Please don't make Hacker News more like Reddit.

Please don't make Hacker News more like Reddit.

Trying to get superficially good behavior from users by punishing contrarian views isn't going to work in this case. But it works for HN because people know that we're just guests on a VC's property.

But I come to HN to push agendas and collect feedback on ideas, not to share what I really think about.

I disagree in the strongest possible terms. So much of Reddit is a populist echo chamber, which is the opposite of free speech.

Populism is rational and rooted entirely in capitalist self-interest. What the rich don't understand about populism is that these people are not misguided or manipulated. They know exactly what's going on, they know that populism will destroy the economy, but this is exactly what they want.

Yes, the echo chamber problem could have been addressed by an army of aggressive moderators, but that was absent. The stupidity on the site was present because the conventions of the site encouraged it. Sometimes the moderators are actively working to grow the echo chamber, such as r/thedonald.

At any rate I don’t miss it.

I wonder which YC startups form this triangle. Certainly having the CEO is a kind of a big deal.

http://www.sulloway.org/BirthOrder-Sulloway-1999a.pdf

:)

More seriously it helps a lot with YC recruitment and is actually how they run a lot of YC. It also allows for YC company job listings as others have mentioned.

I don't think it's been written in Arc for a while.

If you know of anyone who would love to program in Arc and would be willing to be publicly impaled daily as an HN moderator, please send them my way. It isn't necessary to already know Arc. It's just necessary to be delighted by the idea and willing to learn.

Also, the other article's title ("Reddit names Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel as Alexis Ohanian's replacement") seemed to be leading to all manner of misunderstandings in the comments, such as Michael becoming Reddit's CEO, or Reddit taking over HN.

https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/gxas21/upcom...

https://news.yale.edu/sites/default/files/styles/horizontal_...

The US, however, has had a large black population for many generations now. Over time, many have mixed with other races in the US (as with every race there really) and consequentially you may have people that are 1/4 black genetically but who hold strongly to their identity as a black person. Often this has stemmed from racism i.e. if someone's child is a quarter black, they're seen/treated as black by other races and therefore it's the identity they form for themselves.

Shaun King, a prominent black activist, is an example of someone who on sight many outside the US (and many inside the US, from what I've seen), would absolutely not consider a black man, but genetically he apparently is and it's central to his identity.

Photo: https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150819225407-black-li...

This subtly dehumanizing idea that certain races are normal while others are irregular is the root of many problems.

He got there on merit.

There rarely negative connotation attached to accomplishing something or earning something based on merit and not some other factor. It's seen along the lines of nepotism.

Honestly, even you saying this is BS.

That’s about hirings based (also) on skin color rather than merit alone.

So yes, it is about Michael because he has to deal with this crap of people "just asking the question".

I understand it's a terrible position to be put in.

For most people it will be "I'm on the board of reddit." "Oh, cool."

For people who think it was because of skin color, they may think less of him or of reddit, but presumably he made that choice going in and is okay with the costs and benefits. I have a rare (and not at all serious) medical condition. If reddit said they were selecting board members only with this condition I would happily apply and take the position even if everyone would say I only got it because of my condition and even if that were true. The cost is people would think I benefited from luck or circumstance and the reward is being able to meaningfully influence a major website and money. Hardly seems like a terrible trade to me.

It's just the reddit board. If it's so awesome, can you name the other people who are on it, as of today?

Guaranteed that 95% of the people reading this did not know that this august institution also includes, and would not have known were it not for this comment:

Sam Altman (famous, not surprising) Robert Sauerberg (probably less famous than Seibel before being named to this) Porter Gale (ditto)

I'm sure these are good people, doing important work. But there's 4 of them in all, Seibel's just one, and the net effect may be less consequential than people here imagine.

"I want my replacement to be a black person" -> black person is hired -> "were they hired because of their race?"

You: How dare you even imply they were hired based on their race!

If anyone is bullshitting anyone here, it's you bullshitting yourself. The sheer mental gymnastics you're working through here to be outraged at the above must take a terrible toll.

This is to say nothing of the candidate. I'm no judge of Board of Director candidates, and largely feel it's entirely based on connections and not what you the person is capable of, but his resume and presence in the industry has obviously been stellar. I wish him well in dealing with the utter cesspit that is 2020 Reddit.com.

If we, as a society say we need to make a conscious effort to have more decision makers from a variety of backgrounds so that this human tendency to hire friends and people we know can actually result in a broader group of people being able to access opportunity.

