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 Reddit co-founder Steve Huffman, also a co-founder of travel site
Hipmunk, will become chief executive. Alexis Ohanian, another
co-founder who has been working as executive chairman of reddit,
will work "alongside" Huffman, said Reddit board head Sam Altman in
a statement on Friday.
Controversy erupted around Reddit last week when the company's
director of talent, Victoria Taylor, was dismissed. Site volunteer
moderators temporarily shut down around 300 discussion sections in
protest.
That controversy did not factor into Pao's departure, Altman said in
an email.
Pao, who battled her former Silicon Valley employer in court earlier
this year, said in a separate statement that she was leaving Reddit
because the board had asked for higher growth than she thought was
possible.
She joined Reddit in April 2013 and became its acting chief
executive in November.
This year, user growth was 70 percent, she said, and mobile usage
rose to 47 percent compared to 29 percent last year.
Reddit, known for freewheeling discussions, has attracted a minority
group of users who engage in hate speech over racism, women's
issues, and other topics.
Under Pao, the site had tried to address the issue, banning sexually
explicit images, removing a handful of discussion sections and
prohibiting harassment of individuals.
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"Redditors, you deserve clarity about what the content policy of
reddit is going to be," Altman said in a statement Friday. "The team
will create guidelines to both preserve the integrity of reddit and
to maintain reddit as the place where the most open and honest
conversations with the entire world can happen."
Pao achieved notoriety through a sex discrimination lawsuit filed
against her former employer, venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins
Caufield & Byers. She lost the suit and is appealing the decision.
San Francisco-based Reddit launched in 2005 and has grown to become
one of the most highly viewed sites on the Internet, drawing some
160 million unique users a month.
An October financing round of $50 million valued Reddit, in which
magazine publisher Conde Nast owns a stake, at $500 million.
(Reporting by Sarah McBride; Editing by Christian Plumb)
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