So, what I find more interesting in this is that Reddit did bring in a "new" general manager.
What worries me is that it's not actually someone new. Neither is Alexis, for that matter.
From the outside looking in it would appear that while Reddit has been great at building a community, ramping up page views and engagement ... they suck at making money. (And this has limited their ability to hire and has spread the existing team very thinly.) From from what I can tell, they've always sucked at making money. So by promoting their community manager and bringing back the original CEO as an advisor, it would seem that this would enhance the parts that they're already really good at, but will they be willing to stir things up enough to bump up the revenues (even if it pisses the community off some)? In an armchair-quarterbacking sort of way, I'd hoped they'd bring in someone that was more of an outsider.
They've been doing fine for money since they brought in reddit gold. The problem with hiring new staff had to do less with their revenue and more with Conde Nast's print-centric internal structure. That's why reddit gold worked out so well for them: they counted as "paid subscribers", which meant that reddit could get more money allocated for staff. Before, they had rarely had a problem getting servers or other infrastructure, but get approved to hire people to run them was difficult.
Good for him. Alexis is a genuinely nice guy. When I launched The Startup Foundry, Alexis emailed me two days after I launched (when I still didnt have much traction) and offered his support. I've had the privilege to interview him in a couple different occasions since then and he's always been incredibly kind.
This is awesome. From the things I've seen Alexis do, he seems like a genuinely cool person, and it really makes me happy seeing people like him succeed at things (advisor to Conde Nast seems like a pretty serious position).
Thank you! It's not nearly as awesome for reddit as Erik becoming GM or Max joining the team, but I'm happy to have the chance to give input into the future of reddit.
- YC ambassador to the East
- hip hipmunk
- returning to reddit as advisor/doodler
- (moving back to SF full-time? part-time?)
- advising conde nast
- publishing books/magnets/sauce/posters/shirts for charity
- talking talks
How much did I miss? I know more about your life than my own.
I'm bummed this is such a story, though, because the real story is Erik's promotion (congrats, dude!) and Max (chromakode) joining the team. He's been a longtime code contributor (socialite) and active redditor for even longer (he also donates time to help breadpig, building stuff like WTFCNN.com for me).
I was simply asked by Conde to formally advise them from time to time about reddit & their general web strategy (and possibly consult on future mascots for new web properties). The chance to have some input on my baby was hard to pass up, but this is not even a part-time gig -- managing and growing the hipmunk brand & community is my fulltime commitment.
I can't stress enough that I'm just a formal advisor now. I was already informally doing it whenever someone asked me to. The exciting story here is Erik moving out west to GM and Max joining (and bringing those UX skills).
What worries me is that it's not actually someone new. Neither is Alexis, for that matter.
From the outside looking in it would appear that while Reddit has been great at building a community, ramping up page views and engagement ... they suck at making money. (And this has limited their ability to hire and has spread the existing team very thinly.) From from what I can tell, they've always sucked at making money. So by promoting their community manager and bringing back the original CEO as an advisor, it would seem that this would enhance the parts that they're already really good at, but will they be willing to stir things up enough to bump up the revenues (even if it pisses the community off some)? In an armchair-quarterbacking sort of way, I'd hoped they'd bring in someone that was more of an outsider.