CALIFORNIA – Ellen Pao, the interim chief executive of Reddit, has resigned after eight months in the job following harsh criticism over the sacking of one of the company’s employees.
Pao announced her decision in a post published on Reddit last Friday. She said that a disagreement with top management on meeting new targets prompted the resignation, not the massive flak she received from netizens in the past weeks when the company axed its director of talent, Victoria Taylor.
“So why am I leaving? Ultimately, the board asked me to demonstrate higher user growth in the next six months than I believe I can deliver while maintaining Reddit’s core principles,” Pao wrote.
Pao will remain as an advisor to the board through the end of 2015. Taking over the reins of Reddit is one of its co-founders and former CEO, Steve Huffman, board member Sam Altman said in a statement.
Taylor’s abrupt dismissal led to a petition supported by 210,000 users demanding Pao’s removal. She reportedly also received death threats from users angry at her handling of the situation.
The strongly worded petition accused Pao as “a manipulative individual who will sue her way to the top,’ has overstepped her boundaries and fears that she will run Reddit into the ground.” It also pointed out that alternative sites to Reddit.com have sprung up and have received vast amounts of traffic within the recent months.
Pao pleaded to her haters to remember that she was “just another human; I have a family, and I have feelings.” She added that she has seen “the good, the bad and the ugly on Reddit. The good has been off-the-wall inspiring, and the ugly made me doubt humanity”.
“Everyone attacked on Reddit is just another person like you and me. When people make something up to attack me or someone else, it spreads, and we eventually will see it. And we will feel bad, not just about what was said.”
Altman said that Reddit users “deserve clarity” about content policies, paving way to new guidelines to both “preserve the integrity of reddit and to maintain reddit as the place where the most open and honest conversations with the entire world can happen.”
However, he condoned the grave mud-slinging, saying that it was “sickening to see some of the things” that the site’s users had written about Pao”
“The reduction in compassion that happens when we’re all behind computer screens is not good for the world. People are still people even if there is internet between you.”
“If the Reddit community cannot learn to balance authenticity and compassion, it may be a great website but it will never be a truly great community,” Altman said.
