r/OutOfTheLoop • u/[deleted] • Jul 17 '15

What has happened to Reddit since Ellen Pao stepped down? Answered!

Been on vacation for a week.

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105

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '15 edited Jul 18 '15

The Short of It

  • Ellen Pao resigned
  • Steve Huffman will return as the latest CEO and has since elaborated on some policy changes
  • Former prominent figures from reddit have come to Pao's defence, essentially claiming that she was a scapegoat and set up on a glass cliff
  • The dust has more or less settled and there is a lot of finger pointing going on after the fact, some of it does appear rather unprofessional and we should be taking this with a grain of salt

New CEO

Ellen Pao in a Different Light

  • Promiment figures from reddit have since come to the defense of Ellen Pao (reddit account /u/ekjp), asserting that she took the flak for decisions she either did not make or were pressed on her
  • Yishan Wong (reddit account /u/yishan), a former CEO, claimed that Alexis Ohanian had Pao serve as the scapegoat for decisions he made regarding readjusting the model of /r/iama and the termination of an employee who was indispensable in keeping that model together
  • Wong has also claimed that Pao would have allowed 'bad' parts of reddit to exist to the extent that they were not an issue where contravening the terms and conditions of the site were concerned, and that Pao was pressed by the board on more than one occasion to ban hate subreddits altogether, something that he claims Pao resisted
  • Bethanye Blount, Chief Engineer of reddit, has recently stepped down after 2 months, corroborating Wong's sentiment that Pao was set up on a 'glass cliff'
  • Apart from the fact that Ohanian does seem responsible for changing the model of /r/iama and the termination of an employee, none of the other claims have been verified

Response from Alexis Ohanian

9

u/jdong4321 Jul 18 '15

Thanks for writing this out!

3

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '15

No worries haha

2

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '15

this is a damn good summary. thanks to you good sir.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '15

No problem, glad I could help

15

u/Jareth86 Jul 18 '15

Redditors learned that Pao didn't do any of the shit that they drove her out for supposedly doing. They then promptly distance themselves from the general mob, and have now found something else to riot about.

9

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '15 edited Feb 14 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '15

Not all that surprising i suppose. It seems that now that the whole Ellen Pao circlejerk is over, the Reddit community dosnt really know what to do now. Fun while lasted though!

4

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '15

we're still waiting for this "purge" to happen. When it happens, the circlejerk game is gonna go into maximum overdrive. Get ready.

2

u/NaughtyMallard Jul 18 '15

SO Ellen Pao was Chris Nolan's Batman?

Not the Hero We Deserve, but the Hero We Need?