10 ms·

Yishan Wong 2 days ago: > Here's one. > In 2006, reddit was sold to Conde Nast. It was soon obvious to many that the sale had been premature, the site was unm

Yishan Wong 2 days ago: > Here's one. > In 2006, reddit was sold to Conde Nast. It was soon obvious to many that the sale had been premature, the site was unmanaged and under-resourced under the old-media giant who simply didn't understand it and could never realize its full potential, so the founders and their allies in Y-Combinator (where reddit had been born) hatched an audacious plan to re-extract reddit from the clutches of the 100-year-old media conglomerate. > Together with Sam Altman, they recruited a young up-and-coming technology manager with social media credentials. Alexis, who was on the interview panel for the new reddit CEO, would reject all other candidates except this one. The manager was to insist as a condition of taking the job that Conde Nast would have to give up significant ownership of the company, first to employees by justifying the need for equity to be able to hire top talent, bringing in Silicon Valley insiders to help run the company. After continuing to grow the company, he would then further dilute Conde Nast's ownership by raising money from a syndicate of Silicon Valley investors led by Sam Altman, now the President of Y-Combinator itself, who in the process would take a seat on the board. > Once this was done, he and his team would manufacture a series of otherwise-improbable leadership crises, forcing the new board to scramble to find a new CEO, allowing Altman to use his position on the board to advocate for the re-introduction of the old founders, installing them on the board and as CEO, thus returning the company to their control and relegating Conde Nast to a position as minority shareholder. > JUST KIDDING. There's no way that could happen. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cs78i/whats_the_best_long_con_you_ever_pulled/cszjqg2 https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cs78i/whats_the...

