Reddit's CEO Allegedly Fired a Worker for Not Recovering from Cancer Fast Enough

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3c0idl/i_am_dacvak_former_reddit_employee_and_leukemia/

by bennyluo • 11 years ago

83 40 11 years ago

sp3322• 11 years ago

That emotionally sucks, but the guy hadn't actually done his job for almost a year and still felt entitled to it?

itg• 11 years ago

"During this time, I had sat down with Ellen Pao (current reddit CEO) to discuss my future at reddit and when I was able to move. I had told her that it would still be at least a month (but probably closer to 2 or 3) before I was finally able to move to SF, and she said she was 100% fine with that. We discussed my position, and ultimately determined that I would be returning to the Community Management team. I met some of the new members of the team, all was well, and then I flew home on day 3."

claudiug• 11 years ago

is possible in USA to get fired with no procedures, or not getting any money?

dragonwriter• 11 years ago

Yes. Most of the US is employment-at-will by default, which means that you can legally be fired without cause, notice, or compensation other than that due based on work prior to the moment of termination.

(Now, there are still reasons for which it is illegal to fire people, and, in part to avoid disputes over whether one of those were involved -- and, on the procedural end, in part to actually work to resolve issues that might be resolved short of firing -- employers will often apply substantial procedures before firing, and even when firing offer a severance package, potentially explicitly contingent on an agreement not to sue.)

iofj• 11 years ago

It baffles me that it is legal to offer somebody anything "contingent on an agreement not to sue". How are disputes resolved ? Especially in this case there is almost a guarantee of a dispute, isn't there.

How would an employer defend that this agreement wasn't made under duress ? That both sides were equal partners in the negotiation about such a contract ?

I'd think the right to sue about anything is the most fundamental of the inalienable rights, because without it, the other rights wouldn't effectively exist.

sp3322• 11 years ago

All 50 states have "at-will" employment, which means the employer can let the employee go or the employee can choose to leave at any time with no reason given. There are limitations on certain kinds of jobs, and severance packages are common but only for full-time or salaried employees I think. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment

hwstar• 11 years ago

49 states have at-will employment. The exception is Montana. In Montana, they have 'just cause' similar to the rest of the developed world.

rhino3692• 11 years ago

You do get unemployment insurance payouts if you are fired without cause. It's not a lot and it doesn't come directly from the employer. But indirectly it comes fm the employer because they get taxed based on how many former employees go on unemployment.

Most upper middle class jobs will give generous payouts.

Cowicide• 11 years ago

Well, the fired worker who has cancer made a post where he thanked Ellen Pao and Reddit for paying for his COBRA insurance for up to a year after his firing. So, I'm not sure he was simply let go and that's that.

I'm not saying that Reddit isn't making mistakes, but I am glad that they at least finally tried to do something about the serious troll problems there.

I'm still waiting for a source that explains this mess without all the hyperbole and assumptions. However, I'm increasingly thinking that won't happen as it seems a lot of redditors have already made up their minds that this or that person is evil and this and that person is a godly saint.

I'd like to hear both sides of the stories, etc. before I make up my mind on this situation.

heimatau6• 11 years ago

Can HN not get caught up in the drama of reddit? Please. (Btw, instead of just down voting because you disagree, how about you try to discuss why you think being caught up in the drama is a good thing)

dang3• 11 years ago

What's going on at Reddit right now is a significant story, plus HN and Reddit have a long history together (indeed, a common origin). So it's appropriate for the story to be on HN, and it has been: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9822580. When it comes to pile-on stories, though, you're right. You're also right that the topic should be discussed here in a substantive way.

Generally, any time there's a frenzy of copycat stories, the approach that works best for HN is (a) to settle on (hopefully) the most substantive version of the story for discussion, (b) downweight the follow-ups, and (c) have a new thread if significant new information arises. I don't think the current story passes that last test, though it's perhaps interesting how people are seizing on it.

heimatau6• 11 years ago

This submission isn't contributing to the understanding of the drama. Instead, it's getting caught up in the emotional and herd mentality.

dominotw2• 11 years ago

No. This is one of the most significant events on the internet today . A first of its kind social phenomenon. This needs to be analyzed like everything else.

oldmanjay• 11 years ago

it's only first of its kind in a kindred sense to the way many patents were granted by doing an existing process on a computer. protests are not new. the differences here are details.

I still find it interesting, though

heimatau6• 11 years ago

Getting caught up in the drama won't add any value to the adolescence nature of reddit. We could posts analysis talking about the details regarding the matters at hand. But this submission is adding fuel to the fire of childish behavior.

forgotpasswd3x• 11 years ago

Nobody is making you click on the submission or view the comments. If this isn't what you want to see on HN, then vote or flag the article, as usual.

heimatau6• 11 years ago

True but I wanted to voice my opinion regarding the submission and the potential dramatic nature that HN could get 'caught up in'. I've been going to HN for about two years now only been a member for a short bit. I want to make my vote. That is all and hopefully communicate with others about it. For the record, I didn't down vote nor flag this but it seems enough of the community did therefore it fell off the front page.

rhino3692• 11 years ago

Pao needs to be replaced. Whether the hate the community at reddit has is justified, it does exist.

The company is begging for a reddit clone to pop up and steal the users.

bane• 11 years ago

Her optics at this point are terrible.

