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> Reddit is an example of what happens when you put people in charge of a business who are both greedy and stupid. No, it's what happens when your investors ar
by jwestbury 3y ago
> Reddit is an example of what happens when you put people in charge of a business who are both greedy and stupid.
No, it's what happens when your investors are VCs who need to 10x on their wins because most of their investments fail. As a result, stable, long-term profitability isn't the goal; big IPOs are, or at least explosive growth. There's no room for a company which is moderately successful when VCs are involved.
- Eisenstein 3y agoThey didn't need to take money from VCs. They would have been fine as they were -- they were making enough money from Reddit premium subscriptions to pay hosting costs (before they pivoted to hosting all their own media instead of just text). All they had to do was monetize the subreddits, license branding, and do some event stuff. All of the founders would have been 10millionaires. They got greedy and took VC money and every decision since then has been objectively terrible for anything but engagement metrics.
- rbreaves 3y agoOh slow & proper growth is frowned upon - taking other people’s money & trying to grow fast isn’t sadly. I’ve been in that situation w/ a business partner & the moment I realized my partner was trying to push me out I was like f* this & you - I’m out. I have no tolerance for bs & I saw it early enough to check out before having invested more than 2-3k of my own money. Sadly a good bit of my time but I was furious & done w/ it.
- local_crmdgeon 3y agoThis would be true if Reddit was ever profitable, which it was not. Hosting images was an expensive decision, and they weren't making much money before then. I think this is just the way of the world. Usenet -> Slashdot -> Digg -> Reddit -> Discord -> ???
- Eisenstein 3y agoThey weren't profitable because they kept spending money on growth.