https://www.thedailybeast.com/reddit-files-to-go-public-reveals-that-it-paid-ceo-dollar193-million-last-year
Nineteen years since its founding, the social media site is finally going public.
We live under corporate feudalism
$804M in revenue... $286M to CEO and COO pay alone... so just two officers are worth 35% of the company's annual revenue? Not profit, because it isn't profitable, but just base revenue. Not even Elon Musk is paid that high a percentage of revenue.
Even ignoring the fact reddit doesn't pay anyone for moderation, and all their other reliance on community freebies... That's insane.
And they want to go public with that info? They believe that's a financially sound position to be in heading into an IPO? Spez is even more stupid than I thought.
Yeah I didn’t really have a frame of reference for this but I was shocked to discover that Tim Cook was ‘only’ paid 62million usd last year. (!) Looking at the success of both companies, Huffman’s pay seems wildly out of proportion.
And lost $90M overall. As a certified financial genius, I know how to make Reddit profitable, and it has nothing to do with AI.
And they want to go public with that info?
99% of the users left there won't care about this. People here obviously do, but those are the ones that left because of the API debacle. I'd hope they start caring but I am pretty certain they won't.
I'm not talking about reddit users. They have no bearing on public investors frankly. Investors don't give a shit about users, just profitability. And an unprofitable company with no end of unprofitability in sight spending 35% of their limited revenue on two executives is ridiculous.
If he weren't so stupid I'd say he's probably shorting it. I'd be shorting it if I had an investment account that could do that sort of thing.
I haven’t been on Reddit in a very long time. I wonder if this story or any like it or getting posted on Reddit and surviving for more than five minutes before they’re pulled.
Public filings also showed that Huffman and Reddit’s chief operating officer, Jennifer Wong, were paid $286 million in 2023, including stock and option awards (the value accrues over several years, and the current cash value is substantially lower).
Over a FOURTH of the company's yearly revenue is going to TWO people?
The article states that part of the compensation was stock and stock options. Likely incentive programs from previous years that finally paid off.
edit: looks like spez got 600k salary, and the rest of the compensation is solely based on the stock's performance.. and he can't cash that out unless someone is willing to buy all that reddit stock.
What are they supposed to spend it on? Developing and implementing features that users and moderators actually want?
Jesus fuck, no wonder they never break even. "the site is expensive it doesnt return its investment we need to add spambots and superads, and also remove gold and completely ignore user needs"
Absolutely insane. Considering how shitty their UI is as well as them not paying their mods. This an incredibly naked theft of labour. This is many times more appalling than the 3rd party app debacle.
I went on the reddit post for this article. There is a lot of resignation from the people there, not anger like before. Most of them don't seem to know about the fediverse but I can tell they are truly seeing the death of Reddit and are not sure what to do. As much as I would like to I refuse to make an account to spread the word.
Anyway, I think this is an indication that we will be seeing further growth here on Lemmy.
Even if they paid the kid only, I dunno, $100 million, how many community mods could have been paid with the remaining $93 million?
How anyone can believe that it is possible for any single person to do something so meaningful in the same 24 hours we each share every day that they deserve payment so drastically disproportionate, so...disgustingly obscene, really, is beyond me.
Math time!
Let's use nice round numbers to make this easy. We're going to pay community mods a salary of US$100,000.00.
Now, keep in mind that the cost of labor to a business is much more than just salary. Employees need technology, 401K matching, health insurance subsidies, an HR department, management, company stock programs, training - all sorts of things. Again, to make this easy, we'll say that each community mod costs the business another US$100,000.00, at least in the first year. (I would expect that kind of cost to diminish as an employee gains tenure, even if it never vanishes.)
This means that for every US$1M Reddit decides to spend on human capital instead of a CEO whose job appears to be largely centered around cuntery, you get five community mods. Since we are referring to diverting US$93M, that would give us 465 community mods.
