Reddit CEO Resigns

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Reddit's CEO has resigned over a disagreement about the company's new offices. Seriously, I'm not joking.

Reddit CEO Yishan Wong resigned from Reddit after a disagreement about a new office, company adviser Sam Altman wrote in a blog post. The disagreement had to do with the location and the amount of money to spend on a lease. Wong decided to leave after Reddit's board didn't approve his plan, Altman writes.
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Well at least it appears that those who run Reddit all the way to the top basically act like the entire user base.
 
I think this is a guy who won't take shit from anybody. Here's what he posted in response to someone they fired at reddit who claimed she was laid off for no reason.

screen%20shot%202014-10-06%20at%203.40.57%20pm.png
 
Megalith said:
I think this is a guy who won't take shit from anybody. Here's what he posted in response to someone they fired at reddit who claimed she was laid off for no reason.

screen%20shot%202014-10-06%20at%203.40.57%20pm.png
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That is beautiful.
 
That is awesome. (the post img)

No idea who Yishan Wong is, cept apparently she(?) was the CEO?
 
Megalith said:
I think this is a guy who won't take shit from anybody. Here's what he posted in response to someone they fired at reddit who claimed she was laid off for no reason.
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He.

The CEO basically caused a lot of unrest at Reddit over his public outbursts that nobody felt comfortable voicing their opinion. How he lashed out at a former employee is an example of his unprofessionalism, no matter how deserved it was.
 
Maybe he wanted to upgrade to New York City, and decided he was going to move there with or without his current position.
 
I don't know the individual, but....DAMN - That was impressive. If he was so dead set against something, perhaps the rest of Reddit should have listened.....just saying.
 
And now you know what happens to Reddit employees when they don't get enough upvotes.
 
Sounds like Reddit wins here, they lose someone crazy enough to quit over minor details and don't need to give a severance package.
 
Scythe said:
I don't know the individual, but....DAMN - That was impressive. If he was so dead set against something, perhaps the rest of Reddit should have listened.....just saying.
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Depends - could his plan have included an unnecessary cost/lease that the board rightfully rejected? Or did the board choose the more practical / cost effective measure and he through a hissy fit, taking his red(dit) ball and going home?

That's the detail we need to see who was right. I've met a lot of management that want things that are overly priced simply because of the status it implies.
 
BTW, if you want to know his reason in his own words:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2...reasons-behind-his-resignation-as-reddit-ceo/

If there is a deeper reason, it is this:

The job as CEO of reddit is incredibly stressful and draining. After two and a half years, I’m basically completely worn out, and it was having significantly detrimental effects on my personal life. If anything, I probably pushed myself way too far – as a first-time CEO, all I knew was that such jobs are supposed to be stressful, so I never really had a good baseline, i.e. how stressful is too stressful, until multiple outside people and coaches I was working with remarked to me that I looked incredibly worn down for months on end and it wasn’t supposed to be this hard.

On the office location issue: it’s probably something we could have worked out. I feel the board is a very supportive and friendly one, but we had a strategic disagreement wherein I felt that locating an office in San Francisco proper is an incredibly difficult thing given the strains the city is facing and the high rents it imposes on employees who wish to live close to the office. On the other hand, many of our current employees live there so the proposal to find an office location just outside the city (Daly City is immediately to the southwest outside of SF) was very unpopular, and there are plenty of startups who locate in SF and are very successful. If the job had been a energizing one rather than one that had been so draining, this probably wouldn’t have been an issue I resigned over. But it was, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved to have the burden off my shoulders.
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The site will spiral into trash now. They're owned by the same company that owns some pretty big names in print, expect the commercialization to expand massively with a new, more "agreeable to corporate interest" CEO.
 
lilbabycat said:
The site will spiral into trash now. They're owned by the same company that owns some pretty big names in print, expect the commercialization to expand massively with a new, more "agreeable to corporate interest" CEO.
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It'll probably go the way of digg, the default categories are overrun with liberals and children, just like digg was.
 
lilbabycat said:
The site will spiral into trash now. They're owned by the same company that owns some pretty big names in print, expect the commercialization to expand massively with a new, more "agreeable to corporate interest" CEO.
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Conde Nast spun them off again almost two years ago.
 
lilbabycat said:
The site will spiral into trash now. They're owned by the same company that owns some pretty big names in print, expect the commercialization to expand massively with a new, more "agreeable to corporate interest" CEO.
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Nice of you to describe what's going on in the fantasy world you inhabit.

The new CEO is one of the original founders of Reddit.
 
techrat said:
Nice of you to describe what's going on in the fantasy world you inhabit.

The new CEO is one of the original founders of Reddit.
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He's the chairman, the CEO is Ellen Pao, the same Ellen Pao who's suing Kleiner Perkins for sexual discrimination.
 
lilbabycat said:
The site will spiral into trash now. They're owned by the same company that owns some pretty big names in print, expect the commercialization to expand massively with a new, more "agreeable to corporate interest" CEO.
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The Comments section for the front page are 80% people trying to be funny, users circle jerking each other, and "inside" jokes*. It is already going down the tubes faster than any bad CEO will tank the site.

