Man, I must admit that I’m seriously enjoying watching all of this Reddit drama unfold. A few days after the company decided to fire on of its key executives, Reddit’s CEO decided to step down, and now just a few days after THAT, yet another key executive has left the company. Having spent a mere two months at Reddit, chief engineer Bethanye Blount has decided to quit the company.
Reddit’s chief engineer Bethanye Blount quit just days after interim CEO Ellen Pao left the high-profile online community. In an interview, Blount confirmed her departure after only two months at Reddit, having come there from Facebook. She said her move was not directly linked to Pao’s exit, but noted that she had lost confidence in the new direction of the company. The unsettled situation at Reddit underscores the difficulty its management has had controlling the sprawling and bumptious community that has been created, and also the challenges in making it into a business (Reddit is owned in large part by Condé Nast). In addition, Blount’s leaving means Reddit has lost yet another prominent female employee. Setting off this recent round of uncertainty, Reddit fired Victoria Taylor, a well-regarded staffer who helped coordinate the site’s highly popular “Ask Me Anything” posts. That ignited a firestorm against Pao, who was appointed last fall and who resigned on Friday.
