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Reddit CEO Pao steps down

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- She treated fellow employees like shit at her previous workplace (screaming matches, berating a secretary who was late because her landlord was in a car accident)
- She sued her former workplace for sexual harassment. This may have been legit, but she lost (and she's appealing), and she sued for an amount extremely close to the amount her husband is being sued for fraud.
- She terminated an employee at reddit for having leukemia
- She implemented a policy that no one is allowed to negotiate their salaries or raises at reddit. She may have had the best of intentions here, but it was an extremely unpopular move that gave the company more power over its employees

By all accounts she wasn't liked by the employees, or the community, and I've seen nothing to indicate the board has ever been happy with her either.

Sure sounds like a real asshole. But if she was a he and the color changed from yellow to white, I'd guarantee we'd see less shitposting and hostility and more constructive dialogue if not outright apathy. Hard to have a nuanced about a person when said person is so completely alien to the majority (or really vocal mintority) of reddit's viewership. Also she wasn't hated by the community because of those things, she was hated for getting rid of a shitty sub and being misattributed to the firing of an admin.
 

LoveCake

Member
“They had a more aggressive view than I did,” she said.

hDO0Qny.gif


Glad she's gone, i wonder where she will spring up next though?
 

Mxrz

Member
Disturbing all the shit that gets thrown at her, even on here. Would've been nice if they kept all the toxic stuff limited to reddit, but some people seemed determined to spread it as many sites, games and channels as possible.
 

injurai

Banned
Because no one said Paoligula, Paossolini or Vladimir Paotin.

And these are all way funnier.

I think they are objectively not as funny, hence they didn't become the ubiquitous tar and feathering of her. Also they clearly not as obvious satires on her name and the percieve dictorial role she played against the community. Oh, I bet you want to tell me that it's racist because it implies a shared Chinese heritage, but it clearly doesn't and makes no claim on what having a chinese heritage means.

I truly do not see the sequitur between the Chairman Pao meme to it being explicitly racist. I can see a lot of tangential things that were said though as being racist, and may have occured alongside with promotion of the meme.

edit: Maybe I missed some other part of the whole reddit uproar, but I wouldn't conflate the core meme with being what is racist.
 
Because no one said Paoligula, Paossolini or Vladimir Paotin.

Mao is three letters, so if Pao. The pun is cleaner and funnier that way. Caligula isn't really someone who gets thrown around a lot when dictators are mentioned on reddit. Neither is Mussolini. Really Mao and Hitler are the big ones, which are incidentally the same two Pao get compared to. Meanwhile the Mao -> Pao requires only a one letter shift. The others are more strained, because they don't rhyme and require more letter shifts.
 

Tacitus_

Member
RE: Mao = Pao. The previous CEO was also asian and I'm not aware of any major comparisons of him to Mao (this doesn't mean that there weren't any).

Disturbing all the shit that gets thrown at her, even on here. Would've been nice if they kept all the toxic stuff limited to reddit, but some people seemed determined to spread it as many sites, games and channels as possible.

You know, despite the unfounded shit that gets thrown her way, she's not exactly a good person, as the court found out.
 

Aselith

Member
You know, despite the unfounded shit that gets thrown her way, she's not exactly a good person, as the court found out.

People are always going to find no angel stuff on you if they look. In these situations where a lot of other hateful stuff is tied into the accusation, it's important to look at the motivations of the accuser as well.

She may not be the best person but people are using a lot of stuff to justify some even more repugnant stuff.
 
She had short coming and terrible decision making skills, so her outing may be good. But I can shake this feeling off that her mistakes were exaggerated and her character vilified by a portion of reddit because she is an Asian woman.
 
Even to the end she blames someone else for her antics.

Although...if she IS telling the truth and the reddit handlers wanted an even more stringent monetization method than what Pao was offering....

Shit will be a sight to hold. We might have jumped from the pan and into the fire.
 

Tacitus_

Member
She had short coming and terrible decision making skills, so her outing may be good. But I can shake this feeling off that her mistakes were exaggerated and her character vilified by a portion of reddit because she is an Asian woman.

The CEO she replaced was also asian and he got way less shit... well maybe not less shit, but for not racist reasons. Mostly because he posted stuff like "Every Man Is Responsible For His Own Soul" after the fappening
The reason is because we consider ourselves not just a company running a website where one can post links and discuss them, but the government of a new type of community. The role and responsibility of a government differs from that of a private corporation, in that it exercises restraint in the usage of its powers.
and hired a man to rework bitcoin in javascript for reddit for... reasons.
Though her being a woman will have enraged the lower dregs of users.
 
Kicking and screaming like giant man babies finally worked

It's not very productive to phrase things this way when people are vocal about opinions you disagree with or just don't care about. People being vocal on the internet is why we don't have ridiculously strict console DRM and online requirements this generation. I've seen some who were in favor of the original XB1 plans phrase the NoDRM movement as "whiners/babies/entitled gamers getting their way" as well. That's just one example, but there are plenty of others. This trend of trying to paint vocal movements on the internet with a brush of illegitimacy needs to stop.
 

tomtom94

Member
It's not very productive to phrase things this way when people are vocal about opinions you disagree with or just don't care about. People being vocal on the internet is why we don't have ridiculously strict console DRM and online requirements this generation. I've seen some who were in favor of the original XB1 plans phrase the NoDRM movement as "whiners/babies/entitled gamers getting their way" as well. That's just one example, but there are plenty of others. This trend of trying to paint vocal movements on the internet with a brush of illegitimacy needs to stop.

They don't really help themselves when stuff like this happens:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BestOfOutr...cdex9/a_quick_peek_at_the_ellen_pao_petition/
 

Skux

Member
Should've been months ago but better late than never. Nice to see the OG CEO back as well.

I hope crappydesign comes back, the mod resigned and closed it in protest.
 

Not Spaceghost

Spaceghost
Wait am I reading that right? She ditched them because she wasn't compliant enough to agree with all of the boards awful decisions?

This means that who ever replaces her can only be worse right?
 
I love how the mainstream media is picking up the "misogynist drives out Reddit CEO" story line and running with it.

First and foremost, she's an incompetent goober.
 

Into

Member
There might be hope for reddit, but the people who put her in charge are probably still there.

The amount of damage Pao has done in such a short time is staggering. That is not repaired by just her not being there.

It is amazing how utterly disconnected from your own userbase you can possibly be.
 

ryseing

Member
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED

WE DID IT REDDIT, I MEAN GAF

And I doubt she left over "disagreeing with the board". Probably an excuse to save face.
 
She's clearly unlikeable as a person, but I feel reddit fans are in for a rough ride with the way the site goes without her as a business woman.

You all got what you wanted, hope there's no tears in a few years.
 

Brakke

Banned
Mao is three letters, so if Pao. The pun is cleaner and funnier that way. Caligula isn't really someone who gets thrown around a lot when dictators are mentioned on reddit. Neither is Mussolini. Really Mao and Hitler are the big ones, which are incidentally the same two Pao get compared to. Meanwhile the Mao -> Pao requires only a one letter shift. The others are more strained, because they don't rhyme and require more letter shifts.

You just made a list of reasons why Chairman Pao is easy and cheap and why Paossolini is hilarious. Just trying saying Paossolini out loud! It's goofy and fun. Also the concept of comparing this lady to someone who murdered people by the million is ridiculous already, so you oughta own it by making a big stretch out of it. "Chairman Pao" is too clean a match phonetically and ethnically. You gotta have the humility to show that you know the comparison to an actual dictator is bathetic. "Emperor Paopatine" is perfect.
 

dLMN8R

Member
Maybe I'm missing something, but from the articles I've read about this whole debacle it seems like Ellen Pao getting blamed for this mess and then her resignation seem like a perfect epitome of misogynistic sexism that Reddit is stereotyped for?

  • It doesn't seem like it was her decision to fire Victoria in the first place
  • Despite Alexis Ohanian actually being the one to fire Victoria, Pao got the blame
  • Also, who got the misogynistic insults against her? Pao. Alexis? I haven't seen much hate for him at all


Why are people so happy to see her gone?

Why are people so happy that Alexis Ohanian is still there despite this all ultimately starting with him?


If I have some facts wrong here, I'd be happy to hear it.
 

diaspora

Member
You just made a list of reasons why Chairman Pao is easy and cheap and why Paossolini is hilarious. Just trying saying Paossolini out loud! It's goofy and fun. Also the concept of comparing this lady to someone who murdered people by the million is ridiculous already, so you oughta own it by making a big stretch out of it. "Chairman Pao" is too clean a match phonetically and ethnically. You gotta have the humility to show that you know the comparison to an actual dictator is bathetic. "Emperor Paopatine" is perfect.
Well shit
 

HoodWinked

Member
you know its funny cause lets say for example her lawsuit against that firm went in her favor. she would be labeled as a civil rights hero and beacon for females in the workplace and whatever she did or does for reddit probably wouldnt even mattered because people would be either indifferent or positive towards her. but because she lost shes is sort of labeled as a loser.

its sort of hilarious how people dont want to be associated with a 'loser' even if its a ceo of a site that they frequent and really does sort of perfectly represented in their site the whole upvote system is a numerical representation of user's validation.
 

dLMN8R

Member
- She treated fellow employees like shit at her previous workplace (screaming matches, berating a secretary who was late because her landlord was in a car accident)
- She sued her former workplace for sexual harassment. This may have been legit, but she lost (and she's appealing), and she sued for an amount extremely close to the amount her husband is being sued for fraud.
- She terminated an employee at reddit for having leukemia
- She implemented a policy that no one is allowed to negotiate their salaries or raises at reddit. She may have had the best of intentions here, but it was an extremely unpopular move that gave the company more power over its employees

By all accounts she wasn't liked by the employees, or the community, and I've seen nothing to indicate the board has ever been happy with her either.

Is there actually strong conclusive evidence to support these allegations?

In a thread full of hatred over this women because some other man fired someone, I find it a little hard to just automatically accept un-sourced statements like this.

I have to believe there's a little (or a lot of) nuance between reality and this portrayal which could be easily confused with an unimaginative caricature of a one-sided evil mastermind.
 
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