I still say allowing people to be passive aggressive and "ask the question" about whether someone is qualified because there was a effort to be inclusive is a way to undermine the credibility of the candidate and this effort doesn't seem to ever be directed at white people. You ever hear someone question another executive for hiring a college frat brother? or someone that worked at the same investment bank? Hiring preferences exist.

But in-group bias has literally nothing to do with the conversation we're having here.

This is important because the argument that someone picked with their race in mind to achieve this goal is used to create the subtext that the person would not otherwise have been qualified and is used to undermine their legitimacy and the legitimacy of the goal to eliminate in group bias.

This is a real problem because it distorts the discussion from the real argument. In reality if we want a true meritocracy, as most proponents of anti affirmative action / opponents diversity goals claim then we should want the widest funnel of candidates possible. What we actually have is a small funnel of people that, while not intentionally racist, classist or discriminatory, results in exclusion of many people. We’re all worse of for it.

Then when will they include conservatives in the board? They are after all half the population, but there doesn't seem to be any in all of Reddit's board or company.

Let’s go ahead and ignore the systematic and historical oppression of minorities and black people in particular, if anything conservatives have dominated business culture and are over represented in leadership positions of companies.

Reddit, if anything is an outlier, not some propped up example of oppression of conservative voices.

But I take your point. And I agree people should hire from across the political spectrum.

Except they do. In fact, you're saying it right now.

As far as I know, board positions are often filled based on explicitly subjective criteria, e.g. such subjective criteria might be: Who is currently on the board and what personality/skillset/experience does the board need in order to balance its membership? Who does the company & board need in order to: raise as much money as possible, be introduced to the desired go-to-market partners, look good to customers, [insert any other subjective criteria here] etc.

I am not aware of the concept of objective "merit" when it comes to board of directors appointments.

~corrected for bad grammar~

Even if Walmart or Amazon disappeared, there would be another company there to fill the void (and very few would miss them), so with online opinion boards being a sithoshi a dozen, seddit4u is not the same thing as reddit.

Of course a lot of jerks and trolls will have unreasonable and frequently racist assumptions that he "wasn't the most qualified" and that sucks

- Sam Altman, lead investor in Reddit's Series B and former president of YCombinator, the company that gave Reddit its initial funding

- Bob Sauerberg, former CEO and president of Conde Nast, the company that acquired Reddit while YC was the only investor

Unless you think "gave Reddit a bunch of money" is merit, the other board members didn't get their positions through merit alone either. Board seats are almost always purchased as part of an investment or given for political reasons, there's nothing different happening here.

Perhaps this doesn’t apply, as there may not be “applicants” depending upon how their bylaws are set up - without applicants I’m not sure who would have standing.

Hiring and firing in the US based on race is typically unlawful, even if the candidate is qualified. You can’t use race as a qualification.

It’s a challenge to the laws, and I assume Reddit(or Conde Nast) wants to raise it.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&...

For the lawyers, it beats mopping up Bon Appetit’s editor in brownface.

I'm sure people here are also well versed in silicon valley HR hiring practices regarding skin color based quotas.

It is a win-win for Reddit in terms of perception, whether they have to fight a case because of it or not. If anything, this would be an 'any publicity is good publicity' situation.

Now if it is actually inline with a truly moral stance...who cares. In this system there are only 3 morals. Money, money and more money.

2. Independent contractors are protected against some race-based mistreatment in California.

3. The Unruh Act prohibits California businesses from race discrimination in offering “advantages” and “privileges” to non employees.

4. The next employee fired will have a much better case that their employment was terminated based on race — as Reddit openly does make decisions based on race.

Granted, there are responses to all of these. Maybe even constitutional defenses. Maybe they’ll argue some other state’s laws apply, but all US states have pretty broad non discrimination laws — for a reason.

https://www.natlawreview.com/article/do-directors-avoid-empl...

https://www.natlawreview.com/article/do-directors-avoid-empl...

Board members aren't employees, so discrimination rules don't apply. In fact California already has a law requiring discrimination based on gender (another protected class) for boards. All California companies must have one female board member and have at least two by 2021.

https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/section-2-threshold-issue...

For one thing a board position isn't a job.

Also for some reason whenever a company tries to fight discrimination some people accuse them of discrimination, it's wierd

Now you can rationalize it by saying that this was bringing some balance the representation on the board, which is also true. That’s fair. But it’s still discrimination.

