https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3cucye/an_old_team_at_reddit/
created by samaltman on 10/07/2015 at 21:14 UTC
132246 upvotes, 44 top-level comments (showing 25)
Ellen Pao resigned from reddit today by mutual agreement. I'm delighted to announce that Steve Huffman, founder and the original reddit CEO, is returning as CEO.
We are thankful for Ellen’s many contributions to reddit and the technology industry generally. She brought focus to chaos, recruited a world-class team of executives, and drove growth. She brought a face to reddit that changed perceptions, and is a pioneer for women in the tech industry. She will remain as an advisor to the board through the end of 2015. I look forward to seeing the great things she does beyond that.
We’re very happy to have Steve back. Product and community are the two legs of reddit, and the board was very focused on finding a candidate who excels at both (truthfully, community is harder), which Steve does. He has the added bonus of being a founder with ten years of reddit history in his head. Steve is rejoining Alexis, who will work alongside Steve with the new title of “cofounder”.
A few other points. Mods, you are what makes reddit great. The reddit team, now with Steve, wants to do more for you. You deserve better moderation tools and better communication from the admins.
Second, redditors, you deserve clarity about what the content policy of reddit is going to be. The team will create guidelines to both preserve the integrity of reddit and to maintain reddit as the place where the most open and honest conversations with the entire world can happen.
Third, as a redditor, I’m particularly happy that Steve is so passionate about mobile. I’m very excited to use reddit more on my phone.
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.
[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.
[2] We were planning to run a CEO search here and talked about how Steve (who we assumed was unavailable) was the benchmark candidate—he has exactly the combination of talent and vision we were looking for. To our delight, it turned out our hypothetical benchmark candidate is the one actually taking the job.
NOTE: I am going to let the reddit team answer questions here, and go do an AMA myself now.
Comment by SupaFurry at 10/07/2015 at 21:19 UTC
4436 upvotes, 3 direct replies
As a permanent CEO? Or are you guys temping it again?
Comment by [deleted] at 10/07/2015 at 21:58 UTC*
3032 upvotes, 5 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by nameless_minion at 10/07/2015 at 21:30 UTC
3292 upvotes, 3 direct replies
continuing the work Ellen started to drive this forward
Could you elaborate more on which goals or projects were started by Ellen and will be picked up by Steve.
Thanks!
Comment by [deleted] at 10/07/2015 at 21:17 UTC*
3149 upvotes, 3 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by PrussianBleu at 10/07/2015 at 21:19 UTC*
4873 upvotes, 7 direct replies
"Ellen! Ellen! Ellen! Oh wait, that's not Ellen.. Steve! Steve!"
Edit: gold x4?! Thanks!
Comment by kickme444 at 10/07/2015 at 21:19 UTC
6098 upvotes, 9 direct replies
Hey Steve,
We met a long time ago but I’m sure you don’t remember. I created redditgifts and was let go from reddit a month ago. I wonder if you have any intention of keeping redditgifts around in the future?
Comment by TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK at 10/07/2015 at 21:21 UTC
6319 upvotes, 6 direct replies
Friday afternoon, eh? Someone took a PR class in college!
Comment by EMC2_trooper at 10/07/2015 at 21:18 UTC*
3046 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Comment by spez at 10/07/2015 at 21:18 UTC*
6657 upvotes, 10 direct replies
Ok, Hi!
It's Steve. I'm super excited to be back.
It's been a crazy day. I'll be spending the next hour or so in the this thread answering any questions, and then I need to do some serious bonding with the team here.
We've got a lot of work to do. Fortunately, I've got five years of ideas stacked up, and I'm looking forward to getting to work.
edit: taking off for a bit. Lots to do here!
edit2: I'm going to do an Office Hours / AMA tomorrow morning 10am pst. I think we need some quality time together, reddit.
Comment by forscience2 at 10/07/2015 at 21:50 UTC
208 upvotes, 2 direct replies
How did you find your job as CEO? I can't find anywhere to apply for as a CEO on indeed.com
Comment by Helaasch at 10/07/2015 at 21:18 UTC
2066 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Will this actually change things?
