Trying to start a new social network (or whatever you'd call Reddit) from the ground-up is not only very likely to fail, but it's also a totally different skillset than building iOS apps. Of course he'd rather just find another job.

His point was that there is a big difference between building a product and operating a service. I can understanding not wanting to do the latter, because it's a COO job and unless you like doing that it is not fun.