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posted by LaminatorX on Sunday November 16 2014, @01:16AM   Printer-friendly
from the ask-me-nothing dept.

Yishan Wong has resigned as CEO of Reddit after two and a half years, citing job stress as the main reason. Wong acknowledges a disagreement with the board about his desire to relocate the company to a different part of San Francisco; Wong also made a controversial decision to require global Reddit employees to relocate to San Francisco or be terminated.

Another likely factor, or perhaps symptom, was a bizarre recent confrontation in a Reddit forum with an ex-employee, who had jauntily offered an AMA ("ask me anything") discussing the pros and cons of working at Reddit. The decorum of such a self-referential thread probably didn't raise many eyebrows from Reddit regs, until Wong logged in and unloaded on him in a forum response.

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian announced he is returning to the company as executive director to help "stabilize" the company as it searches for a permanent CEO. Ellen Pao, a business strategist at Reddit whose tenure at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins ended in recriminations, will be the interim CEO.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @01:39AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @01:39AM (#116293)

    It has disgruntled employees, enraged CEO, boardroom dispute, sexual discrimination and its upcoming court trial. Pure quality.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @01:53AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @01:53AM (#116295)

    I want the old Internet back. I'm talking about the Internet that we had before Ruby on Rails, before Reddit, before Facebook, before Twitter, before Instagram, before Slashdot Beta, before hipsters, and before "social justice warriors". It was good back then. It wasn't all about people getting uppity over trannies, it wasn't about people bickering for months on end about the trading of sexual favors for video game reviews, it wasn't about "sexism" lurking behind every corner and all the really dumb shit we see on the Internet today.

    • (Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday November 16 2014, @02:45AM

      by anubi (2828) on Sunday November 16 2014, @02:45AM (#116300) Journal

      What we see is known as "Tragedy of the Commons".

      I sure liked the simpler internet as well. It did everything I wanted it to do. Given Jeremy Bentham's book "TCP/IP LEAN", I could finally get a good handle on the protocol stack and know how to use it.

      I do feel lost as I have not been able to keep up with the technologies and workings of proprietary implementations, and my ignorance shows - as people more knowledgeable about the system can sure take advantage of me before I even know what hit me.

      With me, I usually have to personally lose resources as a result of ignorance - its not simply some write-off reduced to a bullet item in some corporate meeting.

      Yet, I must embrace that which I do not understand just to communicate with business. It seems like I must offer a letter of approval from a prostitute ( who carries all sorts of digital diseases ) before I am permitted to communicate with business people.

      I am damned if I do and damned if I do not.

      Yes, like working on my old 60's automobiles, I do miss the times when things were simple enough I understood exactly what I was doing. Everything is so full of protected proprietary intellectual property today that doing anything is like trying to buy a house when the escrow office keeps coming up with one legal form after another, full of one-sided talk that I have to agree to, yet forcing them to sign any forms I come up with is verboten. I hate legal talk, where certain words convey legal force yet other words do not - and the way illusionists can arrange the words so as to look like I am getting a fair deal while in reality I have just agreed to be raped. Used-car dealers offer prime examples of this kind of illusion.

      This very same irritation is now running rampant on the internet.

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Horse With Stripes on Sunday November 16 2014, @03:05AM

      by Horse With Stripes (577) on Sunday November 16 2014, @03:05AM (#116301)

      I want the old Internet back. I'm talking about the Internet that we had before Ruby on Rails, before Reddit, before Facebook, before Twitter, before Instagram, before Slashdot Beta, before hipsters, and before "social justice warriors". It was good back then.

      I want to the old me back. I'm talking about the me that I had before hair loss, before weight gain, before the wrinkles, before the aches and pains of simply getting out of a chair. I was good back then.

      Well son, those days are gone. They're never coming back, and before you know it no one will even remember them. And when that time arrives we'll all be looking back at 2014 and saying "I want the not so old internet back ..." Time marches on, though progress isn't always progress in hindsight.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @03:16AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @03:16AM (#116305)

        You wouldn't be in such bad shape if you took better care of your body. I'm not talking about going to the gym six hours a day, and eating a strict and unenjoyable diet. Just basic stuff, like walking around and getting even just a minimal amount of exercise. You know, choosing to drink water instead of drinking another gallon of Mountain Dew. Or choosing to eat an apple instead of one more bag of Cheetos.

