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>Sam Altman, a member of Reddit’s board, said he personally appreciated Ms. Pao’s efforts during her two years working at the start-up. “Ellen has done a phenom

by notsony 11y ago

>Sam Altman, a member of Reddit’s board, said he personally appreciated Ms. Pao’s efforts during her two years working at the start-up. “Ellen has done a phenomenal job, especially in the last few months,” he said. This is clearly nonsense, otherwise there wouldn't have been a grassroots campaign to remove Ellen Pao from her role. If Sam Altman honestly believes that Ellen did a "phenomenal" job, he should reconsider his own position at YCombinator.

curiousjorge 11y ago
I think he was just being polite but then who knows, we don't get to see what's going on behind the scenes, we just see the outcome of their decisions.
- antirez 11y ago
  To say the contrary of what you think is not being polite, is a stupid communication rule that in other places of the world would just make things more complex to understand. There is the possibility to just express what you think in a balanced way. One can just say: she tried to fix a complex problem, that many experiences in the past proved to be very hard to fix. And she is stepping down now after the recent happenings. Or something like that, but to say he did an incredible job when all this mess happened is not a good form of communication.
  - curiousjorge 11y ago
    I'd agree for the most part but especially in North America, there is a culture of beating around the bush and most people avoid confrontation or directly addressing the problem of course unless the other person has an inability to recognize the issue. I'd say even for someone who has a large stake in a publicly visible company, it'd be tough to break that mold even more. I agree that it could've been better worded without coming out as blunt or being overly polite and politically correct. But then again, Ellen Pao sued her former employer based on questionable grounds (gender bias cried the wolf) and timing (her husband is bankrupt after scamming investors). If I was in Sam's position, I'd be careful not to awaken the bees nest and just hope that the cold season comes and they all die.
kozukumi 11y ago
Given her previous record with going after past employers I think Sam was just covering his back from a potential lawsuit.
- chipotle_coyote 11y ago
  Given her previous record with going after past employers If I'm not mistaken, that's a record of one, unless you know something the rest of us don't about her time at Cravath Swaine & Moore, WebTV, BEA Systems, TellMe or Danger.
  - corin_ 11y ago
    There are some people willing to go after a previous employer for treating them badly and other people who would rather let it go so as to not create a PR mess for yourself / when it comes to future jobs. Pao has a track record that shows she's in the first group. I'm not saying that should automatically get people to treat her differently, but it's enough of a "track record" for some people, regardless of the record having one data point on it.
GuiA 11y ago
It's the Bay Area. Everyone is always talking in superlatives.
antidaily 11y ago
Clearly a niciety. That said, it's possible that she did excel in other areas. She's CEO not community wrangler. As a casual user, I had no idea who the CEO even was until recently. Similarly, although I have a username, I couldn't name another user or mod on the entire site. Someone got fired? Ok. Doesn't effect me.
ceejayoz 11y ago
> This is clearly nonsense, otherwise there wouldn't have been a grassroots campaign to remove Ellen Pao from her role. When "SJWs" get someone fired we're told a loud, vocal minority has too much power and is dangerous. The same folks seem to be calling the same thing in a direction they like a "grassroots campaign". I find that interesting. Pao's most downvoted posts still got only a few thousand of Reddit's tens of millions of users expressing their dislike, and petitions topped out at what, 20k of those tens of millions?
- alayne 11y ago
  More than 200k signed, so you're off by a factor of 10. I think that's too many to dismiss it as a vocal minority. I think a lot of things were incorrectly attributed to Pao. It doesn't really matter though. I don't think she was ever going to get back the community's confidence.
  - ceejayoz 11y ago
    > More than 200k signed, so you're off by a factor of 10. So half a percent of the userbase or so? I'd call that a vocal minority. http://www.redditblog.com/2015/06/happy-10th-birthday-to-us-celebrating.html http://www.redditblog.com/2015/06/happy-10th-birthday-to-us-... > I don't think she was ever going to get back the community's confidence. Likely true. Backing down here likely means zero chance of addressing toxic communities in the site for the foreseeable future.
    - choudanu4 11y ago
      I think you're overlooking the fact that all 36 million (or however many) people that visit Reddit each month are NOT equal....the active content creators are intrinsically more valuable to a community like reddit, simply because they make the community what it is. When the people that make the content (of which 200k is no insignificant drop) that attracts the other 35 million ad-viewers are unhappy, Reddit MUST do something about, whether this 'minority' is vocal or not.
      - 11y ago
sgustard 11y ago
If he thought she did a phenomenal job, it wouldn't have been "a mutual agreement between her and Reddit's board" for her to leave. He would have fought to keep her.
jakejake 11y ago
After you fire somebody you feel bad, so you say what a wonderful person they were. The fit just wasn't right, timing wasn't right, blah blah blah. We'll have to wait for the movie to come out to know what really happened.
vanessa98 11y ago
Seems like just yesterday! http://blog.samaltman.com/a-new-team-at-reddit http://blog.samaltman.com/a-new-team-at-reddit > I am delighted to announce the new team we have in place. Ellen Pao will be stepping up to be interim CEO. Because of her combination of vision, execution, and leadership, I expect that she’ll do an incredible job.
- venomsnake 11y ago
  It is still incredible what she managed to do ...
- dmix 11y ago
  Someone's ready for a career in politics.
bsder 11y ago
What? Do you expect Sam to slag her publicly? When was the last time any corporate board slagged a resigning CEO publicly? Sheesh.
- AndrewKemendo 11y ago
  There is a difference between slagging - whatever that is - and not gushing corporate BS. How about he be honest instead of just a shill? Sam seems to be good at "playing the game" and this type of thing falls right in line with it.
  - vshan 11y ago
    No -- it's just basic courtesy. Any criticism Mr. Altman has of Ms. Pao, he can share with her privately, and it's not privy to us.
    - AndrewKemendo 11y ago
      Disagree. Basic courtesy would be "We appreciate all the work Ms. Pao has done and the way in which she handled her resignation as well as her professionalism in the face of many abusive comments from the community." The glowing "done an amazing job" etc... is typical corporate BS and is the classic back scratching that happens at these upper management levels. As an example when Victoria was fired, there was no statement or acknowledgement despite the publicity - let alone a "Victoria has done an amazing job..." type statement by Pao, Alexis or otherwise. Again, just reinforcing the manager/worker class division.

