Beyond spez (and the fact that he is a greedy little pig boy), I’m curious about the corporate dynamics that prevent a company like Reddit from being profitable. From an outside perspective, they make hundreds of millions per year via advertising, their product is a relatively simple (compared to industries that need a lot of capital to build their product), and their content is created and moderated for free by users. Could any offer some insights or educated guesses? Additionally, I’m curious how this all ties into the larger culture of Silicon Valley tech companies in the 2010s.
Sure! I think I used to be a bit more annoyed by managers in general, before I got myself in the crazy situation where I actually was an engineer manager myself for a few years! I went back to an IC role since, and I don’t miss it, but now I feel that while there are incompetent managers (and incompetent people in all positions), most are just doing their best. It’s a tough job, it’s made of a lot of navigating between one rock-and-a-hard-place situation to the next.