Ellen Pao Leaves reddit; Site Founder Steve Huffman Makes a Triumphant Return

To say that it’s been a tumultuous month for reddit seems like an understatement. While multiple events have occurred in recent months that have caused an uproar, such as the banning of popular “hate” subreddits, nothing impacted the site quite like the out-of-nowhere firing of “Ask Me Anything” admin Victoria Taylor. Following that, it was discovered that the creator of reddit‘s Secret Santa programme was also let go weeks earlier.

In protest of reddit‘s actions, numerous subreddits decided to go dark for a day. This included many default subreddits, which meant that ordinary users visiting the site would have little new to look at. While this was all going on late last week, much of the community’s angst was directed at reddit‘s CEO Ellen Pao, who joined the company last fall. The community so vehemently believed that she was the root cause of reddit‘s downward spiral that a petition gained over 200,000 signatures before last weekend was through.

Ellen Pao

It took too long to happen, but earlier this week, Pao created an announcement post with apologies abound. She notes that reddit as a whole hasn’t been doing a great job in keeping the community and its moderators apprised of goings-on, and that things were going to be changing. The company even created a new position of Moderator Advocate.

In her post, Pao said “I know these are just words, and it may be hard for you to believe us. I don’t have all the answers, and it will take time for us to deliver concrete results.” While admirable to take the heat, apologies and actions came a bit late, and it seemed many reddit mods weren’t buying it. In order for things to get better, it seemed a big change had to be made.

Today, we learn what that change is: Ellen Pao’s departure from the company.

In a new announcement post, we’re reintroduced to reddit‘s founder Steve Huffman, who is returning as CEO.

There is no telling if this petition played a role in Pao’s departure

Part of the announcement reads: “We’re very happy to have Steve back. Product and community are the two legs of reddit, and the board was very focused on finding a candidate who excels at both (truthfully, community is harder), which Steve does. He has the added bonus of being a founder with ten years of reddit history in his head.”

Steve will rejoin Alexis Ohanian who will have the new title of co-founder. Furthring what Pao said in her post earlier this week, reddit‘s top brass assures us all that it will be doing more to make the jobs of the site’s moderators easier, with better communication being a key part of that.

While this all paints a pretty picture of the future of reddit, Sam Altman, a reddit‘s Director, and the one who penned this post, does express his distaste with how Pao has been treated in recent weeks. “As a closing note, it was sickening to see some of the things redditors wrote about Ellen. 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.

He continues, “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. Steve’s great challenge as CEO will be continuing the work Ellen started to drive this forward.”

And with that, let’s see where reddit goes from here.