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Ryan X. Charles here. AMA.

by yafujifide 12y ago

tantalor 12y ago
Article says you were laid off, but you say you were fired. Which is it?
- yafujifide 12y ago
  I think "laid off" is probably the better term. The new executives are not interested in pursuing bitcoin or cryptocurrency at the current time. I was going to be the lead engineer of the cryptocurrency engineering wing of reddit, but they have let me go, and removed the other "cryptocurrency engineer" positions from the job page. The executives have their hands full with things like mobile and improving reddit.com infrastructure. Not to mention the legal difficulties of reddit notes.
ilikemustard 12y ago
What went wrong?
- yafujifide 12y ago
  It's pretty simple. I was hired by Yishan and reported directly to Yishan to lead the cryptocurrency engineering wing of reddit. This was his idea - and I was happy to lead it. Yishan then suddenly quit, and new leadership took over. The new leadership is not interested in pursuing cryptocurrency at the moment.
  - arca_vorago 12y ago
    Could you elaborate on the culture change since Yishan left if any? I'm curious about the power relationship between the owners and the execs mostly.
    - yafujifide 12y ago
      Well I'm not really sure, because it felt extremely turbulent while I was there for my brief 4 month tenue. I think the culture will change. I think the culture was a little more loose, autonomous, and with little management before. I think it will be more hierarchical and managed moving forward. However, please realize that I have extremely limited experience at reddit and may simply be wrong about that.
bronson 12y ago
50M is a lot of dough. Any idea how they were going to spend it? Was the idea to build out a giant development team?
- yafujifide 12y ago
  Yeah $50m is a lot. We would have hired several more cryptocurrency engineers. Not any more. I'm not exactly sure how they are going to allocate resources moving forward, but you can see who they are hiring here: https://www.reddit.com/r/redditjobs/ https://www.reddit.com/r/redditjobs/
ForHackernews 12y ago
Why do you believe that a JavaScript port of bitcoin is an important project? What is lacking in current implementations / why would you want to run bitcoin inside a browser / do you think it's possible to do serious crypto correctly in JS[0]? [0] http://matasano.com/articles/javascript-cryptography/ http://matasano.com/articles/javascript-cryptography/
- yafujifide 12y ago
  There is no working javascript full node. I believe the future of bitcoin is brighter if there are many independent implementations of bitcoin running as full nodes. I want bitcoin running in a browser because browsers work on every platform and can bring bitcoin to more people. Also keep in mind that reddit is primarily a website, to using javascript is a pretty appropriate first choice of language for bitcoin stuff. Can you do serious crypto in C? Only if you know what you're doing and don't screw up. Same goes for javascript.
  - Sir_Cmpwn 12y ago
    >Can you do serious crypto in C? Only if you know what you're doing and don't screw up. Same goes for javascript. Overall I am sympathetic to your cause, but this raises alarms. JavaScript crypto is nonsense, you could have the implementation silently replaced with a naughty one at the hosts leisure. EDIT: To respond to all of you at once - everything I've seen so far says that he was aiming for JS in the browser. Did I miss something?
    - matthewmacleod 12y ago
      That's not really the case - yes, crypto in the browser is possibly nonsense, but crypto under e.g. Node.js is anything but.
    - michaelchisari 12y ago
      We're not talking about client-side javascript, are we? I assumed he meant node.js/server side.
ivraatiems 12y ago
Why isn't this being brought to Reddit's userbase? This seems like something where a lack of transparency will really hurt the company.
- yafujifide 12y ago
  Why isn't what being brought to the reddit userbase? That they fired me? That reddit notes is now paused? They are probably waiting for the right time to make an announcement I guess. They probably didn't realize that by firing (or letting me go, whatever) that they would draw the interest of the media.
  - ivraatiems 12y ago
    Sorry - it's really all of the above. To be more clear, I will break this into some sub-questions that are hopefully less obsequious. The "reddit is giving 10% of its shares to its users" thing was very positively received. My understanding was that redditcoin was part of that effort. Is the 10% thing still going to happen in some way? If not, why not? Regardless of the answer to the question above, hearing that redditcoin is being cancelled would likely lead members to conclude the new leadership doesn't want the community shares system that was so touted previously. Is that the case, if you know? And then the final, more meta question is: Why would Reddit's staff, of all people, think they could do something involving Reddit quietly?