- CEO of a community-based site where the community doesn't like her (to put it nicely)

- Lost a very public lawsuit against a previous employer that revealed quite a bit about her personal and work habits -- and it wasn't exactly glowing, often downright damning.

- Tried to recoup legal costs for the lawsuit she started and lost

- Was ordered to pay legal costs to her former employer because of the wrongful lawsuit she brought against them

- spent most of the first parts of her Executiveship at reddit fooling around with the lawsuit

- It's strongly suspected that the damages she claimed in her lawsuit were to cover her husband's financial problems

- Her husband appears to be a real piece of work too

- Fired a community manager in the middle of a community event, regardless of the reason for firing her, it could have waited.

- and now fired a cancer patient

On top of these perceptual problems. She also doesn't appear to have any relevant leadership experience for running such a company. It's not like she worked her way up to the top position by starting in the mail room and through moxy and determination worked her way up through the management ranks.

She was a lawyer for 2 years, then spent about 3 years in BD/sales, then managed a BD team for a few years and then spent the rest of her time at Kleiner Perkins representing their VC investments before returning back to BD at reddit.

Basically she went from a very short career in law, to a career in BD. She has a total of 4 years of any kind of measurable management experience. A transition from BD to CEO is fairly unusual.

Somebody previously here on HN said it feels like reddit is being taken over by marketers, it's just as bad, it's being taken over by a Business Developer.

What's really going on here is that Ellen is trying to "clean up" reddit to make it more palatable as a strategic partner for other companies to work with. Reddit's wild-west reputation makes it difficult for many companies to work with them. This is what her focus is, probably with the ultimate goal of cleaning up the image for some kind of M&A. This is what BD people care about. Not about the ins and outs of running a company.

Reddit should be a much more valuable company, and I have a feeling the board is trying to pivot it into more of a sales channel for corporate partners to pump astroturfed advertisements to and to host special sales events or mod dedicated company/product subs for a fee. There's not much reason to continue to tolerate her at this point except that this is what they want.

It's kind of what Digg tried to do, and it may be inevitable for these kinds of narrow margin community-based sites that to start really capitalizing on the community, they go this way. But maybe they're hoping they can make the jump without screwing up as badly as Digg did. It's not looking that way however.

The company is begging for a reddit clone to pop up and steal the users.

This has been true for a long time before Pao came on board. It's not really clear what the reddit devs seem to be doing, but empowering the mods to better manage their communities is not one of them. Something like Reddit is not terribly complicated software-wise, the large number of alternate communities (this one included) kind of goes to show it's an understood technology. It's basically a community-in-a-box at this point. The network effects will determine what happens next.

As far as these firings go, she can't reverse them. That kills any authority she may still have.

icpmacdo• 11 years ago

And now new Digg is capitalizing on the drama

http://digg.com/2015/talk-to-us

mhomde• 11 years ago

...and they even fired the guy responsible for secret santa. You can't even make stuff like this up or be more grinch if you tried to

https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/3bysny/rsec...

sixQuarks• 11 years ago

You forgot to include the fact that she doesn't know how Reddit works. She is not a reddit user, this is the worst kind of leader.

doe88• 11 years ago

Assuming this is true. I don't know what it takes to make such a despicable action, this is character defining. There was so many decent alternatives there is no excuses for this behavior.

paulhauggis• 11 years ago

"In early 2012, he was supposed to move to San Francisco when he was diagnosed with Leukemia."

"Fortunately, reddit’s then-CEO, Yishan Wong, allowed him to keep his job and continued paying him until he was ready to work again"

So he worked for the company from 2012-2015..3 years. It sounds like at least a year of this was spent in and out of the hospital and he continued to get paid. It's not like he was fired on the spot.

Reddit gave him plenty of recovery time..and it just didn't work out in the end. I see no problem with what they did.

"Victoria (aka /u/chooter) was, without question, one of the nicest, most passionate, most efficient workers at reddit, and I honestly can’t fathom why she would have been terminated. It was such an honor to work with her, and as many mods have already stated, she truly took her work to heart and tried to provide a service to the community. She was one of the most well-known admins and was just incredible at her job. Without her, there would be hundreds of incredible AMAs that would have never happened."

We only see one-side of the story. Why was she let go? We still don't know.

georgemcbay• 11 years ago

The fact that we only know one-side of the story* is actually the biggest "wtf?" in all of this, in my opinion.

That the reddit executive staff hasn't really addressed this entire shitstorm publicly and officially by now is absolutely mind-boggling given what reddit is. They are giving the impression that they still see this just as a conversation between mods and admins and are basically ignoring the public spill-over (except for Alexis' dismissive comments).

*(really we know less than one side of the story since AFAIK Victoria hasn't really talked about it publicly, which from her side is totally understandable for either legal [if severance is involved] or just not wanting to get blackballed reasons).

dogma11382• 11 years ago

Do you really think that any legal department would allow anyone to comment in such case?

Anything they say might lead to a law suit, in such cases if they comment on anything it will be in the form of the most anemic press release possible with every fact checked about 10000 times before hand.

lcswi• 11 years ago

Submitted site adds pretty much nothing to the original source:

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3c0idl/i_am_dacvak_fo...

dang3• 11 years ago

Thanks. URL changed to that from http://nextshark.com/ellen-pao-reddit-dacvak-ama/.

Reddit's CEO Allegedly Fired a Worker for Not Recovering from Cancer Fast Enough

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