*Unless you click on any comments where a SJW can rise, then you get 80% SJWs circle jerking each other.
 
Soooo.... the Board wanted to move to San Fran, he said San Fran's pretty expensive how about no, and they said screw you we're doing it anyways? And this is for a company that can be almost 100% remote (can be 100% remote if they have someone else handle the servers).

Soooooo CEO quits because he wanted to save company money and the company wanted shiny new digs to brag about. Can someone please check the temperature in hell? Look outside and see if there are any pigs flying?
 
flashoverride said:
Soooo.... the Board wanted to move to San Fran, he said San Fran's pretty expensive how about no, and they said screw you we're doing it anyways? And this is for a company that can be almost 100% remote (can be 100% remote if they have someone else handle the servers).

Soooooo CEO quits because he wanted to save company money and the company wanted shiny new digs to brag about. Can someone please check the temperature in hell? Look outside and see if there are any pigs flying?
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There's a heck of a lot more to it than that to be honest. One simple example is access to talent. If the best and brightest are in SF proper, and you build an office "just outside of SF" (which could be a 45 minute or more drive each way depending on traffic), how much of that top level talent will you be able to lure away from the central business district? Not nearly as much as if you're in the CBD.

There's also the "legitimacy" of being located in the CBD, and the idea that, if they buy in the right area, the asset should increase in value over time.

Not saying he's wrong or anything, there's just more to the evaluation than "this costs us more per square foot than that does."
 
jflail2 said:
There's a heck of a lot more to it than that to be honest. One simple example is access to talent. If the best and brightest are in SF proper, and you build an office "just outside of SF" (which could be a 45 minute or more drive each way depending on traffic), how much of that top level talent will you be able to lure away from the central business district? Not nearly as much as if you're in the CBD.

There's also the "legitimacy" of being located in the CBD, and the idea that, if they buy in the right area, the asset should increase in value over time.

Not saying he's wrong or anything, there's just more to the evaluation than "this costs us more per square foot than that does."
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Perhaps, but the whole shebang can be run remotely - so you actually have access to any talent with a computer and a halfway reliable internet connection.

You get an office in the CBD so you can show off, not so you can get work done.
 
ocellaris said:
The Comments section for the front page are 80% people trying to be funny, users circle jerking each other, and "inside" jokes*. It is already going down the tubes faster than any bad CEO will tank the site.
.
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Oh no, I don't think the content will get any better/worse. Its the site around it that will go to crap. Remember how clean and functional Facebook used to be?
 
Megalith said:
I think this is a guy who won't take shit from anybody. Here's what he posted in response to someone they fired at reddit who claimed she was laid off for no reason.

screen%20shot%202014-10-06%20at%203.40.57%20pm.png
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You can tell a lot from a person's writing style? Are they are moron? Are they intelligent? How do they think? Are they reasonable?

This guy is intelligent and reasonable, absolutely no question. I am sure he left for a damn good reason.
 
flashoverride said:
Perhaps, but the whole shebang can be run remotely - so you actually have access to any talent with a computer and a halfway reliable internet connection.

You get an office in the CBD so you can show off, not so you can get work done.
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You'd think so, but even in my job there's a latency advantage to showing up to work vs. working at home. At home I have to route through a VPN in another state.
 
As someone who works in SF, the scale is much different here. Driving 7 miles across the city is easily a 40 minute endeavor, if not more. So while on a map or a simple distance to someone in the suburbs or not familiar with the city, it appears locating just outside the city is fine. But it's a huge financial burden on those in the city. Public transit isn't all that great to get down there, but owning a car in the city can also be hugely expensive, both in time and money. It costs either $250-$300/month for a parking spot, or still ~$30/mo plus up to 45 minutes per day to find a street parking spot, depending on your neighborhood.

But I see the flip side as well. SF is fucking ridiculously expensive, so requiring people to move up here as well is tough. But it is a nexus of talent (brushes shoulder off...j/k ;) ).

Plus aren't reddit employees just forum admins anyway? I don't really get it...never been a user of it, guess I'd rather have a beer and bitch with people IRL...I'm getting old. :(
 
Now everything is 100% clear. As someone else already mentioned, it looks like the guy is smart, hard working, and seemingly an honest no-BS person (extremely rare today), but he did not put the interests of his employees as high of a priority as he should have, and the Board had to step in to stop him from destroying the company's reputation as a good place to work and so he resigned.

He openly admitted his personal life was suffering...basically he did not have a social life. And since he did not have a social life, he did not care about anyone else in the company having one. He may have legitimately wished his employees did not have to pay high rent, but he did not care that his employees did not care about high rent when that was the price of having a life outside of work.