    - yafujifide 12y ago
      > The "reddit is giving 10% of its shares to its users" thing was very positively received. My understanding was that redditcoin was part of that effort. Is the 10% thing still going to happen in some way? If not, why not? I think they intend to make the 10% thing happen eventually, although the project is currently paused. I estimate 1+ year before any aspect of the project resumes. However, I am not privy to the conversations the executives have had about it, so I don't really know. > Regardless of the answer to the question above, hearing that redditcoin is being cancelled would likely lead members to conclude the new leadership doesn't want the community shares system that was so touted previously. Is that the case, if you know? I don't know. > Why would Reddit's staff, of all people, think they could do something involving Reddit quietly? Ha. No idea.
spinlock 12y ago
Were you treated fairly in terms of a severance package?
- yafujifide 12y ago
  1 month severence
  - anonbanker 12y ago
    Seems awfully low. They pulled you from BitPay four months ago, and now you're without a job and given one month's severance. Not to mention you were effectively let go with the CEO, but not told. That sounds like a claim for constructive dismissal right there.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
mahyarm 12y ago
So why create a new bitcoin derivative to do something like creating a divisible bearer reddit stock certificate held in trust vs. something like open transactions or a webservice? Especially since it would be a relatively small network easily taken over by some large mining pool if it ever became useful. Your prone to the US legal system requirements in this case since I'm guessing reddit is a US corp.
- yafujifide 12y ago
  Had I been consulted before "reddit is issuing shares on a cryptocurrency" was announced, I would have suggested doing something with less legal headaches first. It would take a $100 billion dollar company, much larger than reddit, to actually make such a project legally possible.
  - bbooth 12y ago
    Could you go into detail what the major legal hurdles were in this case?
    - yafujifide 12y ago
      Issuing shares to millions of people would have made reddit a public company. reddit did not want to be a public company. This is a contradiction.
      - qznc 12y ago
        I did not realize Reddit Notes (crypto or not) are supposed to be "shares" of anything? Much less shares of Reddit as a company.
        kissickas 12y ago
        It's been said many times since the beginning, including in this article: >Announced in September 2014 as part of a fundraising round that raised $50m from VC firms including Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, Redditcoin was a key part of an audacious plan by Wong to give part of the company’s equity back to users. >Wong wrote in a blogpost: “The investors in this round have proposed to give 10% of their shares back to the community, in recognition of the central role the community plays in Reddit’s ongoing success.”
ebbv 12y ago
Yishan really quit over a disagreement about an office? That seems like a straw that broke the camel's back situation. Or he's unstable?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- teraflop 12y ago
  This was heavily discussed back when it happened, but he says it's true: http://www.quora.com/Why-did-Yishan-Wong-resign-as-Reddit-CEO/answer/Yishan-Wong?srid=X&share=1 http://www.quora.com/Why-did-Yishan-Wong-resign-as-Reddit-CE...
- yafujifide 12y ago
  Yes, he quit over a disagreement about the precise location of the office. Definitely camel's back. Reddit has been through a lot of turmoil recently: 1) Moving entire remote company to SF 2) Raising $50 million 3) Many employees, sometimes key, quitting 4) Celebgate The disagreement over Daly City/SF probably just put Yishan over the top. Since then, more turmoil: 6) Yishan quit 7) Entire company actually performs the relocation 8) A new office is found and moved to in SF 9) New executives take over. Probably some power struggles which I didn't see. 10) New product plan is laid out for 2015. Does not include cryptocurrency.
  - colmvp 12y ago
    I just want to thank you for your transparency.
    - yafujifide 12y ago
      For sure! I'm a strong believer in transparency. Trying my best to be open and honest.
