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0 pointssnowwrestler10y ago0 comments

I have to wonder how many of these issues are the result of poor allocation of limited resources.

Reddit runs on a shoestring for an audience that big, and still loses money. As I understand Victoria's position, a full salary went to hand-hold celebrities during AMAs. That's a lot to spend for a portion of the participants in one subreddit (I don't think every AMA got that support).

Given limited resources, that meant that a salary's worth of resources were not available to help pay a software developer who could be working on better mod tools--which would benefit every mod on the entire site.

That might be the entire story behind Victoria's dismissal: reallocating money from hand-holding to software development. Which is more in line with the typical Silicon Valley tech company way of doing things. Facebook and Google and Twitter spend a lot of money for software development, so they don't have to spend much on hand-holding.

> It isn't the administrator of Reddit that attracts celebrities to the websites. It isn't the administrator of Reddit that create the quality content that is in subreddits like /r/askhistorians, and /r/science and all the other serious subreddits. It is the users and superusers, all self-managed by the moderators.

Reading Pao's post, it looks like that was part of their decision. Since the value primarily comes from the users and mods, let them organize and run the AMAs from now on. Then the company can use that money to make better software.

Note: this is my own speculation based on public stuff I've read.

0 comments

celticninja10y ago

it was not just one subreddit though. She orgamised a lot of AMAs on a lot of subreddits. r/IAMA was the main one, but she did a lot for r/books, r/science etc. Specifically if you look at r/science AMAs these tend not to be for the people to shift their latest product or raise awareness of their charity but to impart knowledge onto the public. TO explain current news stories usually with the people that ran or worked directly on the project. So it was not spent solely on the participants of one subreddit. However it was also her work that helped provide more credibility to the format. Things like the barack obama AMA were major factors in driving people to the site. And you only have to look at how the morgan freeman or woody harrelson AMAs went to get an idea of how a poorly managed AMA could quickly become a PR car crash. Having Victoria protected both the site, its users and the AMA guests by giving them someone who knew the process, what would and what would not work.

>Since the value primarily comes from the users and mods, let them organize and run the AMAs from now on

This is not what they have proposed. They have set up a team to deal with AMA issues. So now there is a team where there was once a single point of contact with direct responsibility. They dont want to concentrate on software they want to monetize the site. AMAs are one of their best features for doing that, it brings in advertisers, page views, recognition, credibility etc so that they handled the whole thing so poorly reflects badly on management.

Domenic_S10y ago

They recently closed a $50MM round. If that's a "shoestring budget" then we really are in a bubble.

dredmorbius10y ago

Reddit's got a team of 65: https://www.reddit.com/about/team/

Advertising revenue is under $10 million per a link provided earlier today from Merideth Paterson.

I don't know about other revenues (Gold, ??).

$50m/64 gives $781,250 per employee. At $200k/yr spend per employee, that's about a four year run time. How much above or below that depends on revenues, growth plans etc.

That should be reasonably decent bank.

hsod10y ago

Celebrity AMAs are the biggest way Reddit gets media exposure. I would think investing in making them run smoothly would be a high priority for Reddit.

darkmighty10y ago

Yes, unless you could automate "Contact courteously celebrities, explain everything, answer questions, and guide them.", it should be money very well spent for Reddit.

Sharlin10y ago

Never mind getting the celebs to want to interact with said automaton as opposed to a living, breathing person.

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