by notsony 11y ago

curiousjorge 11y ago

I think he was just being polite but then who knows, we don't get to see what's going on behind the scenes, we just see the outcome of their decisions.

antirez 11y ago
To say the contrary of what you think is not being polite, is a stupid communication rule that in other places of the world would just make things more complex to understand. There is the possibility to just express what you think in a balanced way. One can just say: she tried to fix a complex problem, that many experiences in the past proved to be very hard to fix. And she is stepping down now after the recent happenings. Or something like that, but to say he did an incredible job when all this mess happened is not a good form of communication.
- curiousjorge 11y ago
  I'd agree for the most part but especially in North America, there is a culture of beating around the bush and most people avoid confrontation or directly addressing the problem of course unless the other person has an inability to recognize the issue. I'd say even for someone who has a large stake in a publicly visible company, it'd be tough to break that mold even more. I agree that it could've been better worded without coming out as blunt or being overly polite and politically correct. But then again, Ellen Pao sued her former employer based on questionable grounds (gender bias cried the wolf) and timing (her husband is bankrupt after scamming investors). If I was in Sam's position, I'd be careful not to awaken the bees nest and just hope that the cold season comes and they all die.

kozukumi 11y ago

Given her previous record with going after past employers I think Sam was just covering his back from a potential lawsuit.

chipotle_coyote 11y ago
Given her previous record with going after past employers If I'm not mistaken, that's a record of one, unless you know something the rest of us don't about her time at Cravath Swaine & Moore, WebTV, BEA Systems, TellMe or Danger.
- corin_ 11y ago
  There are some people willing to go after a previous employer for treating them badly and other people who would rather let it go so as to not create a PR mess for yourself / when it comes to future jobs. Pao has a track record that shows she's in the first group. I'm not saying that should automatically get people to treat her differently, but it's enough of a "track record" for some people, regardless of the record having one data point on it.