  - pluma 12y ago
    > Celebgate AKA The Fappening, the massive celebrity photo leak/hack last year. Just in case anyone else didn't pay enough attention at the time to have heard of both terms. Apparently Reddit was in a bit of a pickle because subreddits were created to spread the photos and not all of them were strictly against the site's terms.
zxcvcxz 12y ago
I'd just like to say that I don't like the idea of limiting people just because of low karma or whatever. A lot of people do get downvoted just for having ideas that don't "go with the group" even though they're well thought out.
- solve 12y ago
  Hacker News is the most poorly maintained forum I've ever seen. Too bad the original creator left and the new maintainers can't make any significant improvements. Just empty promises from the guys who took over, who have no real authority to make any major changes. Too bad.
  - jnbiche 12y ago
    Huh? I routinely read people here writing that HN has the highest quality discussions of any active online fora. I happen to agree. Also, HN has dramatically increased in quality over the past 6-10 months. It's been very noticeable for someone who's been here for 4 years. Can HN be an echo chamber? Yes, at times. But much less than other online fora that I've participated in (most Reddits are 1000x worse, for example) Does the site design itself leave a bit to be desired? Maybe, but I've grown quite fond of it. And what exactly "empty promises" are you talking about?
    - freehunter 12y ago
      I didn't read the post as a criticism of the community but rather a criticism of the technical workings of the site. Which is correct, HN is lacking a lot of things that make even the most basic modern forums more user friendly. The site performs poorly on mobile, you can't collapse comment threads, the reply button disappears sometimes unless you click "link", etc.
  - thaumaturgy 12y ago
    I've had a registered account here for just shy of 7 years now, and you're not giving the current moderation team nearly enough credit. dang and company have resolved a lot of long-standing user complaints, they are proactive on policing the site, and they are generally exceedingly fair and even-handed. dang specifically has the patience of a saint.
dang 12y ago
> HN has rate limited my responses so I can't respond to questions. Your account definitely isn't restricted. Can you shoot us an email (hn@ycombinator.com) and tell us what you're seeing? We'd be happy to try to fix it.
- yafujifide 12y ago
  Sorry, it seems I can see the reply button now. That may have been my error.
  - SamReidHughes 12y ago
    You can always click the "link" button fer the specific comment and then you'll see a reply button -- it's nothing account-specific, it's just one weird trick to slow down flamefests proportionally to comment depth.
    - yafujifide 12y ago
      Thanks, that's exactly what it was! That's why the "reply" button was not appearing, and I thought I was rate-limited. This very thing happened to your comment - I am replying by visiting the permalink.
  - dang 12y ago
    I was about to edit my comment to mention that: HN delays showing the "reply" link on deeply nested comments. It's an ancient flame retardant. You can, however, get around it by clicking "link" on the comment you want to reply to.
- deciplex 12y ago
  So, this is literally the post where I find out that my account has been restricted in some way, and that is why I keep having conversations cut short because I can only reply to a half-dozen or so things in a day. (I had assumed that this was a new thing that applied to everyone, since to my knowledge there is no reason for you to be restricting my account in particular, this way.) Why the secrecy? Why not just tell people all the various passive-aggressive BS you perform to degrade experience for certain users? If you don't want me posting here, why not just tell me or ban me or whatever? Bonus points if you give an actual reason, but that might be asking for too much. How many different bans do you have in the toolbox now, is there a list somewhere? Is there a way to check which ones apply to my account, aside from finding out second-hand? edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8964992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8964992 <- several posts here I wanted to reply to, it was an interesting discussion. I was not able to apparently because I caught the wrong admin on the wrong day in the wrong mood? And of course I have no idea what post of mine caused this... Despite whatever 'efforts' you're putting into this site, moderation here is bad and steadily getting worse.
sroerick 12y ago
Would you ever consider implementing on Voat?