The board of directors sets the strategy for the firm.

That is because the board of directors has the authority to hire/fire company management.

Board of directors != Advisory board.

I have never seen this be the case, though I can only speak for start-ups and early post-IPO eras.

The board provides oversight over the CEO and other executives responsible for planning in the organization. They review quarterly earnings and other financials, and provide feedback and thoughts on what the company wants to do in the subsequent planning period (which is driven by the CEO, not the board). Usually the board and leadership team meet only once a quarter, with the occasional call in-between (but otherwise very little face time).

More often than not the board's influence is in asking questions that help the CEO and leadership team better flush out their plan, pointing out potential issues or bringing up topics of discussion that may not have been considered. Maybe a board member has experience in something on your roadmap, or knows someone/company/product that can help.

Maybe they feel very strongly for/against something, so you commit to getting back to them with your thoughts/plan of actions after doing some more due diligence. Maybe they think you want to spend too much on a new initiative next year, and want to see a revised forecast that bakes in a more conservative approach.

Boards have say in executive compensation & equity grants, but rarely otherwise seem them get involved in financials. Usually they have their own financial analyst look over your data, and ask a lot of uncomfortable questions you don't currently have answers to that you maybe get embarrassed about when you finally do figure it out.

In rare circumstances, the board may have negative or lukewarm feelings about what's presented and the CEO may decide to revise that plan, but it really depends on the CEO. New CEO's may be more likely to buckle to board pressure/suggestions than an experienced CEO. I've seen it both ways (usually the CEO doesn't want to hurt future fundraising and may acquiesce more readily).

At the end of the day, it's the CEO leading strategy with the board providing a "first right of refusal/you're crazy" role.

That’s usually because the founder(s) still have majority control at that point so the board just takes an advisory role. The dynamic completely changes when the board members can form a majority and remove the entire C suite.

Having this power doesn't give them any authority over strategy, it just means that with proper paperwork they can remove someone. But boards don't put someone in the pilot seat unless they expect them to fly. CEO's are given a considerable amount of latitude (remember Adam Neumann?).

The Chairman should have taken Patricia Dunn aside early on and told that the board had lost confidence in Her and some of the leadership team long before Patricia was forced out.

Not really.

The Board is there to oversee the company on behalf of the shareholders. Their primary job is oversight, they hire and fire the CEO, will be involved in recruitment for C-Level. They may or may not be involved with any kind of strategy. They will definitely be involved in financial governance issues such as fundraising, IPOs, major debt issuances.

They can be involved strategically by helping to form relationships, introductions, and in some cases providing guidance.

But the board doesn't make plans, do strategies etc. They're not very involved. Most board members don't do much at all.

The board represents the members (shareholders) of the company, they are responsible to them for the performance of their company, which reflects the investment in the equity.

The CEO is an employee of the company. The power to set strategy may be delegated to him by the board, but the board is still responsible for it.

Public companies have additional responsibilities of the board because they are also responsible to comply with the market's rules and government regulation (eg SEC regulations) that are stricter for public companies than private.

Like I mentioned, any board member can decide to make an issue out of something, but you would expect a very legitimate reason to waste the other board members' or executives' time with a nit about a specific product feature or marketing campaign. Not to mention, a board member that meddles too much in the daily affairs of the company would draw scrutiny from both the CEO and other board members for not focusing on important strategic topics.

As far as I can tell from ones I have seen, they make more than a Senior Engineer makes mostly by RSUs.

You can find proxy statement for public companies(Amazon, Google,, they publish it before the annual shareholder meeting which most of the time includes compensation for board members.

For example, here is the one Alphabet published recently for 2020: https://abc.xyz/investor/static/pdf/2020_alphabet_proxy_stat...

In 2019, we awarded our standard ongoing compensation to each of our non-employee directors, including an annual $75,000 cash retainer payable in arrears and an annual $350,000 GSU grant. We paid an additional $25,000 annual cash retainer and an additional $150,000 annual GSU grant to John L. Hennessy, our non-executive Chairman of the Board of Directors, given his additional duties in the role. We also paid an additional $25,000 annual cash retainer to Ann for her role as the Audit Committee chairperson.We awarded the above-mentioned cash retainers and GSU grants to our non-employee directors on July 3, 2019, the first Wednesday of the month following our 2019 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. The exact number of GSUs comprising the equity awards wascalculated by dividing the target dollar value of the award by the closing price of Alphabet’s Class C capital stock on the day prior to grant and rounding up to the nearest whole share. All annual GSU grants made to our non-employee directors vest at the rate of 1/48th monthly, beginning on the 25th day of the month following the grant date until fully vested, subject to continued service on our Board of Directors through the applicable vesting dates.

