Reddit CEO Yishan Wong Steps Down

Yishan Wong took the CEO reins at reddit months after the “Front Page of the Internet” was spun off from Condé Nast. Wong became CEO in March, 2012. He has now handed in his resignation. ...
Reddit CEO Yishan Wong Steps Down
Written by Chris Crum
  • Yishan Wong took the CEO reins at reddit months after the “Front Page of the Internet” was spun off from Condé Nast. Wong became CEO in March, 2012. He has now handed in his resignation.

    Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian broke the news in a blog post, saying, “We are grateful for his contributions over the last few years, including growing reddit from 35M to 174M, and we have a team in place to ensure that reddit’s best years are still ahead of it.”

    Ellen Pao, who has been second in command, will be assuming the role of interim CEO until a permanent replacement can be found. She has been running operations for the company, and is responsible for building reddit’s mobile team, acquiring Alien Blue, and leading the team behind the AMA app.

    Dan McComas, who joined the company three years ago, will become SVP of Product.

    Ohanian himself will become Executive Chairman. He writes:

    I left reddit in 2010 to volunteer for kiva.org in Armenia and have been in an advisory role to reddit ever since. When reddit became independent in 2011, I was asked to return, but turned it down because there were exciting non-profit projects I wanted to do, a book I wanted to write, and I loved advising early stage startups at Y Combinator.

    Instead, I joined the board and have done everything I can to not be a helicopter parent, but rather support reddit and all the amazing people who make it work as best I can. But reddit is and will always be my baby (yes, reddit has two dads, and that’s awesome).

    Mobile, user experience, and community tools will be priorities going forward, he says.

    Sam Altman, an advisor to reddit, wrote a blog post about Wong’s resignation, noting that he left the position last week. He talks about a dispute Wong had with the board:

    The reason was 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.

    We wish him the best and we’re thankful for the work he’s done to grow reddit more than 5x.

    In September, reddit announced a new $50 million round of funding.

    Altman has apparently been handling CEO duties between Wong’s departure and Pao’s appointment.

    Image via Twitter

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