Ryan X. Charles here. AMA.

tantalor 12y ago

Article says you were laid off, but you say you were fired. Which is it?

yafujifide 12y ago
I think "laid off" is probably the better term. The new executives are not interested in pursuing bitcoin or cryptocurrency at the current time. I was going to be the lead engineer of the cryptocurrency engineering wing of reddit, but they have let me go, and removed the other "cryptocurrency engineer" positions from the job page. The executives have their hands full with things like mobile and improving reddit.com infrastructure. Not to mention the legal difficulties of reddit notes.

ilikemustard 12y ago

What went wrong?

yafujifide 12y ago
It's pretty simple. I was hired by Yishan and reported directly to Yishan to lead the cryptocurrency engineering wing of reddit. This was his idea - and I was happy to lead it. Yishan then suddenly quit, and new leadership took over. The new leadership is not interested in pursuing cryptocurrency at the moment.
- arca_vorago 12y ago
  Could you elaborate on the culture change since Yishan left if any? I'm curious about the power relationship between the owners and the execs mostly.
  - yafujifide 12y ago
    Well I'm not really sure, because it felt extremely turbulent while I was there for my brief 4 month tenue. I think the culture will change. I think the culture was a little more loose, autonomous, and with little management before. I think it will be more hierarchical and managed moving forward. However, please realize that I have extremely limited experience at reddit and may simply be wrong about that.

bronson 12y ago

50M is a lot of dough. Any idea how they were going to spend it? Was the idea to build out a giant development team?

yafujifide 12y ago
Yeah $50m is a lot. We would have hired several more cryptocurrency engineers. Not any more. I'm not exactly sure how they are going to allocate resources moving forward, but you can see who they are hiring here: https://www.reddit.com/r/redditjobs/ https://www.reddit.com/r/redditjobs/

ForHackernews 12y ago

Why do you believe that a JavaScript port of bitcoin is an important project? What is lacking in current implementations / why would you want to run bitcoin inside a browser / do you think it's possible to do serious crypto correctly in JS[0]? [0] http://matasano.com/articles/javascript-cryptography/ http://matasano.com/articles/javascript-cryptography/

yafujifide 12y ago
There is no working javascript full node. I believe the future of bitcoin is brighter if there are many independent implementations of bitcoin running as full nodes. I want bitcoin running in a browser because browsers work on every platform and can bring bitcoin to more people. Also keep in mind that reddit is primarily a website, to using javascript is a pretty appropriate first choice of language for bitcoin stuff. Can you do serious crypto in C? Only if you know what you're doing and don't screw up. Same goes for javascript.
- Sir_Cmpwn 12y ago
  >Can you do serious crypto in C? Only if you know what you're doing and don't screw up. Same goes for javascript. Overall I am sympathetic to your cause, but this raises alarms. JavaScript crypto is nonsense, you could have the implementation silently replaced with a naughty one at the hosts leisure. EDIT: To respond to all of you at once - everything I've seen so far says that he was aiming for JS in the browser. Did I miss something?
  - matthewmacleod 12y ago
    That's not really the case - yes, crypto in the browser is possibly nonsense, but crypto under e.g. Node.js is anything but.
  - michaelchisari 12y ago
    We're not talking about client-side javascript, are we? I assumed he meant node.js/server side.

ivraatiems 12y ago

Why isn't this being brought to Reddit's userbase? This seems like something where a lack of transparency will really hurt the company.