And then they have a table with concrete values for each director, on page 38. The median for 2019 is $428,298.

"We have 300K - shall we spend it improving our product or hiring an NED who happens to be VP at a big target enterprise customer?"

Within the economy itself board seats are given by the shareholders. Typically to tie investments together. If a fund is investing in company A and B they certainly want cooperation between A and B and place board members with such relations in there. This comes problematic if a strong shareholder uses this to shuffle revenue away from other shareholders into another company where they have a stronger majority (say investment fund F owns 50% of A and 90% of B and then fills A's board in a way to encourage the A company to buy as much consulting from B as possible) There (similar to democracy) minority rights and supervision by authorities like SEC is important. (While there is a school of thought, which argues that the minority shareholders simply should leave and the free market will handle this as an overpaying A won't survive in the market)

From posts further down:

> For example, here is the one Alphabet published recently for 2020: https://abc.xyz/investor/static/pdf/2020_alphabet_proxy_stat....

and then a follow-up to that post where they pull out data from that link:

> And then they have a table with concrete values for each director, on page 38. The median for 2019 is $428,298.

And when you realize that it's these sorts of bozos who made the plans to acquire your company, lied to the shareholders about their intentions, and then raped and pillaged it, and sold it all off for parts, and ruined what was an awesome place to work, and you get bitter about this particular societal inequality. ;-)

In practice however, they hire a CEO to handle all that for them and don't get involved unless things get so out of hand that they feel their CEO is steering the ship wrong. At this point they tell the CEO what outcomes they expect, and if he can't or won't comply, he gets replaced.

No well-functioning board would act like that. Sure, they can pressure the CEO to take particular action when the company is under pressure, but normally, that kind of micromanaging by the board would be a sign of serious dysfunction.

They are there to represent the shareholders, appoint the executives, and to ensure the company is being managed well, including complying with laws and adhering to relevant societal expectations.

So, much like in a healthy governmental system, there's a tension of power; between the board, management, shareholders, customers, the general public, and the law.

So it's not really "ultimate" power. Yes "ultimate" in terms of appointing executives and setting long-term company direction. But not "ultimate" in terms of being able to, say, arbitrarily shut down a subreddit; if management didn't agree and it was not clearly in the company's best interests, it could lead to a leadership crisis and/or a fiduciary breach.

Note the questioner specified: "In terms of day to day operations...". The point is that the board is expressly not meant to interfere in day-to-day operations.

So, I happen to be a Managing Director of a small company (UK) - we have 20 odd employees and a t/o of ~£1.5M. We are a private company, not public (more later.) We as a board have simple duties, largely decided by ourselves. We also have responsibilities that are dictated by the country: we have to file accounts on time to a proscribed format, pay corporation tax regularly, pay VAT returns on a regular basis etc. We also have to have a certain structure (two directors minimum) and hold regular meetings such as the AGM. There's a few other requirements but in general you do it how you like.

We also have shareholders who are not directors. These are employees who have served long enough (>four or so years is the general rule.) These are Class B shareholders (Me and the other directors are Class A). The difference is Class A stakeholders can vote on stuff - ie run the company and Class B can benefit from company profits but don't get to run my company.

Just to be clear: me and my partners (2) run the company but quite a few people get to benefit via shareholdings. If the shit hits the fan, me and my partners get to be kicked in the bollocks, shareholders only get tickled.

Oooh, SARS-CoV-2: We'll be fine for a while longer.

So, how can we become shareholders of your company?

They are powerful, but even more so they are responsible for the organization.

Company directors are public figures. They can be investigated for misconduct, struck off from being a director again, and must publish their personal details publicly. (They can also sign passport applications and vouch for visa applications: you get ups as well as downs!)

They appoint the executives but they have to fire them too, and are held accountable for the behavior of the people they choose. Mess it up and you’ll never sit in a board again.

The stakeholders go straight to the directors when things go wrong. This is especially fun when you have hundreds of thousands of members of the public as stakeholders in a publicly traded business.

The buck stops with them.

They're expected to set the company's strategy, are responsible for the company's regulatory compliance, ensure that the company is properly reporting its performance to its shareholders, that it doesn't trade while insolvent, etc.