GuiA 11y ago

It's the Bay Area. Everyone is always talking in superlatives.

antidaily 11y ago

Clearly a niciety. That said, it's possible that she did excel in other areas. She's CEO not community wrangler. As a casual user, I had no idea who the CEO even was until recently. Similarly, although I have a username, I couldn't name another user or mod on the entire site. Someone got fired? Ok. Doesn't effect me.

ceejayoz 11y ago

> This is clearly nonsense, otherwise there wouldn't have been a grassroots campaign to remove Ellen Pao from her role. When "SJWs" get someone fired we're told a loud, vocal minority has too much power and is dangerous. The same folks seem to be calling the same thing in a direction they like a "grassroots campaign". I find that interesting. Pao's most downvoted posts still got only a few thousand of Reddit's tens of millions of users expressing their dislike, and petitions topped out at what, 20k of those tens of millions?

alayne 11y ago
More than 200k signed, so you're off by a factor of 10. I think that's too many to dismiss it as a vocal minority. I think a lot of things were incorrectly attributed to Pao. It doesn't really matter though. I don't think she was ever going to get back the community's confidence.
- ceejayoz 11y ago
  > More than 200k signed, so you're off by a factor of 10. So half a percent of the userbase or so? I'd call that a vocal minority. http://www.redditblog.com/2015/06/happy-10th-birthday-to-us-celebrating.html http://www.redditblog.com/2015/06/happy-10th-birthday-to-us-... > I don't think she was ever going to get back the community's confidence. Likely true. Backing down here likely means zero chance of addressing toxic communities in the site for the foreseeable future.
  - choudanu4 11y ago
    I think you're overlooking the fact that all 36 million (or however many) people that visit Reddit each month are NOT equal....the active content creators are intrinsically more valuable to a community like reddit, simply because they make the community what it is. When the people that make the content (of which 200k is no insignificant drop) that attracts the other 35 million ad-viewers are unhappy, Reddit MUST do something about, whether this 'minority' is vocal or not.
    - 11y ago

sgustard 11y ago

If he thought she did a phenomenal job, it wouldn't have been "a mutual agreement between her and Reddit's board" for her to leave. He would have fought to keep her.

jakejake 11y ago

After you fire somebody you feel bad, so you say what a wonderful person they were. The fit just wasn't right, timing wasn't right, blah blah blah. We'll have to wait for the movie to come out to know what really happened.

vanessa98 11y ago

Seems like just yesterday! http://blog.samaltman.com/a-new-team-at-reddit http://blog.samaltman.com/a-new-team-at-reddit > I am delighted to announce the new team we have in place. Ellen Pao will be stepping up to be interim CEO. Because of her combination of vision, execution, and leadership, I expect that she’ll do an incredible job.

venomsnake 11y ago
It is still incredible what she managed to do ...
dmix 11y ago
Someone's ready for a career in politics.

bsder 11y ago

What? Do you expect Sam to slag her publicly? When was the last time any corporate board slagged a resigning CEO publicly? Sheesh.

AndrewKemendo 11y ago
There is a difference between slagging - whatever that is - and not gushing corporate BS. How about he be honest instead of just a shill? Sam seems to be good at "playing the game" and this type of thing falls right in line with it.
- vshan 11y ago
  No -- it's just basic courtesy. Any criticism Mr. Altman has of Ms. Pao, he can share with her privately, and it's not privy to us.
  - AndrewKemendo 11y ago
    Disagree. Basic courtesy would be "We appreciate all the work Ms. Pao has done and the way in which she handled her resignation as well as her professionalism in the face of many abusive comments from the community." The glowing "done an amazing job" etc... is typical corporate BS and is the classic back scratching that happens at these upper management levels. As an example when Victoria was fired, there was no statement or acknowledgement despite the publicity - let alone a "Victoria has done an amazing job..." type statement by Pao, Alexis or otherwise. Again, just reinforcing the manager/worker class division.