http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/bits/2014/11/13/reddit-chief...
"Mr. Wong also recently had a public argument with a former employee of the site in which he laid out the terms of his former employee’s termination in excruciating detail. That incident, according to people close to the company, made some of Reddit’s current employees uncomfortable."
This was not some minor gaffe. This was a very public, major lapse in leadership judgment from the CEO.
Either Sam and reddit employees and everyone else are risking their public reputation of being trustworthy people by saying things that were obviously untrue (like "Yishan really did resign because he felt like it"), or Yishan left because he chose to.
I have a lot of respect for you, and you're not just some random person. Do you feel there's a nonzero chance we're living in a world where nobody can say the truth, and everyone chooses to play along with a social game of "Oh, yes, this is what I really believe, wink wink"? I mean, it's possible, but why believe that? Isn't the simplest explanation that Yishan didn't want the job anymore?
If this is a case where the simplest explanation is mistaken, is there any evidence?
With respect to context, the principals involved are too sophisticated to be treated as simpletons-- the principal owners of Reddit are the owners Conde Nast et al.
All I'm saying is that I have direct, personal experience with Sam, and it seems more likely that we didn't visit the moon than that Sam is manipulative in a "I'm telling real lies that people would care about if discovered" sort of way. That'd make pg manipulative by definition, for one, since he appointed Sam as his successor. Everyone is manipulative to an extent, but going on record with "Yes, this really did happen in this way" is the line between social graces and the type of manipulation people spend their lives trying to avoid.
So are we fools for believing them? Or, given the propensity of people to call people sheeple, do you think that maybe the simplest explanation might be the better one here?
All the best manipulators seem that way; most people vastly overestimate their own ability to judge character.
(I don't have a viewpoint on the larger question, but "seemed decent when I personally met him" is not at all convincing)
And there may have been others. What bugs me about this whole discussion is that Reddit is not exactly a publicly traded company. If the CEO decides to quit and/or is fired then that's a company internal affair and their obligation to explain it to the world stops at 'nothing'. If both the CEO and a major investor take time out to give an explanation that apparently dove-tails why on earth would we not just believe them and move on. There is absolutely nothing to gain by trying to prove that he left because of some other reason because all the parties involved appear to be in agreement. If they weren't then that would be another matter (but it still would not be a productive discussion).