Reddit CEO Ellen Pao resigns following week-long backlash

“I’m delighted to announce that Steve Huffman, founder and the original Reddit CEO, is returning as CEO”, said Reddit board member Sam Altman in the post.

After enduring weeks of criticism, misogyny and racist commentary as Reddit devolved into chaos, CEO Ellen Pao is stepping down in what both Pao and the company board have characterized as a “mutual decision”.

Ellen Pao, the interim CEO of Reddit, has officially resigned from her position.

Redditors directed fierce criticsim at Pao following a decision to dismiss Victoria Taylor, the director of talent and an employee popular among the volunteers who moderate the site’s many “subreddits” or subsections. It also caused many moderators to shut down some of the site’s threads out of protest.

Pao posted the news of her resignation on Reddit several hours ago, saying that she’s seen all sides of Reddit and reminding users to treat each other as human beings.

Pao since apologised for what had happened as of late and vowed to make things better, though nobody expected her to jump ship quite so soon.

“Ultimately”, she added, “the board asked me to demonstrate higher user growth in the next six months than I believe I can deliver while maintaining reddit‘s core principles”.

Pao is expected to remain as an advisor to the board through the end of the year. Pao had stayed in the company for two years and served as CEO interim since November 2014.

After a spokeswoman for Reddit told CBS MoneyWatch last week that Pao “has the full support of the team”, that support apparently vanished on Friday. She accused the firm of gender discrimination and retaliation in a case that spotlighted sexism in Silicon Valley and lifted the curtain on the tech industry’s boy’s club. “And thank you for sending cute animal pics and encouraging me to “Stay safe!” when the site overheated with expressions of hate in various forms”, she wrote.

“Disagreements are fine. Death threats are not, are not covered under free speech, and will continue to get offending users banned”. The trial pulled Pao into the courtroom and worldwide media spotlight, and pulled her away from her duties at Reddit, a source of contention for many in the Reddit community.