amyjess 11y ago
Yishan is almost terminally stupid. If this isn't a joke, he and a ton of other people are going to be sued into the ground for this. If it is a joke, then he and a ton of other people are going to be investigated and possibly sued anyway.
- kordless 11y ago
  He's saying publicly that Ellen was framed, so yeah. It's probably not a joke. http://www.businessinsider.com/yishan-wong-says-alexis-ohanian-failed-ellen-pao-2015-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/yishan-wong-says-alexis-ohani...
- cracell 11y ago
  While I can see how this could hurt his future employment prospects what legal ground is there to sue over this post? Seems like slander would be a very hard case to win and what else is there that you could sue him for?
  - amyjess 11y ago
    Breach of fiduciary duty. If you're an executive, diluting your shareholders is extremely illegal.
    - onedev 11y ago
      He's not an executive anymore...
      - amyjess 11y ago
        What does that matter? He's talking about actions he says he committed when he was CEO. He could get himself, Sam Altman, Alexis Ohanian, and Steve Huffman all sued for fucking over Conde Nast (i.e. their own shareholders).
  - nostrademons 11y ago
    Yishan was a member of the PayPal mafia and started working as an eng director at Facebook in 2005, so it's very likely he has F-U money already. This is someone actually exercising the "F-U" part. I also don't really see what there's grounds to sue on - pretty much all of business is based on taking advantage of undervalued assets and changing control of them so they can be better utilized. Framing it as a long con won't make any friends at Conde Nast, but all the moves at Reddit have (to my knowledge) been by-the-book, legally.
revelation 11y ago
Notice the AskReddit question this is in reference to: Whats the best long con you ever pulled?
rjbwork 11y ago
So cheeky. It really does make you wonder.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Reminds me of The Usual Suspects.
tptacek 11y ago
It's interesting that people criticized Pao for not being very engaged with the Reddit community (she was famously dinged for not knowing how to send a private message). Yishan Wong's repeated indiscretions show the downside of having Reddit's CEO also be an active Redditor.
- benihana 11y ago
  I don't necessarily agree. I think his actions show the downside of having a nincompoop as a CEO. I think the fact that he was an active redditor is circumstantial. I mean, he went on reddit and had an argument with a former employee after that no remote work fiasco.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    Most people are nincompoops about something. The market expects discreet nincompoopery. Being on Reddit doesn't help.
- nostrademons 11y ago
  "Downside" depends on which side you're on. From the perspective of an ordinary Redditor, Yishan forthrightness and transparency has probably been quite refreshing. From the perspective of the board, I bet they very much appreciate Ellen Pao's professionalism and silence. Reddit is basically a society of 36M people now, roughly the size of Iraq. If it were a country, it'd be the 36th largest, bigger than Canada, Venezuela, and Taiwan. r/IAmA alone has 8.6M subscribers, r/AskReddit has 9M. The biggest challenge of a leader is aligning interests. Many of those "citizens" are not aligned with the board, and are not even aligned with each other. It's no wonder that they keep burning through CEOs. Yishan may have been more aligned with the Reddit userbase (although even then, a good portion of the site hated him) and clashed with the board, while Ellen tried to please the board and ended up pissing off the whole userbase.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    How did Pao piss off the userbase? What are the charges on her indictment? * She was CEO at a time when Alexis Ohanian terminated Victoria Taylor. But Ohanian was the chairman of the company, Pao's immediate superior. And the circumstances of Pao's accession to CEO didn't leave much time for the company to sort the problems of an operational chairman out: Pao was brought in as interim CEO at the same time as Ohanian was installed. * She was a principal in a high-profile gender discrimination law suit against a giant venture capital firm where she previously worked. One wonders what this had to do with her tenure at Reddit, but it leads off the popular petition for her ouster. * She presided directly over the termination of David Croach, who had leukemia. Croach claims he was terminated because he was unable to perform his job as community manager, and that he was unable because he was required to work from San Francisco --- a policy created by Yishan Wong. Reddit, through a spokesperson, disputed the veracity of Croach's story. We don't know why he was fired, but it seems like we do know that he was not --- as Pao's critics are very, very fond of saying --- simply fired "for having leukemia". * She is married to Buddy Fletcher, who presided over a failed hedge fund and is accused of impropriety. This too is prominently recorded in the petition for her ouster, and, like her lawsuit, has little to do with her operational role. She is also accused of having deleted posts critical of her and her husband, but admins at Reddit later clarified that she not done that --- which makes sense, since we're talking about someone who couldn't even figure out how to send a private message on Reddit. * She presided over a policy that banned the FPH subreddit. Reddit "free speech" advocates are very fond of suggesting that Pao was cracking down on objectionable speech at Reddit, and doing so selectively, so that white power subreddits were left to stand while FPH was banned. Of course, this leaves out the fact that FPH was banned for harassment, not for hosting hate speech. What am I missing? I don't know that any of these summaries are dispositive. Maybe the FPH issue is more complicated than I realize. Maybe Croach's termination really was mis-handled (if he was fired simply for having leukemia, he has a very straightforward legal case against Reddit). I only ask that we do not accept uncritically the notion that Pao placated the board at the expense of Reddit's community.
gkoberger 11y ago
"Is this a joke?" is the wrong question. Yishan believes this is what happened. Rather, the question should be "is Yishan's perception of the events what actually happened?" Remember, Yishan is biased. He quit under fire from the board, and is a big fan of Ellen Pao. That doesn't make him wrong (or right); just biased.
fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
Wait until you see who is the top replies to /u/yishan's comment.

amyjess 11y ago

Yishan is almost terminally stupid. If this isn't a joke, he and a ton of other people are going to be sued into the ground for this. If it is a joke, then he and a ton of other people are going to be investigated and possibly sued anyway.

kordless 11y ago
He's saying publicly that Ellen was framed, so yeah. It's probably not a joke. http://www.businessinsider.com/yishan-wong-says-alexis-ohanian-failed-ellen-pao-2015-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/yishan-wong-says-alexis-ohani...
cracell 11y ago
While I can see how this could hurt his future employment prospects what legal ground is there to sue over this post? Seems like slander would be a very hard case to win and what else is there that you could sue him for?
- amyjess 11y ago
  Breach of fiduciary duty. If you're an executive, diluting your shareholders is extremely illegal.
  - onedev 11y ago
    He's not an executive anymore...
    - amyjess 11y ago
      What does that matter? He's talking about actions he says he committed when he was CEO. He could get himself, Sam Altman, Alexis Ohanian, and Steve Huffman all sued for fucking over Conde Nast (i.e. their own shareholders).
- nostrademons 11y ago
  Yishan was a member of the PayPal mafia and started working as an eng director at Facebook in 2005, so it's very likely he has F-U money already. This is someone actually exercising the "F-U" part. I also don't really see what there's grounds to sue on - pretty much all of business is based on taking advantage of undervalued assets and changing control of them so they can be better utilized. Framing it as a long con won't make any friends at Conde Nast, but all the moves at Reddit have (to my knowledge) been by-the-book, legally.