This doesn't work perfectly, since employees generally like to be paid in cash, while executives (who already have all the cash they'll ever need) are much more willing to be compensated with stock options and other similar non-cash strategies. Huffman certainly got some kind of pre-IPO stock grants and/or options that make this IPO very personally rewarding for him, and which cost Reddit US$0.00. (One of the drivers of inflation is how public companies get to essentially print money by issuing stocks.)
All that said, you can keep that kind of math in your back pocket whenever you become aware of any executive salary. Every million dollars one dick swinger gets would employ five well-paid workers (or ten who can live independently with some level of comfort). That executive who gets $200M a year? Half of that would put 500 people to work, and not impact the quality of life of the executive at all.
When I once in a while visit Reddit for one of those particularly tailored adult subreddits, I still use old.reddit.com. It is amazing how they managed to screw up UI and still did not fix it.
Content Creators (Users): $0.00
Moderators: $0.00
Spez: $193,000,000
"Fuck you, got mine".
I haven’t been on Reddit since the API mess. How are most users reacting to this news? I would assume either not happy, but ultimately don’t care or ignorant completely.
It is and has been a mainstream site for a while now. It’s followed the same trajectory as Facebook. The typical user only cares about the topics that interest them. They have zero interest in what’s happening in the background and are fully accustomed to being blasted in the face with ads 24/7.
Interesting. Similar comments between Reddit and Lemmy on this topic. Like very similar but the tone on Reddit is of the victims whereas here we are wondering why they are still over there when they do not have to be.
From what I gathered the vast majority of them don't know the fediverse exists. Lot of "where do we go". But I saw a couple of comments mention it.
Whoa there, pardner! If posting a reddit URL, please use old.reddit.com instead of www.reddit.com so those of us using privacy tools can still access it.
Edit: Is it just me, or are some reddit links with old.reddit requiring a login?
You've been getting blocked too while logged out? "Woah there partner.."? Here's a working link though, https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1axll4s/reddit_files_to_go_public_reveals_that_it_paid/
All my reddit links open in the old version because I set it as the default in the preferences of new Reddit. Maybe you could do the same.
It's super depressing that Aaron Swartz is just straight up ignored as a co-founder these days.
I hope for a slow and painful death to Reddit.
Spez removed him from the founders page on reddit a year or so after he became CEO. The most recent time.
I love that Aaron Swartz is mentioned anytime Spez is mentioned. Aaron will always be a hero to me, and Spez is the antithesis of everything Aaron stood for.
From the article:
"Public filings also showed that Huffman and Reddit’s chief operating officer, Jennifer Wong, were paid $286 million in 2023, including stock and option awards (the value accrues over several years, and the current cash value is substantially lower)."
Were they actually compensated that amount in cash? Or is this assuming that the stock value actually amounts to something.
Obviously compensated too much, but it looks like the compensation total is being obfuscated for shock value.
He was paid $341,346 in cash. The rest of the compensation is basically monopoly money until they IPO, and even then it depends on the valuation, strike price, etc. Very much a clickbait tactic since most people don't ever deal with options at a scale like this, or at all.
Stock options. Which means the valuation is completely arbitrary tbh. It probably isn't worth nearly that much and that's probably why they gave themselves that much. Theyre likely overvaluating themselves. Because as soon as they go public, or as soon as they try to unload these stocks, their value will probably plummet.
Either way, these are stock options they could have given to their mods, it literally costs them nothing.
Read through the Reddit thread until I hit your exact comment... Seriously? I swear only the fucking moron masses remain. I don't pity anyone who continued using Reddit after the API fuckery.
They protest about the corporations tone deaf exploitation and monetization of their content... By posting more content for the corporation to monetize... 6+ months after the corporation shat all over them and told them to go fuck themselves.
I read that too, if somebody still has an account they can tell them about the fediverse. But I refuse to make one.
For me this is way worse than the 3rd party apps. It's interesting reading the comments there, they know it's over yet they probably will still stay there. It's like an abusive relationship.
Don't fall for the click bait headline. Most of that is in stock options, not actual cash. He "only" got around 1 million.
Still insane, but not the massive chunk of revenue the article makes it sound like.