Six verified Reddit employees discussing the current atmosphere at the company. Featuring "First the company needs to get rid of Steve", "It's garbage", and actively hoping to be laid off. : r/ModCoor : RedditMigration

[–] [email protected] 109 points 1 year ago (5 children)

You know the phrase "business genius"?

Spez is a business idiot.

He's had money thrown at him from VCs, thousands of people generating content, and administering content for free, sitting on a goldmine of data and goodwill and Community spirit, and he's managed to lose money, burn bridges, and fuck up the whole deal all for thppe sake of chasing a few dollars of API revenue and a bruised ego. All while others make millions and gain significant community support using the exact same data with business models he could have just copied or shared in.

He's had every opportunity. He's fucked it up at every step.

Business idiot.

Fire spez.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

he's managed to lose money, burn bridges, and fuck up the whole deal all for thppe sake of chasing a few dollars of API revenue

Let's call this what it actually was though, there was no attempt at making money from the API. This was entirely to shut down 3rd party apps. Smart AI companies will just scrape reddit. The only people affected by this are 3rd party app developers and users.

This is even more amazingly incompetent. There are a near infinite other ways they could have handled 3rd party apps not showing ads, but they instead chose the brute force method that makes no one happy.

Reddit is incompetence. That is their lifeblood.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fair point. And yes, there's just so many ways he could have made money from third party apps and their users without trashing them. The AI explanation just didn't make any sense to me at all.

A business brain would have followed the money. He's just following half-witted ideas/ego. I don't think he really realises or understands what he had.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

The thing that gets me is that rif used to have a revenue sharing arrangement, which was axed when spez came in. He literally had a functional way of profiting off of third party apps and he threw it out.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Honestly, Reddit could have bought Apollo and then done absolutely nothing different and this would have gone over much better.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah but then they would have to justify killing all other 3rd party apps.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago

"stable business idiot"

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Business idiot, social idiot, regular idiot... he's got all the bases covered.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Remember the threat that Reddit presented to capitalism's status quo around the height of antiwork and GME.

If Reddit falls, it will be on purpose. Same as the 180 of Twitter as a somewhat legitimate forum - Twitter being a key organizing tool during the Arab Spring (with the Saudis being the largest investor in Twitter behind elon of course).

Billionaires do each other favors to keep the class war in balance.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I... had not thought of the situation from that perspective.

On the one hand, I want to look at this and say 'conspiracy theory'... but on the other hand I could potentially see this being possible.

On the third hand, when in doubt, apply Hanlon's Razor: don't attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

yeah i’m not sure this theory holds water… it’s pretty obvious the community won’t just give up: everyone saw what happened with mastodon

the fediverse is ideologically opposed to corporate and capitalist interference, so they’re just pushing people to a platform that they have even less control over, in a manner that pushes people to be more anti-capitalist, to a platform whose very existence is about being anti-corporate!

mayyybe you could say that combined with threads the “long play” is to embrace, extend, extinguish essentially moving reddit to facebook? but that’s a stretch and a half

i agree with hanlons razor here: spez is just a fucking egotistical moron

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Spez personally will do just fine. He'll exit with a golden parachute.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

sad but true

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

God what a mess. The only people left employed by Reddit at this rate will be the managers lol.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It seems like lots of big companies are going this way. Trying to hit short term profits through massive, risky changes in direction, stocking up on managers and officers while suddenly firing half your workforce, taking massive payouts and crippling long-term potential, trying to hire in new bodies to throw on the pile as cheaply as possible, idolizing idiots like Musk who go around unplugging servers…

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

The submarine company is also an example of this. Why listen to material scientists or engineers when you can cut corners to save a buck? Submarine experts told the CEO it was just a matter of time before the carbon fiber went pop, and that would be really bad for anyone inside at the time. But they saved so much money!

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I feel really bad for these people. I really hope they'll quickly find a good opportunity to leave.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

Huh.... because they are all describing a particularly shitty work environment, there is a good bet that there are other employees who feel that way. It might indeed not be the protests that kill Reddit - but Reddit itself that kills Reddit.....

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Well, good news. After the IPO, Spez will fuck off into the sunset and layoffs will be a'commin!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Wow thanks for posting, what a read. I suspected average employees would not like what is going on.

I can relate, up until recently I was in a company whose product and decisions I strongly disliked and browsing r/antiwork like wild to cope. I was close to burnout due to the mismanagement and work heaped on me.

Until eventually something in me snapped and I went and found a better job. Is everything good here? God no, but my current manager is nice and my workload more manageable for now and I learned I have options if it grows unmanageable again, a lot of options actually.

So thanks for those who keep posting to move on as well, it‘s a bit repetitive and perhaps obvious, but useful nonetheless for those who don‘t see it yet.

Though if one loves the product and coworkers and work and the main shit thing is the management, maybe a union would be the more useful solution. It‘s a good way to influence some of these decisions, perhaps what makes my current employer better is the presence of a union.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Good job on doing what you felt. It is obvious, but those have become the hardest things these days.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

This is the way

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

@abff08f4813c are they hoping to be fired by posting these comments on Reddit itself? Wouldn't surprise me. What a shithole.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago

Oops. To clarify, these are anonymous posts on teamblind dot com, not on reddit itself. Then someone on r/ModCoord reposted this there.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Blind is an app where people can sign up anonymously but have to verify they actually work at a company by registering their company email. In the app there is a company-internal community, and various Blind-global communities. You can see which company every person is from - so all these people have "Reddit" next to their names, meaning they validated with their Reddit company email and are current or former employees.

It's a toxic cesspool. I have so many screencaptures of terrible Blind conversations. Wonderful to gawk at when I'm bored. Edit: I've captured some of my favorites at @BestofBlind .

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What makes it toxic? Is it just full of people dunking on each other solely due to where they work?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yes, that, as well as this weird culture to put your TC (total compensation - cash + stocks) at the end of your post so everyone knows how much money you make and people occasionally dunk on those who don't make enough. There's a large amount of sexism, racism, and transphobia floating around as well - just a byproduct of total anonymity. The only benefit is really the internal company discussions.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Everyone should know how everyone else is compensated.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

I agree but they shouldn't be assholes about it. Don't rag on someone making less than you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Not really a primary point of your post, but you might consider that recent history, and history in general, provide many examples where sexism, racism, and transphobia do not remotely depend on anonymity.

At least in the corporate sphere there is a large overlap between shitty people and those that don't value privacy.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

adding on to OP’s reply, these users are verified reddit employees with their emails attached.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That kind of work environment is unsurprising given he idolizes Musks Twitter. From what I have heard, in general Musks companies are known to be horrible to work for.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Unfortunately idiot Elon is a trend setter.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Not to say Reddit is good, but Blind is the most toxic community I’ve ever seen and it has a very strong filter for bitter employees.

I’d take the discussion there with a grain of salt, though I expect morale at Reddit is pretty terrible right now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

@abff08f4813c so "ex-FAANG" managers coming in for their CIA sabotage manual any% runs isn't just happening at discord?

makes sense to me

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