) So I'm not sure how the the one is even remotely comparable to the other.
Moreover, my point was about key personnel, not all personnel. I don't expect Tim Cook to know or care if J. Random Genius at the Genius Bar in Tucson is about to get canned. I do expect him to know if, say, Jony Ive is about to get canned.
In other words, a CEO should at least have a cursory understanding of the status of anyone in the business who could throw it completely off track if they were hit by a bus. Given how much of its future Reddit has pinned on AMAs, and how completely non-functional the AMAs became when Taylor was fired, she would seem to have been a member of the bus brigade. Which to me at least would imply that (1) Ohanian should have known that firing her was a risky move, and (2) he should have informed Pao of that before pulling the trigger if she didn't understand it already.
Of course, if the management structure is already divided up into little fiefdoms that the CEO has no effective control over, none of this matters much.
Ohanian was installed as chairperson at the same moment Pao was elevated to interim CEO, and at that time, in an unusual move, given "marketing and community building" as his operational portfolio. That, by the way, is something Ohanian has himself said more than once.
What you are now suggesting is that, having had AMAs delegated to her boss, the charismatic founder of the company, Pao should have micromanaged the operation of AMAs and prevented Ohanian from terminating Taylor.
This strains credibility.
I think we all think Taylor was a "key employee" because of the drama that happened after she was let go, but that very few of us would, in Pao's shoes, have known Taylor was so operationally critical. Even if we had, I think all of us would have found it difficult to override a decision Ohanian personally made about a division of Reddit he was personally managing.
The backlash was centered around the lack of communication and heads up to the mod teams.
We don't know if it was "she needs to be fired right now, immediately" or if it was "she is not a part of future plans". If it's the former then you can put the blame on Alexis but if Pao was not being pressured to fire her immediately then she could have in theory worked with the mod teams before letting Victoria go.
Frankly, if the mod teams were this disrupted by a single employee's departure, that's at least partially their own fault.
If she'd been hit by a bus or she'd had a personal/family emergency (hell, upcoming AMAs would've been potentially problematic even if her laptop just got stolen), they'd have been just as fucked - and no one to whine at.
They failed miserably at disaster planning. They got very lucky they could shove the blame off on someone else.
They cared enough to throw a giant temper tantrum, they could've cared enough to have a Google Doc with the contact info of upcoming AMA participants. I really don't have much sympathy for them on this one.