revelation 11y ago

Notice the AskReddit question this is in reference to: Whats the best long con you ever pulled?

rjbwork 11y ago

So cheeky. It really does make you wonder.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
Reminds me of The Usual Suspects.

tptacek 11y ago

It's interesting that people criticized Pao for not being very engaged with the Reddit community (she was famously dinged for not knowing how to send a private message). Yishan Wong's repeated indiscretions show the downside of having Reddit's CEO also be an active Redditor.

benihana 11y ago
I don't necessarily agree. I think his actions show the downside of having a nincompoop as a CEO. I think the fact that he was an active redditor is circumstantial. I mean, he went on reddit and had an argument with a former employee after that no remote work fiasco.
- tptacek 11y ago
  Most people are nincompoops about something. The market expects discreet nincompoopery. Being on Reddit doesn't help.
nostrademons 11y ago
"Downside" depends on which side you're on. From the perspective of an ordinary Redditor, Yishan forthrightness and transparency has probably been quite refreshing. From the perspective of the board, I bet they very much appreciate Ellen Pao's professionalism and silence. Reddit is basically a society of 36M people now, roughly the size of Iraq. If it were a country, it'd be the 36th largest, bigger than Canada, Venezuela, and Taiwan. r/IAmA alone has 8.6M subscribers, r/AskReddit has 9M. The biggest challenge of a leader is aligning interests. Many of those "citizens" are not aligned with the board, and are not even aligned with each other. It's no wonder that they keep burning through CEOs. Yishan may have been more aligned with the Reddit userbase (although even then, a good portion of the site hated him) and clashed with the board, while Ellen tried to please the board and ended up pissing off the whole userbase.
- tptacek 11y ago
  How did Pao piss off the userbase? What are the charges on her indictment? * She was CEO at a time when Alexis Ohanian terminated Victoria Taylor. But Ohanian was the chairman of the company, Pao's immediate superior. And the circumstances of Pao's accession to CEO didn't leave much time for the company to sort the problems of an operational chairman out: Pao was brought in as interim CEO at the same time as Ohanian was installed. * She was a principal in a high-profile gender discrimination law suit against a giant venture capital firm where she previously worked. One wonders what this had to do with her tenure at Reddit, but it leads off the popular petition for her ouster. * She presided directly over the termination of David Croach, who had leukemia. Croach claims he was terminated because he was unable to perform his job as community manager, and that he was unable because he was required to work from San Francisco --- a policy created by Yishan Wong. Reddit, through a spokesperson, disputed the veracity of Croach's story. We don't know why he was fired, but it seems like we do know that he was not --- as Pao's critics are very, very fond of saying --- simply fired "for having leukemia". * She is married to Buddy Fletcher, who presided over a failed hedge fund and is accused of impropriety. This too is prominently recorded in the petition for her ouster, and, like her lawsuit, has little to do with her operational role. She is also accused of having deleted posts critical of her and her husband, but admins at Reddit later clarified that she not done that --- which makes sense, since we're talking about someone who couldn't even figure out how to send a private message on Reddit. * She presided over a policy that banned the FPH subreddit. Reddit "free speech" advocates are very fond of suggesting that Pao was cracking down on objectionable speech at Reddit, and doing so selectively, so that white power subreddits were left to stand while FPH was banned. Of course, this leaves out the fact that FPH was banned for harassment, not for hosting hate speech. What am I missing? I don't know that any of these summaries are dispositive. Maybe the FPH issue is more complicated than I realize. Maybe Croach's termination really was mis-handled (if he was fired simply for having leukemia, he has a very straightforward legal case against Reddit). I only ask that we do not accept uncritically the notion that Pao placated the board at the expense of Reddit's community.

gkoberger 11y ago

"Is this a joke?" is the wrong question. Yishan believes this is what happened. Rather, the question should be "is Yishan's perception of the events what actually happened?" Remember, Yishan is biased. He quit under fire from the board, and is a big fan of Ellen Pao. That doesn't make him wrong (or right); just biased.

fnordfnordfnord 11y ago

Wait until you see who is the top replies to /u/yishan's comment.