        • (Score: 2) by cafebabe on Sunday November 16 2014, @03:29AM

          by cafebabe (894) on Sunday November 16 2014, @03:29AM (#116306) Journal

          I recently discovered that bell peppers can be eaten like apples. I've had some alarming looks when doing this but, like, whatever.

          --
          1702845791×2
          • (Score: 2) by Common Joe on Sunday November 16 2014, @07:04AM

            by Common Joe (33) <{common.joe.0101} {at} {gmail.com}> on Sunday November 16 2014, @07:04AM (#116333) Journal

            Hmm... never considered doing that. Interesting tip. I can also see me flossing seeds out from between my teeth after the first attempt. Still, I might try it just for the hell of it.

          • (Score: 2) by ticho on Sunday November 16 2014, @10:28AM

            by ticho (89) on Sunday November 16 2014, @10:28AM (#116353) Homepage Journal

            Just be careful not to pick a too spicy pepper for your apple-like-munching. :)

          • (Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday November 16 2014, @12:46PM

            by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday November 16 2014, @12:46PM (#116381)

            Bake them into a pie with ice cream on top? That's freaky.

        • (Score: 1) by Horse With Stripes on Sunday November 16 2014, @10:35AM

          by Horse With Stripes (577) on Sunday November 16 2014, @10:35AM (#116355)

          I do go the gym a few times per week, and I drink 3 - 4 liters of water a day (I have 1 - 2 sodas per week and no alcohol). I eat grapes instead of sugary snacks, apples to fill me up, and very healthy all natural snack bars for variety. Sometimes age, genetics and disease trump someone's best efforts. I can't imagine what I'd be like if I treated myself like your assumption.

        • (Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday November 16 2014, @12:55PM

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday November 16 2014, @12:55PM (#116386)

          You wouldn't be in such bad shape

          Don't forget OP might be older than dirt (apologies to op, if you're like 25). For example, my grandma was an amateur non-competitive athlete and she could kick the ass of most women 20 years younger than her. Unfortunately, by the time she reached her 90s so that wasn't so impressive anymore. But she was tough as nails and lived healthy. That's probably why she lasted till 90s rather than dead at 40 like a "people of walmart" level of health.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @10:36AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @10:36AM (#116642)
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @04:42PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @04:42PM (#116434)

        Good thing we're talking about economic and political stuff, instead of biological processes, then!

      • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday November 17 2014, @07:05PM

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday November 17 2014, @07:05PM (#116889) Journal

        and before "social justice warriors".
         
        You had better go back to about 1750 to be safe, then: Abolitionism [wikipedia.org]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @05:48AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @05:48AM (#116325)

      Good luck with that!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @04:46PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @04:46PM (#116440)

        It'll either happen or there'll be a war and something much, much worse will happen :^)

        Regard's, a 25-year-old internet person

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @05:17PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @05:17PM (#116447)

          Keep chuggin' those hallucinogens while you can, your brain won't stand them for too much longer...

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @06:39AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @06:39AM (#116331)

      What a humorously passive-aggressive post.
      Not content to just do a "get off my lawn" you decided to tell us all that your lawn is the only good lawn in the neighbourhood.

    • (Score: 2) by Jerry Smith on Sunday November 16 2014, @08:26AM

      by Jerry Smith (379) on Sunday November 16 2014, @08:26AM (#116341) Journal

      Totally agreeing. More like a library than the NOISY ARCADE CIRCUS CARNIVAL SUGARCOATED SHOUTY mess it sometimes is nowadays.

      --
      All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
      • (Score: 2) by Marand on Sunday November 16 2014, @11:36AM

        by Marand (1081) on Sunday November 16 2014, @11:36AM (#116367) Journal

        Totally agreeing. More like a library than the NOISY ARCADE CIRCUS CARNIVAL SUGARCOATED SHOUTY mess it sometimes is nowadays.

        While I generally agree, there's no reason the two can't coexist. Just because the shiny flashy circus crap migrated from TV to the internet doesn't mean the functional parts have to die out. Sure, the no-frills sites won't get as much traffic, but they should also cost less to run if managed well. Before, the minority that rejected the flashy no-content crap fled from TV to the internet. Now those people just migrate from the flashy sites to places like this.

        You just have to stop thinking of the internet as a single thing and instead look at it as different neighbourhoods. The buzzfeed/cracked/facebook/etc area is the tourist trap section. Some people will love it, while others avoid it but occasionally wander in when they need to. Then you've got the quiet neighbourhoods that are more like the older internet, and even the slummy parts that are best to avoid.