yafujifide 12y ago
Why isn't what being brought to the reddit userbase? That they fired me? That reddit notes is now paused? They are probably waiting for the right time to make an announcement I guess. They probably didn't realize that by firing (or letting me go, whatever) that they would draw the interest of the media.
- ivraatiems 12y ago
  Sorry - it's really all of the above. To be more clear, I will break this into some sub-questions that are hopefully less obsequious. The "reddit is giving 10% of its shares to its users" thing was very positively received. My understanding was that redditcoin was part of that effort. Is the 10% thing still going to happen in some way? If not, why not? Regardless of the answer to the question above, hearing that redditcoin is being cancelled would likely lead members to conclude the new leadership doesn't want the community shares system that was so touted previously. Is that the case, if you know? And then the final, more meta question is: Why would Reddit's staff, of all people, think they could do something involving Reddit quietly?
  - yafujifide 12y ago
    > The "reddit is giving 10% of its shares to its users" thing was very positively received. My understanding was that redditcoin was part of that effort. Is the 10% thing still going to happen in some way? If not, why not? I think they intend to make the 10% thing happen eventually, although the project is currently paused. I estimate 1+ year before any aspect of the project resumes. However, I am not privy to the conversations the executives have had about it, so I don't really know. > Regardless of the answer to the question above, hearing that redditcoin is being cancelled would likely lead members to conclude the new leadership doesn't want the community shares system that was so touted previously. Is that the case, if you know? I don't know. > Why would Reddit's staff, of all people, think they could do something involving Reddit quietly? Ha. No idea.

spinlock 12y ago

Were you treated fairly in terms of a severance package?

yafujifide 12y ago
1 month severence
- anonbanker 12y ago
  Seems awfully low. They pulled you from BitPay four months ago, and now you're without a job and given one month's severance. Not to mention you were effectively let go with the CEO, but not told. That sounds like a claim for constructive dismissal right there.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

mahyarm 12y ago

So why create a new bitcoin derivative to do something like creating a divisible bearer reddit stock certificate held in trust vs. something like open transactions or a webservice? Especially since it would be a relatively small network easily taken over by some large mining pool if it ever became useful. Your prone to the US legal system requirements in this case since I'm guessing reddit is a US corp.

yafujifide 12y ago
Had I been consulted before "reddit is issuing shares on a cryptocurrency" was announced, I would have suggested doing something with less legal headaches first. It would take a $100 billion dollar company, much larger than reddit, to actually make such a project legally possible.
- bbooth 12y ago
  Could you go into detail what the major legal hurdles were in this case?
  - yafujifide 12y ago
    Issuing shares to millions of people would have made reddit a public company. reddit did not want to be a public company. This is a contradiction.
    - qznc 12y ago
      I did not realize Reddit Notes (crypto or not) are supposed to be "shares" of anything? Much less shares of Reddit as a company.
      - kissickas 12y ago
        It's been said many times since the beginning, including in this article: >Announced in September 2014 as part of a fundraising round that raised $50m from VC firms including Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, Redditcoin was a key part of an audacious plan by Wong to give part of the company’s equity back to users. >Wong wrote in a blogpost: “The investors in this round have proposed to give 10% of their shares back to the community, in recognition of the central role the community plays in Reddit’s ongoing success.”

ebbv 12y ago

Yishan really quit over a disagreement about an office? That seems like a straw that broke the camel's back situation. Or he's unstable?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
teraflop 12y ago
This was heavily discussed back when it happened, but he says it's true: http://www.quora.com/Why-did-Yishan-Wong-resign-as-Reddit-CEO/answer/Yishan-Wong?srid=X&share=1 http://www.quora.com/Why-did-Yishan-Wong-resign-as-Reddit-CE...
yafujifide 12y ago
Yes, he quit over a disagreement about the precise location of the office. Definitely camel's back. Reddit has been through a lot of turmoil recently: 1) Moving entire remote company to SF 2) Raising $50 million 3) Many employees, sometimes key, quitting 4) Celebgate The disagreement over Daly City/SF probably just put Yishan over the top. Since then, more turmoil: 6) Yishan quit 7) Entire company actually performs the relocation 8) A new office is found and moved to in SF 9) New executives take over. Probably some power struggles which I didn't see. 10) New product plan is laid out for 2015. Does not include cryptocurrency.
- colmvp 12y ago
  I just want to thank you for your transparency.
  - yafujifide 12y ago
    For sure! I'm a strong believer in transparency. Trying my best to be open and honest.
- pluma 12y ago
  > Celebgate AKA The Fappening, the massive celebrity photo leak/hack last year. Just in case anyone else didn't pay enough attention at the time to have heard of both terms. Apparently Reddit was in a bit of a pickle because subreddits were created to spread the photos and not all of them were strictly against the site's terms.

