Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

Re:Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief by mc32 on Saturday July 11, 2015 @02:27AM (#9868778)

That's all good -fine. If she did wrong, let the company deal with it. They hired her. But here she's been left out to dry. Totally different from Toyota where an executive smuggled prescription drugs into Japan[1] and the company stood by her --she stepped down once she understood the implications of her transgression in the eyes of Japanese law.

But this is not the company firing her --it's the internet firing her. I don't like this approach at all. management by popular opinion is not good. Imagine managing a professional sports team by popular vote --it'd be nuts.

[1]http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/19/us-toyota-executiv...

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Re:Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief by chiph on Saturday July 11, 2015 @08:49AM (#9869567)

The Reddit users are their customers. If a board has a CEO that is getting a lot of the firms customers upset (in revolt), then the board has to step in to preserve the company. Remember, they had Digg as an example of what can happen when highly mobile customers leave.

So far as an example from the automotive industry, look at Rick Wagoner from General Motors. He lost the firm $82 billion and 90% of its market capitalization while he was CEO. And the board did nothing to correct this. With their capital gone, loss of confidence by the market, they were forced into bankruptcy.

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Re:Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief by bsder on Saturday July 11, 2015 @06:14AM (#9869248)

> Imagine managing a professional sports team by popular vote --it'd be nuts.

That's a really bad example to cite because managers and coaches quite often do get fired when the fans start getting too angry.

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