There are "executive directors" that have management responsibility, eg the CEO and "non-executive directors" that do not. In the US, often the CEO and the President of the board are the same person, but that's less common elsewhere and is considered a flaw in corporate governance.

There is also the concept of "independence" where a director is independent of related interests, eg being also related to other corporations that have major business as a supplier or customer etc.

Older and bigger companies tend to have the CEO and President be different people (T-Mobile, IBM, etc.)

Usually, when the company is smaller, they are the same person.

Whether they are the same or separate people does not really matter very much in practice, since the board will often reset both roles at the same time in any circumstance where they do not like management.

The CEO has to aggregate the needs of both the board and their directs (and customers and suppliers) into a coherent whole. Not an easy job as if everyone gets 100% of what they want the organization can’t function. (In a sense it’s like product management at the company level)

This gentleman would have been better off turning them down.

The problem is with the large subreddits, they will always devolve into memefests or the same old rehearsed jokes in the comments where if you've been on reddit for 10 years you learned to just... Skip through.

I believe it'd be really hard to have a /r/AskHistorians on 4chan, the same for the hobby communities I'm part of.

But why? I mean who posts this garbage and furthermore who upvotes it?

The good that comes from inside Reddit is the curation, as much as everyone likes to complain about it.

They have become more proactive about banning hate and grief subreddits and have a system for reporting and shadowbanning bad faith individuals. If anything one could argue they come down a little too hard on borderline controversial subs but it's such a tough line to walk.

By five totally unaccountable mods, all pushing brands for money?

https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/gitwbo/p...

That curation is "The good that comes from inside Reddit"???

The unaccountable, power-abusing moderators that are being discussed in this thread remove posts and ban users completely arbitrarily. If these mods had a rule system like r/AskHistorians and applied them as fairly, there wouldn't be nearly as much concern over the issue.

HN has a decent amount of curation, too. Been seeing a lot of flagged and deleted posts these days...

Or at least necessitate it changing into something totally different from what made it good in the first place. The best you can hope for is that the new thing is also incidentally good.

EDIT: I do not mean to question his particular qualifications or his commitment to change, only to comment on the fact that it could have been someone from a different walk of life. Tech leadership in Silicon Valley does not appear inclined to affect change.

These days, profit and social good are rarely aligned.

Or more generally, going back to the grandparent post here, this reads to me as a stunning indictment of Silicon Valley...

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

IMO the direction you're describing seems...reactive? I mean, sure, if you don't like racism and hate speech, work to get rid of them, but there's a lot more to social good than that.

Frankly I think Reddit should actively try and fragment itself a bit---give mods more power, let communities become more distinct. Maybe allow mods to add js, or let subreddits host SPA's, etc. Don't encourage subreddit enmity, but tolerate it.

Reddit has a lot of users, but they don't really do much except talk and provide ad impressions. This feels like a waste, considering they're on a compute platform.

“Cancel culture” has become absolutely mainstream, having now reached all the way into the NYT OpEd pages. One only has to look at the myriad firings and resignations of the last 7 days to understand that there is a real threat to diverse mindsets and the open marketplace of ideas which we once strived to support.

How do you deal with balancing free speech and a healthy market place of ideas with stopping the spread of racism and hate speech.

How do you contribute to countering these ideas you don't like instead of causing them to just move to another platform and increase division of opinions as people stop talking to other.

How do you avoid moderation actions against some communities negatively impact other communities as the people from the 'banned' community flee to the unbanned one.

How do you ensure consistent high quality moderation without going bankrupt.

The list goes on and on. High quality moderation is not a solved problem, we don't really even know what it looks like at scale.

Don't think there is a single company during the entire reign of capitalism that this has happened.

Additionally, Reddit is owned by Advance Publications which is pretty much entirely the Newhouse billionaire family. Don't think we've every seen such as a thing as a compassionate old school billionaire. Their other major holding Condenast, is presently embroiled in accusations of racism/discrimination despite portraying themselves as 'allies'.

By hiring Michael Seibel they do exactly what a profit driven company would do. Hire an incredibly competent person who espouses the same values (cut throat Silicon Valley ideology), has been molded by the same kind of people (Ivy league education), and serves as a great "UNO reverse' card for any accusation of the company unilaterally chasing money over ethics.