        The majority of my daily internet use involves the quiet sections. I use RSS feeds heavily, follow sites like this, and still use things like email, IRC, and XMPP for communication instead of twitter and facebook. Sometimes I wander into the glitzy part and think "damn, this town's become a pile of shit since they let the tourists in" but it doesn't matter because I'm not under any compulsion to stay there, I just visit when I need something there or get bored. Same thing holds true in real life: just because you wouldn't want to live near Times Square doesn't mean you can't enjoy a visit occasionally.

        One thing I find interesting about the separate "neighbourhoods" is how the shiny parts are generally undocumented, closed off, and developer-hostile. You can see how it's influenced by the television model, because it's all very "do not touch" and you aren't allowed to know how it works. This is in stark contrast to the "old internet" areas, which still tend to be open, documented, and even have specifications to follow to create (or extend) implementation. That means those parts are more likely to survive long-term because, years in the future, someone else can still look up the old designs and implement or improve them, while a site like facebook or twitter will only last as long as the parent company.

        • (Score: 1) by Pherenikos on Sunday November 16 2014, @01:51PM

          by Pherenikos (1113) on Sunday November 16 2014, @01:51PM (#116399)

          If we are completely honest, the "new" internet is substantially better than the old, but the price we have paid has been the inclusion of some riffraff. If we compare the todays internet with for example the mid nineties, we now have encyclopedia level information readily available on any topic to get you into the field, with, in many cases, remedial level lectures, notes and demonstrations also available. Since we now have the ability to text search theses and books, and scientific journals (and archives), which are in most cases all digitized, it is substantially more tractable to become an expert on any field you choose.

          • (Score: 2) by Marand on Sunday November 16 2014, @02:53PM

            by Marand (1081) on Sunday November 16 2014, @02:53PM (#116406) Journal

            Yeah, what you're saying is basically what I meant about there still being the "old" internet if you look for it. The parts you're listing as improvements are still built with the same mindset as the old, so it's not like intelligence completely vanished when buzzfeed came online. Those good parts didn't die out just because the TV-style internet showed up, and they definitely didn't stop evolving.

            What changed is that there's a lot more of the fluff around and it's easier to get distracted if you don't exercise your willpower.

        • (Score: 2) by cmn32480 on Monday November 17 2014, @03:10AM

          by cmn32480 (443) <reversethis-{moc.liamg} {ta} {08423nmc}> on Monday November 17 2014, @03:10AM (#116571) Journal

          Ahhh.... the nostalgia of the Golden Years of the Internet...

          The trick now is finding the right neighborhoods. And if you are gonna visit outside of the quiet library types, be sure to run your browser in a sandbox. Them digital diseases are pesky to get rid of!

          --
          "It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @08:55AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @08:55AM (#116346)

      I want the really old Internet back. When the nut-job ranting neckbeards mentally masturbated on USENET and left normal people to go about their business.

      Oops...

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @09:54PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @09:54PM (#116508)

        When the hell was that? USENET was dead by 1998. "Normal" people didn't really start using the Internet until 2006. So this "really old Internet" you're describing never existed in the first place.

  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @03:38AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @03:38AM (#116307)

    Article: Targeted Individuals - Government and Military Weapons (Mind Games)

    http://pastebin.com/1iT3cA21 [pastebin.com]

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @11:36AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 16 2014, @11:36AM (#116368)
    the reddit top won't keep spinning much longer.

    it's become comical that you can predict what storys will be deleted.

    unflattering to company or state or country and they're not on the approved hatelist of the week? deleted!

    like clockwork. most of the default subs are all run by a pretty small interlinked group of mods too.

    all says they're bought and paid for. even if it's not thru reddit directly.

    at least we'll get some cat pictures out of it before the end.
  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday November 16 2014, @12:50PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday November 16 2014, @12:50PM (#116384)

    require global Reddit employees to relocate to San Francisco

    Nothing says clueless CEO like running a company focused on online social interaction "eating its own dogfood" by banning online social interaction and requiring meatspace or else. Losing a moron like that, can only improve the company.

    It would be like hiring an apple fanboy who only uses idevices to lead Microsoft phone, and having him make the corporate decision to standardize all corporate employees at MS phone on idevices. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

    From a point like that, they can only improve. They could hire some random bum off the street and he probably wouldn't screw things up as much as the last guy.