this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2024
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Remember when Spez said it was "It's time we grow up and behave like an adult company"? Apparently, that means paying himself $193 million and single-handedly tanking Reddit's profitability right b...::undefined

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[–] db2@lemmy.world 198 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (13 children)

The truth is he's a jealous little turd of a person. The other reddit founders, the ones with brains and skills, got out early and got paid. Even the dead one was more successful. He wants to drain reddit of money while tanking it. He thinks he's entitled. It's a real shame he reproduced too, the poor kid is doomed with a godawful role model like that.

[–] Evilcoleslaw@lemmy.world 74 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Ohanion was also a fucking prick, shitting up the company while he was there. All the Ellen Pao stuff and the r/IAMA clusterfuck that led to the first big Reddit shutdown? Yeah that was all Ohanion's doing. Then he let Pao take all the heat for his decisions and get ousted.

[–] db2@lemmy.world 70 points 8 months ago (2 children)
[–] SoylentBlake@lemm.ee 32 points 8 months ago

He was too good for this world, and we are all lesser for his absence.

[–] Radicaldog@lemmy.world 20 points 8 months ago (6 children)

The myth of Aaron Swartz continues...

He was a big proponent of free speech absolutism. He'd have been more than happy with the jailbait subs, watchpeopledie, fatpeoplehate etc. I really don't think he deserves a free pass just because Reddit wasn't enshittifying while he was around, as it was in a growth phase. It had other problems which needed resolution.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 36 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I can see where he picked up that attitude. It was common in the hacker types of the late 90s/early 2000s regardless of where their politics lay otherwise. Around the time he died, many of them were starting to see the monster that was created out of that, but it wasn't really obvious until the 2016 election.

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[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 13 points 8 months ago (3 children)

https://web.archive.org/web/20031229025933/http:/bits.are.notabug.com/

Share Child Pornography

In the US, it is illegal to possess or distribute child pornography, apparently because doing so will encourage people to sexually abuse children.

This is absurd logic. Child pornography is not necessarily abuse. Even if it was, preventing the distribution or posession of the evidence won't make the abuse go away. We don't arrest everyone with videotapes of murders, or make it illegal for TV stations to show people being killed.

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[–] TheGoldenGod@lemmy.world 24 points 8 months ago (5 children)

What more can you say about a man who lets cats with silicone implants have sex with him?

[–] Plopp@lemmy.world 56 points 8 months ago

I've never seen that combination of words before and I never want to see it again.

[–] rigatti@lemmy.world 34 points 8 months ago
[–] dasgoat@lemmy.world 11 points 8 months ago

Give us the source for the implants cats, pilgrim

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[–] LogicalDrivel@sopuli.xyz 91 points 8 months ago (6 children)

When I saw this news yesterday, it made me realize I hadn't used Reddit almost at all since the purge last summer. I ran the PowerDelete tool last night to nuke my profile and then deleted my account this morning. 10 years of posts and comments gone but ill be damned if im going to let those posts stay and train AI to make this douche canoe any more money.

[–] toy_boat_toy_boat@lemmy.world 27 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It's sad, really. So much humanity just bought for a sum. So much offered with nothing expected in return. There's always someone who will try to profit from stuff like that, and they're always horrible, horrible people.

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[–] Kbobabob@lemmy.world 16 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Do you have any way of verifying that it is actually gone? I bet it's just gone from view but the data is still there.

[–] vind@lemmy.world 28 points 8 months ago

I'll be filing a GDPR claim per account to get my data and have them permanently delete my content and information

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[–] NostraDavid@programming.dev 12 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I ran the PowerDelete tool last night to nuke my profile

Note that the profile only shows the last 1k comments - I did a GDPR request to get my data (took em a few weeks - they have a month the time to do so) and then used that data to find all my comments and replace a whole bunch of comments with GPT-generated bullshit about spez being a poopyhead.

I won't pick up my shit and move, I'll kill the plants, salt the earth and poison the well. Fuck 'em. It's all for shittificating the site for YEARS.

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[–] redfox@infosec.pub 68 points 8 months ago (5 children)

So, with all these negative opinions of reddit and spez, I'm both curious what the business world generally thinks of him, and their plan for the business.

Ultimately, the interesting thing will be if investors will give any money when they IPO.

I personally wouldn't, but because I don't like the leaders. Some people don't care, they just want returns where ever they come.

I'm a bit of a hater for this company, and hope their IPO is a flop. We'll see.

[–] lanolinoil@lemmy.world 42 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (7 children)

The people with all the money don't care about anything like this. They don't even care about stewardship/long term value building except maybe the Dupont's and old moneyers. Why wait around trying to make or build something when I can just ride the hype train and make sure I get off and onto the next one before the house of cards falls down?