If an activist was hired, they would steer the company into a direction that matches their lip service and not actual intentions.

and I don't mean to say it is an evil thing to do or something. It is entirely in line with what almost every other company does. It is a perfectly capitalistic thing to do and will change nothing. As was the original intention.

I'm curious what people think the end result of such a thing would be. Does having an outside voice actually contribute to better outcomes for the company? Is there a reason people couldn't just advocate for the current board to listen to other people in their time rather than having a dedicated "outside voice" position? I've seen outsiders come into companies before and fail miserably to accomplish anything because the culture is to not listen to an outsider.

It seems like virtue signalling position to take (advocating for one outsider voice rather than systemic change). Who cares if you get a person who is an outsider on a board if it doesn't fundamentally change things. If you want fundamental change, you'll need to kick all those people out and/or shutdown the company. One person would be ignored.

You know this is true because we all do this at work already. We've all encountered someone who is that "outside voice" in one way or another - they promptly get ignored in a discussion. "Here's Jim with his crazy ideas - again. :eyeroll:"

Now that that’s done, what’s next? How can we boost the signal? I like this particular virtue. I think it’s worthy and achievable and more people should be able to tune into it.

Admittedly I’m biased as a person with a few differently complexities of melanin in my skin, that has been treated like an outsider in so many different ways, but hell if were signaling virtues let’s be upfront and own this shit and do some good with it.

What’s to lose? The integrity of Reddit because they put a black man at the helm? Eh. Worth a shot in my opinion.

You have no skin in the game, sell all your possessions and put it all on black in Vegas, worth a shot in my opinion.

US corporations seem to think so - zillions of businesses have outside directors, it's an established practice.

Well, gee, I don't know, maybe having someone ask why it always takes being in the news before Reddit's management decide that it's a bad idea to host underage porn or literal Nazis, rather than, you know, treating it as a bad idea.

Trying to show viewpoints in the clearest and most concise way, is the height of discourse.

Making a backdoor point by claiming "poor analogy" is basically noise on noise. It muddles both the original point and fails to make a coherent followup. Defining a different set of criteria for what to compare on, does not change the initial comparison in a meaningful way.

Define an interpretation (which may get clarified) to focus in on an objection, then form a second viewpoint.

That isn't what I said. I will re-quote, that which was stated plainly:

>> Trying to show viewpoints in the clearest and most concise way, is the height of discourse.

It's usually not worth it to engage with someone who ignores the content, which they are ostensibly criticizing. I will try to answer the main thrust of your post, as a courtesy (you may interpret it as a rehash).

> What is the specific 'backdoor point' you take issue with?

Creating a second interpretation of an analogy, rather than clarifying (or rephrasing) the point being made.

> The comment made a point, I made a different point

This is no different than posting "I disagree." AND "I think this..." but without clarity in why you disagree on the original point (not even sure you understand what the original point of the analogy was supposed to be), because you chose to piggy-back with similar terms by using a completely different analogy and implying that it invalidates an argument that was never articulated. This is disingenuous, at the core.

“Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face” is very rarely compared with cutting off actual body parts.

Plainly to you, but perhaps your mind is just overly constrained when it comes to analogies? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analogy

Captain is to ship as board member is to ______?

Captain is to helm as board member is to ______?

Captain is to first officer as board member is to _____?

https://alexisohanian.com/home/2020/6/5/what-did-you-do

It doesn't make a lot of sense! These issue issues are structural, and run a lot deeper than board representation optics.

They would. But the sad cold truth of the matter is that no one wants a fresh perspective. They just want to virtue signal the mob as much as they can to preempt the mob storm troopers before they get stoned and cancelled without affecting their business, which is why the pick is a Silicon Valley insider, someone they are sure knows what's best for business and won't try to destroy the business.

> Tech leadership in Silicon Valley does not appear inclined to affect change.

Exactly. Everyone wants change and revolution and mob violence as long as it is outside their gated community. No one, either the rich black NBA players or the Pirates of the Silicon Valley, want change and mobs in their gated community. They really like it as it is.

In any case, what Ohanian asked for was that a black person take his place. Not that his replacement be prominent in so-called Civil Rights circles.

An accomplished black tech entrepreneur as a board member does more for the reputation of black tech workers than a lifelong activist whose main occupation has been disseminating ideology.

You are killing the golden goose by trying to force people toward the app - by gradually removing features and usability from the mobile web site and constantly reminding people they "should" use the app.

I don't want reddit as an 'app', I want reddit to be readable/scrollable on mobile and web without any form of coercion.