There's been a lot of meta discussion how Yishan Wong, Alexis Ohanian, and Ellen Pao have been talking trash to each other about Reddit and seemingly ignoring every NDA in the book.
The comments made in the linked interview trashing a former employer seem to perpetuate this culture. It's weird. (although if you're planning on starting your own startup after a bad job, burning bridges isn't as drastic)
So many levels of meta oddness.
I'll posit Occam's Razor here and say that it is likely just children being children. From what I have seen on the /r/subredditdrama board they really are just sniping each other. It's like Mean Girls and these people really need to get out more. I have not seen this level of immaturity in a long time.
However, my BS klaxon is screaming. These are major players in a top 25 website. They should be more cautious, or have people around them that will urge them to be more cautions (like some 'Memento Mori' roman serf). I feel they should know better; it all seems TOO childish. So, possibly there is an angle being worked here we are not privy to see as of yet. This one is going to take a few months to play out, but not before Halloween I figure.
This may indicate the business model is dead. top 25 but no ability to monetize because the business model died while no one was looking.
Think about it.. Consider a much more lofty position, like US News and World Report in the newsweekly market, they were top 3 at one point, out of business today.
Have to face the facts, the reason for lack of execution in the marketplace might be because the biz model is dead. Close up now, give the money back to the investors.
The general public liking something doesn't mean its a guaranteed success or a rational business model.
I don't know what to think honestly, but it seems like the reddit administration is walking close to the cliff currently. Maybe the newOld ceo can turn that around.
As long as that continues to be the case, the core will probably keep coming back short of literally pulling a Digg V4 and outright breaking the site/removing everything about it that people liked.
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It'll be a while still before any competitor gets their act together enough to start siphoning users in a noticeable manner. So I'd say they've got quite a bit more room to go....but they are getting closer to that cliff.
Though to be fair it was after Yishan accused him of perpetrating a "long con" to regain control of reddit.