Reddit Hires CFO As It Considers IPO (nytimes.com) 39
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Reddit, the social network and online bulletin, said on Thursday that it had appointed its first chief financial officer, Drew Vollero, in a move toward tidying up the company's books before an eventual public offering of its stock. Mr. Vollero, 55, previously ran financial operations for Mattel, Snap and Allied Universal. His task at Reddit will be building out the financial, audit and accounting functions and leading the company through the process of going public.
"Is Reddit going public?" Steve Huffman, Reddit's chief executive, said in an interview. "We're thinking about it. We're working toward that moment." Mr. Huffman said Reddit did not have a timeline, but Mr. Vollero's appointment indicated that the 15-year-old company was developing its financial operations to be more similar to those of publicly traded peers like Twitter and Facebook. More than 52 million people visit Reddit every day, and it is home to more than 100,000 topic-based communities, or subforums.
Reddit has also added to its executive ranks in recent months, hiring a head of security and appointing a new member to its board. In December, the company acquired Dubsmash, a video-focused social app that competes with TikTok. Last month, Reddit raised $250 million in new capital, its largest venture round, valuing the company at $6 billion. Reddit plans to use the funding to expand its business, including its financial team, Mr. Huffman said. He also wants to make Reddit more mainstream by improving the product or making other investments, he said.
"Is Reddit going public?" Steve Huffman, Reddit's chief executive, said in an interview. "We're thinking about it. We're working toward that moment." Mr. Huffman said Reddit did not have a timeline, but Mr. Vollero's appointment indicated that the 15-year-old company was developing its financial operations to be more similar to those of publicly traded peers like Twitter and Facebook. More than 52 million people visit Reddit every day, and it is home to more than 100,000 topic-based communities, or subforums.
Reddit has also added to its executive ranks in recent months, hiring a head of security and appointing a new member to its board. In December, the company acquired Dubsmash, a video-focused social app that competes with TikTok. Last month, Reddit raised $250 million in new capital, its largest venture round, valuing the company at $6 billion. Reddit plans to use the funding to expand its business, including its financial team, Mr. Huffman said. He also wants to make Reddit more mainstream by improving the product or making other investments, he said.
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That will happen for sure, but I'm more worried about the need for progressively greater profits resulting in sponsored posts and advertising so intrusive it makes the experience untenable. You can only sell so many badges.
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Reddit is going to take a long time to become irrelevant. They're what, in the top 20 sites on the entire internet? They have tremendous influence. If you want Reddit 2014 back, try one of the Reddit clones out there. Be warned, some of these allow free speech like Aaron Schwartz intended: "I think all censorship should be deplored. My position is that bits are not a bug."
https://notabug.io [notabug.io]
https://raddle.me [raddle.me]
https://retalk.com/ [retalk.com]
https://saidit.net [saidit.net]
https://ruqqus.com [ruqqus.com]
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Reddit plans to use the funding to expand its business,
So its current business model, which seems to consist entirely of taking money from gullible investors, is to take the money and use it to solicit more money from gullible investors?
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So its current business model, which seems to consist entirely of taking money from gullible investors, is to take the money and use it to solicit more money from gullible investors?
Not entirely. They also take money from gullible users who like to feel important when they are given the ability to gift digital "gold" to users who make comments that they like.
Re: oh boy more woke cancel coming (Score:1, Flamebait)
No microaggressions, archaic normative categorizations nor exclusion will be tolerated! It's pretty basic - don't be a fuckwit or a cunt. How hard is that to understand?
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Wrong, there will attempt at control of thought, morals and culture according to a particular agenda that will not tolerate debate or question.
Self-contradictory (Score:2)
> No microaggressions, archaic normative categorizations nor exclusion will be tolerated
It's self-contradictory. They're saying they will exclude anyone at random when somebody else thinks up a "microaggression". While saying exclusion won't be tolerated.
You can't "not tolerate the exclusion" while excluding anyone who dares put white icing on a chocolate cake. It's a non-sensical statement.
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"Ummmm you posted on this sub I don't agree with so I'm banning you because I'm a little bitch" - Reddit mod
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Reddit has already dropped a lot of salty stuff. The hive mind mentality made me decide to delete my account over a year ago. I still hit it sometimes for amusement and don't mind not being able to comment at all; because anything that goes against the hive just gets slammed. The WSB drama was fun to watch; but the front page is like an AOC love-fest now. If that's what you're in to, have at it. It's that kind of echo-chamber.
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but the front page is like an AOC love-fest now.
That's probably related to your browsing choices. I don't have anything AOC related, or even political, on my Reddit front page. (I also never read the Reddit front page).
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Since I deleted my account, I assume everything I'm seeing is default.
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Reddit is a site that banned SEVEN THOUSAND "hate communities" which reduced hate speech by less than 20% [theverge.com] .