Let's look at the facts:

WALKSCORE.COM
San Francisco Walkability Score: 84% (no major city in Canada/US/Australia has a higher walkscore except NYC and Jersey City, which is across the river from NYC)
San Francisco Public Transit Score: 80% (none higher except NYC)
San Francisco Bikeability Score: 70% (none higher except Portland and Minneapolis)

Daly City Walkability Score: 61% (transit/bike scores are not calculated for small cities, but if you read online, Daly City has poor public transit for getting around locally within the city)

CITY-DATA.COM
SAN FRANCISCO
White alone - 342,637 (41.5%)
Asian alone - 271,745 (32.9%)
Hispanic - 126,876 (15.4%)
Black alone - 44,316 (5.4%)

High school or higher: 86.6%
Bachelor's degree or higher: 53.6%
Graduate or professional degree: 20.7%

Now married: 38.6%

DALY CITY
Asian alone - 64,165 (61.9%)
Hispanic - 21,862 (21.1%)
White alone - 12,796 (12.3%)
Black alone - 1,907 (1.8%)

High school or higher: 86.3%
Bachelor's degree or higher: 30.0%
Graduate or professional degree: 5.2%

Now married: 51.5%

Relatively racially diverse, highly educated, walkable/bikeable/rideable national urban city full of various amenities and young single professionals participating in a social life outside of work

vs.

Asian dominated, significantly less educated, car-oriented (there goes the rent savings, now you have to own a car) suburban city with few amenities and over half married, full of people looking to avoid participating in anything that involves other people

This guy found the city that was most convenient for him personally, but the Board was smart enough to know that it was going to be an instant talent-attraction-killer.

If he was really concerned about the rent employees had to pay, he should have looked into ways to provide reddit employees with very basic, affordable housing. Maybe reddit (if they have the resources) could have invested in building micro-studios (extremely tiny, but providing high-quality basics) with priority given to current and incoming reddit employees.
 
TwistedAegis said:
260 sq ft micro-studios in not the best neighborhood are still going for $1,600 and over. ;) :eek:
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Unfortunately I am not surprised at that. But that would not be the case if there were a massive supply being built up to meet the demand. However, why should real estate and apartment companies build more housing only to decrease the rent they are able to charge? They are making huge amounts of profit off of those rents. As usual, the free market never works in favor of the common person (not that anything our current government does helps either).
 
Also, 260ft might not even be the minimum for a decent quality-of-life. This one is perhaps too extreme (mainly the bed), but just to show how far you can go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZSdrtEqcHU

And yeah, other than a little more room for a larger/better/not-against-the-ceiling-bed, I would be perfectly fine living in such a place myself. I do not like sitting at home all day, so no need for lots of room. A bigger place can come with more disposable income further into one's career.
 
There are a lot of physical limitations out here - it's 7x7 and most of it is already built - are you going to raze single family homes and build high rises? There is definitely still a lot of development that can and needs to happen out here, but there isn't really that much room to build up a "massive supply". Demand will always exceed supply here, unfortunately, it's simply to what degree. Hopefully less so in the next few years...
 
I know Yishan personally and can say he's extremely professional and sharp.
I sure as hell wouldn't compare him to his average user.
Also draining is a mild way of putting a job like his.
 
StoneTZ said:
I know Yishan personally and can say he's extremely professional and sharp.
I sure as hell wouldn't compare him to his average user.
Also draining is a mild way of putting a job like his.
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What was his salary. Being a CEO is a sweet gig if you get paid more in a year than an average person makes their whole life. Assistants to schedule everything for you. Even if you fail hard you're still wealthy by the end of it.
 
TwistedAegis said:
There are a lot of physical limitations out here - it's 7x7 and most of it is already built - are you going to raze single family homes and build high rises? There is definitely still a lot of development that can and needs to happen out here, but there isn't really that much room to build up a "massive supply". Demand will always exceed supply here, unfortunately, it's simply to what degree. Hopefully less so in the next few years...
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Yes, I think in large urban cities with high housing demand and out-of-control rent, like SF, should replace single-family and even low-density buildings as they run out of space. If you want to live in a house or small/low-density building, you should live in the suburbs. Of course, if public transit was further expanded/upgraded to the point that going from point A to point B took noticeably less time (for city/neighborhood travel, not just commuting), and more effort/resources (and I do not mean just randomly throwing money at it...never works) were put into reducing crime in less safe areas, the desirable living "range" from the city core could be much greater.

Just to point out, I am not living in SF myself...currently living in Chicago. Chicago is not geographically limited by water, yet it is gradually developing the same problems (still much better than NYC/SF COL at this time, but the gap is slowly shrinking) because of a lack of high-density residential development in desirable neighborhoods, partially enforced by local laws obstructing higher-density redevelopment.

Times change, the "old" buildings/neighborhoods with deteriorating housing stock and ancient or non-existent amenities need to go. There are plenty of historical buildings already protected as landmarks, we don't need to protect whole neighborhoods from density redevelopment as housing becomes increasingly unaffordable for people with real-life problems (as opposed to the "problem" of "having to look at" large buildings as you walk down the street that was once lined with houses...in the center of a metropolis).
 
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