Well, the controversy surrounding the appointment of Ellen Pao as CEO of Reddit, has now been replaced with joy in the websphere with news breaking that she has resigned from her position. According to Reddit announcements, “Ellen Pao has resigned from Reddit today with mutual agreement, before going on to announce that Steve Huffman, founder and the original Reddit CEO, is returning as CEO.”
Upon further reading of the announcement, it does make you wonder if this was sarcastic or a generic post, Reddit “are thankful for Ellen’s many contributions to Reddit and the technology industry generally” By thankful it may be more of a case of, don’t let the door hit you on the way out after offending loyal Reddit readers with the dismissing of Victoria Taylor, who was a respected and well liked employee of the site.
Reddit closes their statement by welcoming Steve Huffman “who we assumed was unavailable, was the benchmark candidate and he has exactly the combination of talent and vision we were looking for”
I think this just goes to show that by destabilising an expansive company and offending loyal readers, the only recourse is one of exit. Perhaps it also shows naivety in attempting to impose an ideology which co cannot exist on a website which in this case is Reddit.
