Reddit CEO Ellen Pao Apologizes for Firing Scandal
“We have apologized for not communicating better with the moderators,” Pao told NPR. “They should have been told earlier about the transition and we should have provided more detail on the transition plan.”
Hundreds of message boards on Reddit went dark Friday in an apparent protest of the abrupt dismissal of Victoria Taylor, the company’s director of talent, was let go without explanation.
“I want to apologize to our community for yesterday,” Pao told TIME. “We handled the transition in a way that caused some disruption, and we should have done a better job.”
Some 300 individual message boards focused on singular topics, called subreddits, rapidly shut down Thursday, after Taylor was dismissed, and expanded well into Friday.
Reddit has more than 8,300 active communities.
Taylor was the company’s chief facilitator of the wildly popular “Ask Me Anything” pages (AMAs). Moderators say they will not be able to coordinate AMAs anymore since Taylor was the point person for contact with politicians, celebrities and other popular figures who participated in the online question and answer sessions.
It is not clear why Taylor, who joined the company in 2013, was dismissed but some suspect it is related to her handling of an AMA with the Rev. Jesse Jackson that went astray with a flurry of questions about his personal history and race issues.
Last month, Pao was ordered to pay nearly $276,000 in legal fees to her former employer, venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, for her failed attempt to sue over gender discrimination.
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