TSLA's market cap is 618 billion dollars

GM's is 45 billion dollars

Shell Oil's market cap is 200 billion dollars

I've decided that's what's wrong with everything at the core -- the only virtue is money and it doesn't matter how you get it. Spez or anyone else could be doing way worse and everyone would shrug.

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[–] weew@lemmy.ca 29 points 8 months ago (7 children)

Plenty of CEOs are psychopaths, it's practically a requirement to rise to the top. The business world would see him as one of their own.

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[–] teamevil@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago

Member when everyone was Happy Ellen Cho was gone? Peppridge Farm remembers when that asshole promised not to asshole. He lied.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 12 points 8 months ago (1 children)

A lot of people invest looking not too close, it seems. Those with some knowledge of what Reddit is likely wouldn't, but I think the plan may work.

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[–] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 56 points 8 months ago

Adult companies enshittify.

[–] qwertyqwertyqwerty@lemmy.one 54 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Reddit seems like IRL Silicon Valley. They had no idea what they were/are doing, winging everything, and somehow failing upwards. It's a complete bullshit company, and hopefully Wall Street will see it for what it really is at IPO launch.

[–] bus_factor@lemmy.world 46 points 8 months ago (2 children)

All of Silicon Valley is just like the show. Some friends of mine couldn't even watch it because it hit too close to home.

[–] flipthetube@lemmy.world 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Exactly. It was dramatized and way more entertaining than reality but the premise was based on very realistic scenarios.

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[–] dumpsterlid@lemmy.world 45 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

The really titillating question is what happens when reddit collapses as a trustable source of information and google search is then totally useless.

It turns out social networks aren't great businesses unless you heavily exploit the people maintaining those communities.

[–] Alexstarfire@lemmy.world 40 points 8 months ago

The trust is already gone.

[–] T156@lemmy.world 15 points 8 months ago

People end up doing what they have always done, and go elsewhere.

They went to Reddit to begin with, and they can just as readily leave it.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 44 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Is that the same Spez who moderated /r/jailbait?

[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 50 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Wasnt that back when you could make anyone a mod, without their permission?

If we're gonna point to things that spez actively has done, then theres plenty of shit..

Like knowingly letting all the pedo subs exist and run rampant (until the news media caught wind and hurt advertising)

[–] VaultBoyNewVegas@lemmy.world 29 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Editing people's comments without their input/consents another big controversy with his involvement too.

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[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 44 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

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#EVERYBODY!

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[–] paddirn@lemmy.world 31 points 8 months ago

He meant that Reddit should start behaving more like an 'adult entertainment' company, so basically everyone that provides content for it is getting fucked.

[–] slimarev92@lemmy.world 30 points 8 months ago (10 children)

Not to defend Huffman, who's a huge asshole, but...

He wasn't really oaid 193 million. That's the value (on paper) if the stocks and options he received. His actual salary eas 341,000$.

[–] asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.world 46 points 8 months ago (5 children)

"he wasn't actually paid in money. it was just the value of the gold bullion he received".

Is that better somehow? I never understood this logic. Money itself is existentially just paper with no value until you spend it on something, and its value also rises and falls based on other factors. It's basically stock in the US economy.

Why is it not okay to give someone one kind of paper but not another?

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[–] Ghyste@sh.itjust.works 33 points 8 months ago

Separating these things is how the rich avoid paying taxes.

[–] dhork@lemmy.world 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Stocks and options that he's about to unload in the open market, assuming they will be vested. I think that's the real reason why they are opening up the IPO to Redditors. They want a fair amount of the stock - but not too much! - sold to people with an emotional attachment to it, who won't get in the way of their selling.

Note the Trump people playing the same exact game with DWAC.

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[–] johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world 22 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

How much of that compensation is in stock? It's pretty common for executives to be largely compensated in stock, particularly right before an IPO.

I only point this out because the math isn't necessarily as simple as revenue minus executive compensation. Issuing stock isn't a cash transaction for reddit.

[–] Zipitydew@sh.itjust.works 22 points 8 months ago (4 children)

His pay was $300k something. So it was almost all stock. To convert his ownership stake into shares ahead of the IPO as you mentioned.

He supposedly owns around 3-4% of Reddit. And they're trying to IPO at an initial valuation of $5B. So when that goes to shit like it probably will this theoretical $192M drops dramatically.

[–] Nath@aussie.zone 19 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

His pay was $300k something. So it was almost all stock.

Ahh, that makes all sorts of sense. The idea that he was paid $193 Million was unbelievable.

You could pay 1,000 moderators $100k for the year and still give Spez $93 Million if that were his salary.

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[–] Toneswirly@lemmy.world 19 points 8 months ago

There is just no reason why Reddit's CEO was making almost 200 million dollars other than short-sighted greed. They weren't even paying him stock options: just straight cash out of the coffers.

[–] fosho@lemmy.ca 14 points 8 months ago

title-and-post-gore!

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