A former Reddit employee who hosted an ‘Ask Me Anything’ thread on the site has been publicly shamed by the company’s CEO.
The employee, known as dehrmann, created a public thread on Reddit inviting people to ask him questions about what it was like to work there.
“I was a reddit admin from 07/2013 until 03/2014. I mostly did engineering work to support ads, but I also was a part-time receptionist, pumpkin mover, and occasional stabee (ask /u/rram). I got to spend a lot of time with the SF crew, a decent amount with the NYC group, and even a few alums. Ask away!”
Things were going well until someone asked why he quit his job.
Former employee, known as dehrmann, created an AMA thread on Reddit inviting people to ask him questions about what it was like to work there. (Screenshot: Reddit)
"Officially: no reason," Dehrmann replied, before accusing the company of not being open to feedback, especially when it came to charitable donations.
"The best theory I have is that, two weeks earlier, I raised concerns about donating 10% of ad revenue to charity. Some management likes getting feedback, some doesn't.
"The reason I had concerns was that this was revenue, not income. That means you need ~10% margins to break even. This can be hard to do; Yahoo and Twitter don't. Salesforce does something similar, but it's more all-around, and in a way that promotes the product without risking the company's financials."
Unfortunately, Reddit CEO Yishan Wong got wind of the AMA and decided to clear up the fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD).
"Ok, there's been quite a bit of FUD in here, so I think it's time to clear things up. You were fired for the following reasons:
- Incompetence and not getting much work done.
- Inappropriate or irrelevant comments/questions when interviewing candidates
- Making incorrect comments in public about reddit's systems that you had very little knowledge of, even after having these errors pointed out by your peers and manager.
- Not taking feedback from your manager or other engineers about any of these when given to you, continuing to do #2 until we removed you from interviewing, and never improving at #1."
Reddit CEO Yishan Wong publicly shames a former employee. (Screenshot: Reddit)
Some were clearly unsympathetic, with one user SourlySweet writing: "Saw this coming. He's bitching about being fired by reddit on reddit. How stupid can you be?"
Others found Wong’s response harsh and unnecessary.
“No one but you guys know what happened in your company but from an outsider's perspective, he didn't really say anything that negative about Reddit to warrant such a brutal attack," wrote Orchestral. "Please consider taking the high road and edit your post to be a bit less condemning.”
What did you think of the Reddit AMA and the comments that CEO Yishan Wong made?