Stay away from terrorism & Reddit is a free 4 (Score:2)
badthink subreddits will get the axe while there is agenda driven curation of goodthink and safespace ones! No microaggressions, archaic normative categorizations nor exclusion will be tolerated!
I am on reddit daily, for hobby stuff and porn...it's actually quite surreal to talk woodworking, gardening, programming, and photography from the same account I post dick pics on...and there is PLENTY of non-"PC" content, from shockingly overt racism for sexual thrills (r/raceplay) to shitty political theories to general assholery (r/wallstreetbets). It's pretty decentralized. Most subreddits allow you to use whatever pronouns you want, question liberal orthodoxy, and generally behave like a total assha
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No it's changing, one can get labeled as terrorist pointing out the human rights violations of governments the USA supports. One can be labeled pro-slavery for pointing out it's silly to "require" an author of fiction set in time period with slavery to not denounce it or have a main character somehow try to do do something about it. We are entering the era of cancel culture and woke retardation.
cancel culture is a fun myth (Score:2)
We are entering the era of cancel culture and woke retardation.
Sorry, I don't buy it. It's a fun narrative...the woke mob is out to get us and they're coming for YOU NEXT! There's just no evidence of it. It's a fun game of paranoia the conservatives like to play. It makes life more interesting to pretend that there's a conspiracy among the elites to silence your truth, but I'm on reddit daily. It doesn't happen. Yeah, it makes your life seem more interesting that it really is, but it's a lie and you know it. Look at r/conservative. There's a ton of horrible
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oh really? So you're claiming, just as a single example, that everywhere in these United States it's legal for someone to advocate boycotting a government that commits human rights violations (which incidentally the ICC is starting investigations), and no state government nor social media nor reddit group will shut them down?
Do you know what I'm talking about?
You have rose colored glasses on, you lie. You're wrong.
It's all downhill. (Score:5, Insightful)
If I've learned anything about companies is that when they go public then they are about to turn into total shit. Remember how people liked Google? After their IPO they slid further from "Don't be evil" and closer to "anything to boost our stock" and just kept sliding. Facebook started rather evil but after their IPO they cranked it up to turbo evil.
Mark my words, if you don't hate Reddit already then you certainly will a five years.
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It didn't need to be that way. The Google founder chose business people to run their company. These people were more interested in ladder climbing than they were in programming or making a cool product. There are still great places in Google (it's a big company) but office politics have ruined a lot of it.
Re: It's all downhill. (Score:1)
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OPP with my BFF in my BVDs (Score:2)
Can we have some sort of rule on Slashdot that there should never be a headline with more than one acronym? It offends my tender sensibilities.
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Can we have some sort of rule on Slashdot that there should never be a headline with more than one acronym? It offends my tender sensibilities.
For "CFO" and "IPO" there are more people who know the meaning of the acronym than know what the original words are. Just like with "FBI", "CIA", or "CPU", it is less ambiguous to use the acronyms.
Disclaimer: Yes, I know that, technically, these are all "initialisms" and not actually acronyms.
Can you short their IPO? (Score:2)
That seems like the wisest choice.
Digg 4.0 (Score:5, Insightful)
This is how reddit dies
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Reddit died awhile ago, it's a shell of its former self at this point. The only thing reddit has going is a lack of competition. Voat committed suicide at the end of last year.
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The only thing reddit has going is a lack of competition
Nah, Slashdot is still here, and winning.
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Voat wasn't meaningful competition.
The only thing it had to offer was less limits on content. Interestingly, it turned out that very few people care about free speech in the abstract. You know the famous quote, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"? Voat is one of the things that shows that in reality, it's an extremely minoritary position.
What reality shows us instead is that almost overwhelmingly, people only act on speech being restricted when it affects them
Stupid people will pay billions (Score:1)
Short that Stock on IPO Day! Make a killing! (Score:1, Troll)
Reddit is the worst of the Internet all in one place except for 4chan, 8chan, etc. It's a web posting forum website that slimily squeezes advertisements, sponsored posts, and bot driven mass hysterical up-voting of commercialized recommendations and left-wing ideologies across the entire site.
It is the Social Justice Warrior's dream come true as long as they don't have to leave their keyboard or look-up from their phone and go actually do anything in the real world that takes effort. All the Wokeness driv
And here we go (Score:2)
"It's better in the app!", said no user ever.
How does Reddit make money? (Score:3)
I only occasionally check old.reddit.com to see what interests the unwashed masses and for pet GIFs (Go! Dopamine!), so I can't say that I'm an expert on Reddit's financials. However, how does Reddit make money? Is this simply a case of "It's like [PRODUCT], but on the internet!" like the original dot.com bust? Are Reddit submissions the product? I run a full slate of blockers and extensions on Firefox, so I don't see any advertisements. Are there advertisements? If it's worth US $6B, what is the business model?