[jazzyk]

When Victoria was fired, the _perception_ was (possibly incorrect, as we know now) that it was Pao's decision. Not unreasonably, since most personnel decisions below the CEO are made by the CEO. So the original premise still stands.

[tptacek]

Pao's most vocal detractors "perceived" all sorts of crazy things, from malicious edits (ranging from comments about Pao's husband to moderation of stories about the Trans Pacific Partnership) to a holy crusade against just the kinds of hate speech Pao didn't like, so no, I don't think I'm required to accept the argument that in this case, perception is nearly as important as reality.

No, I do not believe you have established with evidence or reason that the original premise of this subthread still stands.

[jazzyk]

1. A well-liked/respected employee is abruptly fired. 2. In most businesses, the CEO does all the firings (or is responsible). 3. I liked the fired employee, I thought she did a great job, therefore I am angry at the CEO.

Are you saying you need to be a crazy/malicious person to follow the above logic? Are all the 250K people who signed the petition crazy or malicious?

[tptacek]

No, (2) is true of virtually no businesses of any meaningful size! Certainly in most companies of Reddit's size --- over 60 employees --- managers reporting to the CEO have hire/fire.

I wasn't the CEO of Matasano, and I fired people. And Matasano was not a big company.

Finally: people keep talking about Victoria Taylor as if she was somehow a key employee of Reddit. She probably was, but not by design. It was probably mismanagement of the AMAs that resulted in a single project manager becoming one of the most visible people in the most visible part of the site. At any rate: who was responsible for the operational organization of AMAs? Alexis Ohanian.

[pvg]

She probably was, but not by design. It was probably mismanagement of the AMAs that resulted in a single project manager becoming one of the most visible people in the most visible part of the site.

I interpret most of what happened very similarly to you but this part I think can't be right. Her original title was 'Director of Communications', it wasn't someone who started in the copy room and, by grit and luck, quietly ended up running one of the most popular subreddits. If the board is pestering you about growth, the chairman is back and has new plans for AMA, the AMA-person is about to be no-notice insta-fired on a Tuesday by said chairman, you probably know who that person is and what they do. If 'reddit didn't know who they were firing' is plausible then much of the stuff the crazies are saying would be plausible too.