Comment by Badoit1778 at 10/07/2015 at 21:45 UTC*
948 upvotes, 2 direct replies
for history's sake,
11,810 points (98% upvoted) 12,302 votes
and just got the 7th gold
as the clock hit 30 minutes in.
edit -
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
40 minutes
14,922 points (98% upvoted) 15,544 votes and 7474 comments. 10 golds to the op
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
50 minutes
17,431 points (98% upvoted) 18,157 votes and 8870 comments. 13 golds to the op.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
60 minutes 19,754 points (98% upvoted) 20,578 votes and 10017 comments. 15 golds to the op
fin
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10 hours, '6154 points', 97% upvoted, 19883 comments, 48 golds to the op.
Comment by bjos144 at 10/07/2015 at 21:26 UTC
3598 upvotes, 6 direct replies
1. Is there any chance Victoria will be returning?
2. What is happening with that 50 million dollars that was supposed to go back into the community?
3. Do you feel that the influx of monetary influence has caused some of these, how shall we say, growing pains?
4. Are you concerned about the sudden talk of alternatives to reddit, ie voat.co?
5. Are you concerned about history repeating itself like digg.com?
6. What lessons did you learn from digg and how will you make different choices to avoid a mass exodus?
7. What's your favorite cat related content you've seen this week?
Comment by cucumber_breath at 10/07/2015 at 21:29 UTC
416 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Pao was not the only issue with Reddit, simply the face. Let's make sure we help to change this site for the better.
Comment by [deleted] at 10/07/2015 at 21:26 UTC
5632 upvotes, 7 direct replies
It sounds like Pao served her role as the interim CEO perfectly. People were supposed to hate her so she could make changes the board of directors wanted that they knew some users would hate. Then the white knight new CEO sweeps in to save the day and everyone is happy. They also promise to continuo Pao's mission to make this a safe place so that should be fun.
Comment by [deleted] at 10/07/2015 at 21:18 UTC*
4487 upvotes, 4 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by Dacvak at 10/07/2015 at 21:43 UTC
2156 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Hey Steve, it's Dacvak. We briefly met a long time ago when I first got hired. Please let me know if you have any positions open for Community Manager, as I would love to return once I'm healthy enough to do so. :)
Comment by Drunken_Economist at 10/07/2015 at 21:19 UTC
1177 upvotes, 3 direct replies
I'm so excited to have Steve back with us. He helped build this platform that has been such a huge part of my life for the better part of a decade . . . I can't think of anyone better for the next decade
Comment by [deleted] at 10/07/2015 at 21:51 UTC
299 upvotes, 3 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by ivegotopinions at 10/07/2015 at 21:22 UTC
399 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I wasn't consulted about this.
Comment by sewebster87 at 10/07/2015 at 22:54 UTC
145 upvotes, 1 direct replies
This is such a huge placation. They brought in Ellen to make really unpopular changes, and now they are bringing back Steve to have everyone believe Reddit is going "back to normal". There's no turning back from the size this site has become, and feigning that we can do anything with it other than move to a new, smaller site is just silly. Reddit will continue to exist despite it's users being upset, because it's reached a cultural critical mass. Reddit is popular because it's popular, and for no other reason.
I don't mean to be negative, but seriously...this was planned. Steve got a ton of money, and won't be able to make any changes without the Board's approval.....just like Ellen.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Comment by DOUBLEBOSSSPRINGSMAP at 10/07/2015 at 21:26 UTC
1101 upvotes, 5 direct replies
Wasn't the default sub blackout due to mod's years of frustration with reddit admins? Like years before Pao joined on board? Or are we just gonna pretend that Pao didn't get a lot of misdirected hatred from the blackout
Comment by VirtualAnarchy at 10/07/2015 at 21:39 UTC
605 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I knew Ellen Pao would step down, she was only the face people could punch while the higher ups made unpopular changes to reddit. People saw this coming from a mile away, anyone who considers this a 'victory' needs to look at what is actually changing, which isn't the policies introduced under Pao.
Comment by ShellBard at 11/07/2015 at 03:28 UTC
19 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I watched this post go over 15,000 votes, but now its back down to under 10,000. I recall this is an automatic function of Reddit, but is there any way to see the *actual* votes on a post, and not this market adjusted version?
Comment by Sayse at 10/07/2015 at 21:18 UTC
4757 upvotes, 7 direct replies
I have no strong feelings about this one way or another.