zxcvcxz 12y ago

I'd just like to say that I don't like the idea of limiting people just because of low karma or whatever. A lot of people do get downvoted just for having ideas that don't "go with the group" even though they're well thought out.

solve 12y ago
Hacker News is the most poorly maintained forum I've ever seen. Too bad the original creator left and the new maintainers can't make any significant improvements. Just empty promises from the guys who took over, who have no real authority to make any major changes. Too bad.
- jnbiche 12y ago
  Huh? I routinely read people here writing that HN has the highest quality discussions of any active online fora. I happen to agree. Also, HN has dramatically increased in quality over the past 6-10 months. It's been very noticeable for someone who's been here for 4 years. Can HN be an echo chamber? Yes, at times. But much less than other online fora that I've participated in (most Reddits are 1000x worse, for example) Does the site design itself leave a bit to be desired? Maybe, but I've grown quite fond of it. And what exactly "empty promises" are you talking about?
  - freehunter 12y ago
    I didn't read the post as a criticism of the community but rather a criticism of the technical workings of the site. Which is correct, HN is lacking a lot of things that make even the most basic modern forums more user friendly. The site performs poorly on mobile, you can't collapse comment threads, the reply button disappears sometimes unless you click "link", etc.
- thaumaturgy 12y ago
  I've had a registered account here for just shy of 7 years now, and you're not giving the current moderation team nearly enough credit. dang and company have resolved a lot of long-standing user complaints, they are proactive on policing the site, and they are generally exceedingly fair and even-handed. dang specifically has the patience of a saint.

dang 12y ago

> HN has rate limited my responses so I can't respond to questions. Your account definitely isn't restricted. Can you shoot us an email (hn@ycombinator.com) and tell us what you're seeing? We'd be happy to try to fix it.

yafujifide 12y ago
Sorry, it seems I can see the reply button now. That may have been my error.
- SamReidHughes 12y ago
  You can always click the "link" button fer the specific comment and then you'll see a reply button -- it's nothing account-specific, it's just one weird trick to slow down flamefests proportionally to comment depth.
  - yafujifide 12y ago
    Thanks, that's exactly what it was! That's why the "reply" button was not appearing, and I thought I was rate-limited. This very thing happened to your comment - I am replying by visiting the permalink.
- dang 12y ago
  I was about to edit my comment to mention that: HN delays showing the "reply" link on deeply nested comments. It's an ancient flame retardant. You can, however, get around it by clicking "link" on the comment you want to reply to.
deciplex 12y ago
So, this is literally the post where I find out that my account has been restricted in some way, and that is why I keep having conversations cut short because I can only reply to a half-dozen or so things in a day. (I had assumed that this was a new thing that applied to everyone, since to my knowledge there is no reason for you to be restricting my account in particular, this way.) Why the secrecy? Why not just tell people all the various passive-aggressive BS you perform to degrade experience for certain users? If you don't want me posting here, why not just tell me or ban me or whatever? Bonus points if you give an actual reason, but that might be asking for too much. How many different bans do you have in the toolbox now, is there a list somewhere? Is there a way to check which ones apply to my account, aside from finding out second-hand? edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8964992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8964992 <- several posts here I wanted to reply to, it was an interesting discussion. I was not able to apparently because I caught the wrong admin on the wrong day in the wrong mood? And of course I have no idea what post of mine caused this... Despite whatever 'efforts' you're putting into this site, moderation here is bad and steadily getting worse.

sroerick 12y ago

Would you ever consider implementing on Voat?