Yishan Wong Resigns From Reddit Over Office Space?
Reddit, a popular website hosting many different themed discussion forums, has lost its CEO, Yishan Wong.
Yishan Wong resigned on Thursday after two and a half years. Ellen Pao, the business and partnership strategist for Reddit, will be taking over the position temporarily. There’s a possibility that Alexis Ohanian, one of the site’s founders, will return as executive chairman.
According to Sam Altman, a Reddit adviser, Yishan Wong left after “a disagreement with the board about a new office (location and amount of money to spend on a lease).”
“To be clear, though, we didn’t ask or suggest that he resign – he decided to when we didn’t approve the new office plan,” Altman added, indicating that the decision completely belonged to Wong.
Yishan Wong has had a little bit of difficult recently with a former employee of the company. He publicly used a great deal of detail about why the employee was fired, and seemed to make it a point to embarrass the person. As unprofessional as a public spat like that might seem, during his time as CEO, Reddit has gone grown in users and investors.
Wong responded to reports about why he quit his position at Reddit and linked it to his Twitter account.
My answer to Why did Yishan Wong resign as Reddit CEO? http://t.co/PMZZsy1tU6
— Yishan Wong (@yishan) November 14, 2014
“All of the reasons that Sam has outlined in public are true. I know it sounds somewhat unbelievable because it’s so weird, but if it was made up, I think any PR person would have come up with a better made-up story,” Yishan Wong began in his post.
Wong went on to explain that it wasn’t just about the location of the office. In fact, he suggested that it was likely something that could have been worked out if the situation were different.
In his response, Yishan Wong made it clear that the position of CEO was stressing him out beyond his ability to cope.
“The job as CEO of reddit is incredibly stressful and draining. After two and a half years, I’m basically completely worn out, and it was having significantly detrimental effects on my personal life. If anything, I probably pushed myself way too far.”
Without Yishan Wong, Reddit will likely continue to expand. Although the site has had some bad publicity within the media, it’s worth noting that the entire site is not all violence or nude photos. There are some educational and fun boards as well. For example, r/whatsthisbug aids users in identifying insects they come across in their daily lives, while fan sections such as r/thewalkingdead discuss things about the popular zombie show and comics (with and without spoilers).
