Pao: My Resignation Had Nothing to do With Uproar Over Firing of Victoria Taylor, User Discontent

Today, Reddit CEO Ellen Pao resigned. In a post in “Announcements,” the site declared that Pao resigned “by mutual agreement” between her and the Reddit. Separately, Ms. Pao stated that the recent uproar over the firing of Victoria Taylor had nothing to do with her departure.

They further said that “Steve Huffman, founder and the original reddit CEO, is returning as CEO.” The announcement took a conciliatory tone towards moderators.

“Mods, you are what makes reddit great,” the statement reads. “The reddit team, now with Steve, wants to do more for you. You deserve better moderation tools and better communication from the admins.”

The piece also says that redditors “deserve clarity about what the content policy of reddit is going to be. The team will create 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, it took a harsher tone when talking about some of the vitriol that was thrown at Pao. “It was sickening to see some of the things redditors wrote about Ellen,” the announcement says. “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.”

Despite the fact that this comes on the heels of a “revolt” by redditors after the firing of Victoria Taylor, Ms. Pao said that it did not factor into her decision to leave.

“We had different views in the potential growth rate in users for Reddit this year,” she said in an interview. “We couldn’t come to an agreement on that and I decided to step down.”

Sam Altman, a Reddit board member, echoed this, saying it was a “mutual decision over a number of weeks.”