Reddit CEO Resigns Following User Revolt

[XT6Wagon]

Elen Pao, Working hard to make the glass ceiling thicker for all the other women. Trying to sleep her way to the top. Crys of sexual harassment after he wouldn't leave his wife. Lawsuit fishing for money when she couldn't progress in the home office.

And now Pushing her agenda against the people who use the company's services, then saying negative things about them when it didn't work. I think its well proven that calling the users of your product negative things is a good way to get negative results for the company.

Her failures are NOT the result of sexism. Her failures are not the result of "patriarchy". Her failures are on Her.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Huh. Can't wait for Kotaku to hire her as their CEO and pen a column on how all men are dead and gamers are rapists.

What a bitterly unlikable person!

 

[09philj]

I'm still confused as to how someone so blatantly out of touch with Reddit, and it's effective unspoken rules and customs was made CEO. When you are dealing with something so volatile, it needs to have a leader who knows exactly what they are doing. Reddit has been run in a fairly hands off manner for quite some time, so trying to tighten the companies grip over it's own creation was inevitably going to cause a backlash.

 

[Pax Romana]

This is just another example of the patriarchy bringing a strong woman down.

 

[Denamic]

First the confusing and selective censorship, then firing Victoria. Can't say that I'm sad to see her go. And it has nothing to do with her resigning? Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure.

 

[mad825]

This is just another example of the patriarchy bringing a strong woman down.

Oh please spare us all, Pao screwed-up and therefore Pao has taken the fall voluntary. You want equalism? then here it is baby.

 

[09philj]

This is just another example of the patriarchy bringing a strong woman down.

That is a joke, right?

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

This is just another example of the patriarchy bringing a strong woman down.

That is a joke, right?

This is just another example of the patriarchy bringing a strong woman down.

Oh please spare us all, Pao screwed-up and therefore Pao has taken the fall voluntary. You want equalism? then here it is baby.

At ease gentlemen. Pretty sure it was a joke, judging by Pax's previous posts.

OT: Can someone fill me in as to what it was that everyone was gettin' mad about? The only bits of reddit I frequent are r/Airsoft and r/ksp, which are pretty far removed from a lot of the general site drama.

 

[Pax Romana]

All of you people slinging insults are absolutely clueless, do you have ANY idea how bad pao messed up the site and what mistakes she made? She went back on so many of reddit's policies, had no communication with moderators, shut off the community so that she could sit in her little throne of power, and then fired several absolutely vital employees without giving reason.

And what a fantastic little throne it was.

I shed a tear for the little internet left wing authoritarian utopia she never got to carve out. All those problematic opinions and jokes are just free to be read by anyone now, I mean it's just horrible. People are saying things I DON"T LIKE at this very moment! Orwell would have spun in his grave, sadly it is not to be :'(

 

[Gatlank]

Ya wouldn't think that stepping down was really the intended goal here. Will it actually quell the masses? I wonder...

Only if the masses want to believe in the illusion that something changed.
The unpopular changes are still in place and if Reddit doesnt take action over those changes i guess she served her purpose and was hired just to be a scapegoat.

 

[Smooth Operator]

So they decide to fix a series of very bad decisions with another bad decision...
Her presence in the company was not the issue, her being allowed to do crazy ass shit was. And as far as anyone can tell all that crazy ass still stands, no one has said anything about reverting things back to normal, so I'm guessing they will just keep this going on the same path.

 

[Rednog]

I'm still confused as to how someone so blatantly out of touch with Reddit, and it's effective unspoken rules and customs was made CEO. When you are dealing with something so volatile, it needs to have a leader who knows exactly what they are doing. Reddit has been run in a fairly hands off manner for quite some time, so trying to tighten the companies grip over it's own creation was inevitably going to cause a backlash.

CEOs more often than not, especially in cases like reddit, are basically there as figureheads to voice the opinion of those who have a controlling interest in the company to the public. It's one thing to be a CEO of a company that you have a controlling interest in, it's another to just be tossed the position. In reality Pao is nothing more than someone who was hired to eat up all the blame and then get shit canned if and when things went sour. The same parties who own most of reddit will continue to own it and drive the company through another puppet CEO. Though I wouldn't shed a tear because she got a nice check for sitting around while it lasted.

 

[THM]

Her failures are NOT the result of sexism. Her failures are not the result of "patriarchy". Her failures are on Her.

Damn straight. Actions have consequences; and sadly, folks like Pao don't seem to want to acknowledge that.

And what's really sad is that she won't learn a thing from this. Neither will the company.

 

[Elfgore]

A few of my co-workers use Reddit quite a bit and they brought up a theory that I didn't consider. They think Pao was nothing more than someone for the Reddit owners[footnote]I really don't know how Reddit works, so pretty much whoever owns Reddit should be here.[/footnote] to place all the blame on for new polices they wanted to put into effect. Seemed like something to think about at the time.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

Yeah the person that said their disgusted in the revolt is dumb. Regardless of how legit it is (I don't visit reddit and don't know what was said) the last thing you do is attack your consumer.

Calling out what someone is said and calling everyone disgusting are 2 different things.

[1] Disagreements are fine. Death threats are not, are not covered under free speech, and will continue to get offending users banned.
Ellen asked me to point out that the sweeping majority of redditors didn?t do this, and many were incredibly supportive. Although the incredible power of the Internet is the amplification of voices, unfortunately sometimes those voices are hateful.

From the blog post. She, nor the person who wrote the blog post said that everyone disgusting. Just the minority people that acted like complete shiteads

 

[RicoADF]

From the blog post. She, nor the person who wrote the blog post said that everyone disgusting. Just the minority people that acted like complete shiteads

I read the statement below as Altman was saying that the reddit users were disgusting, however re-reading it I can see why others may not take it that way. Guess it's a case of perception and it looks like the majority doesn't take the comment the way I did. Eh it's no bother for me either way, I don't go to reddit so it's not a comment towards me in either case.

In a blog post [https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3cucye/an_old_team_at_reddit/] detailing the change, Altman scolded his users for their "sickening" actions against Pao. "It was sickening to see some of the things redditors wrote about Ellen," he wrote. "The reduction in compassion that happens when we're all behind computer screens is not good for the world."

 

[mad825]

you privileged mofos.

Stay classy, there's no need to insult us with swear words. Perhaps you need time to cool down.

 

[Karadalis]

you privileged mofos.

Stay classy, there's no need to insult us with swear words. Perhaps you need time to cool down.

And perhaps you should find your humor, read the rest of his sarcasm filled post and you will find out that this "insult" was made in jest.

Anyways.. Pao looks to me like a scapegoat. The entire way how she came out of nowhere, got the CEO spot and started changing stuff for the worse... that usually doesnt happen in companies doesnt it? Arent CEOs usually put in by the owners/board members? Would be surprised if they would simply let her take over the company like some sort of dictator.

How much power did Chairman Pao really held in the end? For all it seems she was pretty much a SJW pinata for pissed off redditors to beat on while the magician behind the curtain keeps changing reddit to be more "safe spacy"