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Comment by dabluecaboose | Hacker News Reader

I've gotta say, Christian comes across as really naive in this piece.

> Well, it’s weird because prior to this, I almost always understood that Reddit as a company understood that they’re very community-focused, and they kind of didn’t do the bullshit corporate speak. And it was weird to kind of see this week, where they engaged in a lot more of that than I have historically ever seen them do. And it just went over… about as well as I thought it would.

I can't imagine anyone seeing this as a surprise given the way that reddit has been operating since at least before the redesign. They always make some corporate-PR-language post announcing unpopular changes, pretend to listen to everyone, then make the change anyway.

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> I can't imagine anyone seeing this as a surprise…

It was a surprise to him because (1) his relationship with them was based on Apollo, and (2) Reddit had previously placed him on the "friend" side of the frenemy line based on the community's love for Apollo and the engagement it drove.

Naive people don't record every phone call.

I meant I can't imagine anyone seeing "Reddit corporatespeak announces unpopular change" as a surprise, given that it's been their modus operandi for years now.

> Naive people don't record every phone call.

This is the most important thing. Obviously in interviews he says "Oh I think they're nice people, if they want to patch things up I'm ready", but judging from how all of this has played out I think it's obvious that he's somewhat savvy. He's coming off as the good guy in this fight all while reddit continues to burn any goodwill they have from a not insignificant portion of their user base.

I don't think he wants to badmouth Reddit and its leadership with the small chance that there's some goodwill left that would result in a compromise.

He could say all the things we are thinking, but given the CEO has a history of editing posts on Reddit critical of him, it seems like a bad strategy to have any hope of negotiating with them.

He's already badmouthed Reddit's leadership. He's gotten into spats with spez a few times, calling him just short of a blatant liar.

Tact is the difference between calling someone a shameless liar vs. calling them out on their lie.

>calling him just short of a blatant liar.

Well, if the shoe fits...

He expected better of people he had been working with cordially for years, but kept recordings of important conversations. That doesn't strike me as naive. You do strike me as somewhat jaded though, given your familiarity with the dog and pony show of rolling out unpopular changes

I imagine that, when working with reddit for 8+ years, he got a pretty good sense of what their culture is like.

His latest experience seems to be pretty out of line given the longevity of their relationship.

"Naive"? Maybe, but I can cut him some slack.

I would figure that, over those 8+ years, he likely dealt with developer relations and/or reddit's development team directly. The API changes aren't technical as much as they're business, and he's probably dealing with a different group within reddit.

>I imagine that, when working with reddit for 8+ years, he got a pretty good sense of what their culture is like.

He literally said "they kind of didn’t do the bullshit corporate speak." I've definitely been using reddit for 8+ years and I can tell you that's not true.

It's really easy to call someone naive once you have all the information (like you do now). But it was much less obvious a couple months ago. Especially given that Christian has worked closely with Reddit for years and they've always treated him well, and seemingly like third party apps.

I think the OP is just saying that Selig thought he was bro's with Reddit and didn't really consider that they are a for-profit corporation with a board of directors and shareholders that will abandon him the second it makes financial sense to do so because their leadership are fiduciaries, not bro's.

I was extremely surprised to learn that Apollo did not have any contractual ties with Reddit (beyond the API agreement).

I'm commenting on the quoted text, about how Christian claimed Reddit leadership was community-focused and not prone to corporate PR-speak. Which they've absolutely been prone to over the last ~5 years.

He is giving Reddit the most generous interpretations to avoid seeming like he has some grudge against them. He is firmly sitting at the negotiating table and not walking away. Far from naive, he seems quite scrupulous and careful. Spez is outmatched in this regard while acting carelessly, cluelessly, and impulsively.

I like his personality a lot. You could call him naive but he writes and speaks humbly and optimistically and it endears him to people. I'm sure the reddit employees who interacted with him day-to-day liked him. He posted a couple email threads as evidence recently and the tone on both sides was informal.

My read is he is just trying to present things as if Reddit are operating in good faith. They aren't, but its more diplomatic to act like they are than it is to come out with accusations that they are bad actors.

people want to be optimistic, tho, and imagine that the people on the other side of the screen care just as much

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