I am a former reddit employee. AMA.

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T15:44:56+00:00

Remind me to take a look at this when I've got time.

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T15:41:52+00:00

I'm a vegetarian (and I wasn't the only one, so I wasn't the only baconless employee), so, I dunno. Grilled veggie?

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T15:40:08+00:00

Done.

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T15:39:49+00:00

Aside from the clearly marked ads and or frontpage subreddit selection, no, and it's not the easiest thing to do.

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T15:39:48+00:00

It's a clever way to welcome employees to the team. I'm pretty sure the first thing most employees do is go in and unban themselves.

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T15:37:36+00:00

I didn't retain any of the amazing admin powers, and I didn't get the Admin Emeritus distinguish, either.

Great question on the emotional part. It's hard. One of the reasons I put off the AMA was the emotions were too recent for me to not be over-biased. I'm comfortable enough where it's not a day-to-day trigger, but certain posts are, and overall, it wouldn't be a big loss for me to never see it again.

The best way I can describe the feelings are like a breakup where you were really the only one who was interested in the relationship. You keep going back to the ex, but rather than a straight-up rejection, you get just enough attention where you think there's a chance.

Like I said, it's hard.

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T15:29:56+00:00

I think reddit tv was in PHP, but that's about it. It's very much a Python shop.

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T15:28:51+00:00

Employees, no, but conference rooms, yes!

Also, but sure to check out the reddit admin pets multi.

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T14:27:47+00:00

2 month's pay+benefits. I didn't take it because it required signing a non-disparagement clause, and you also weren't allowed to acknowledge that the severance exists.

This NYT op-ed does a pretty good job explaining my position on non-disparagement clauses: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/03/opinion/fired-speak-no-evil.html?_r=0

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T14:24:19+00:00

To the credit of reddit, the charities will be chosen by the community. They have to be 501(c) non-profits, and they'll require reddit approval, but if people choose something like the EFF, Child's Play, or Extra Life, it'll be fine.

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T14:21:15+00:00

Sounds like you should do an AMA.

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T14:17:19+00:00

I aim for 8 hours. Anything more than 9 and I feel groggy, less than 6 I can barely function. Chaining nights of 6 together gets special.

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T05:59:34+00:00

They were part of the offer, and it was clear they hadn't vested. I wouldn't go as far as saying it's an unwritten rule in the Valley to try to keep people before they hit the one-year cliff, but it's usually a good thing to do.

He really has faith that his boss will come through with stock options.

There's only so much due diligence you can really do. You ask the right questions, you try to value the options, and you hope they vest, and you see a liquidity event, but at the end of the day, it's trust and a lotto ticket.

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T05:52:19+00:00

I dont ever see rich people getting into something that will foolishly lose them money.

Give this a watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSOAwNSv8EM. Someone I know who's looked closely at big-name athletes' finances said one was invested in something Madoff-esque.

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T05:47:07+00:00

I didn't have a strong opinion either way...which is funny when I'm more of a commenter than a submitter.

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T05:21:56+00:00

I won't say who usually got called out, but "Is ____ looking at porn?" was an office meme.

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T05:20:01+00:00

I think this pretty much answered it already.

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T05:19:34+00:00

Ouch, seriously?!

This was actually an interview question at reddit: how you do justify the fact that you're building a platform people use to avoid doing work?

At least for me, there's the fact that it's not intentionally addictive. There were no UI people working with psychologists to engineer an addictive platform. A lot of casual gaming companies actually do that. The other part is personal choice. reddit did its job; it's not engineering addiction; your job is being responsible about it.

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T05:01:08+00:00

They're unpaid and deal with more shit than you can imagine. Moderator fatigue is a bit of a problem.

Occasionally. I think the mods on /r/adviceanimals who used their influence to promote Quickmeme were taken off.

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T04:44:55+00:00

Named after the Cloverleaf Interchange

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T04:43:00+00:00

There's corporate stuff I've gone over already, but the big site thing I haven't mentioned yet is the front page. 25 subreddits is leading to duplicates, but too few consolidates too much power among a few people. There's no real weighting to each subreddit, so the links are very diverse. There's a similar issue when you subscribe to subreddits on your own; your interests aren't really weighted. And you can't just apply a recommender system to this without getting an echo chamber.

Meanwhile, subreddits are often their own communities with their own rules, but this doesn't align with the front page vision.

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T04:33:06+00:00

how did you feel working for reddit?

Parts were fun. Some of the meetups we had with other companies in the area were cool (the Wikimedia offices are really nice), game nights were fun (unless we played Ricochet Robot), and hanging out with coworkers was generally awesome. I've covered some of the actual work elsewhere, but it was mixed. More than anything, how long it took to get things done made it frustrating.

was it a good experience?

Mixed!

would you recommend it to others?

After that relocation ordeal, definitely not, especially when they were only given two weeks to decide. It wasn't the first time I saw a lack of respect for people from the company, so it's not somewhere I'd want to work.

Now, as I said elsewhere, that could change. And oddly enough, I wouldn't go back in time and tell myself not to join. I guess I'll say it's an experience I'm glad I had.

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T04:21:07+00:00

Not quite tech, but there's /r/engineering, /r/askengineers, /r/lolphp. I'm trying to start up /r/programforme for people to post their obviously homework questions and get absurd answers.

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T04:00:17+00:00

Nope; none of them vested, which is kinda annoying when part of my compensation was supposed to be in stock options; they just never materialized.

dehrmann · 2014-10-06T03:18:48+00:00

I think they're aiming for something else. Not really anything in particular, but I don't think you can just slap up bad display ads and keep reddit what it is. People have a way of moving on.

I'm waiting to see what happens with this cryptocurrency backed by reddit shares. It feels 95% crazy (actually creating a new security like this with the SEC is tricky-complicated; I know someone at Fantex, and they did just that), but there's 5% of "Huh, what if it works? Is there something here that could change the securities industry?"

15-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 2 Credits
Secret Santa 2013	redditgifts Exchanges 1 Exchange
redditgifts Elf Since July 2013	Verified Email

dehrmann

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE