Reddit literally shilling their own stonks to users in direct message, reveals that CEO gets paid $193 million last year

Sounds like a hell of a lot of money for a CEO who kept insisting that he had to kill 3rd party apps because Reddit still isn't profitable.
- "Reddit isn't profitable because leadership is wildly incompetent, so let's pay them an exorbitant amount of money instead of using that money to properly fix things or make any genuine improvements to anything."
  -reddit
  
  It really feels like all corporations do this.
  Then the failed CEO gets another CEO gig because they've got "experience".
  
  CEOs anywhere
- Let's be real, they did it because they didn't want people training AI models without paying them. They didn't give a shit about 3rd party apps.
  
  People that want to train AI models on Reddit content can just scrape the site, or use data from archive sites that archive Reddit content.
  
  I'm convinced there was more to it. Otherwise they'd have worked with the app devs to find a mutually beneficial solution. Instead they just acted like massive, deaf assholes through all the drama, blackout...
  Of course, it's totally possible they're also insanely stupid, arrogant assholes.
- Just wait until they start selling “Stockholder Flair”
  
  It'll say "to the moon" with some animation, and then they'll take away some other feature of the site because it's "too expensive to maintain".

IPO = exit liquidity

Should have picked Harassment. Selecting Spam does nothing.
- I'd pick prohibited transaction. I live in AU. NYSE won't let me trade there.
  Either that or "hate" - all redditors can get involved, but not you because you are not from the US. Sounds like communism.
  
  'Sounds like communism'
  Show me people who don't know what communism, Alex
  
  You can trade on the New York Stock Exchange in Australia. I trade foreign stock exchanges all the time.

Spez truly got that little dick energy going on
- I take offense to this. I have a little dick. I don't destroy everything for everyone around me while shitting myself violently. I say he has Caillou energy. Arrogant, narcissistic, hideous, an abject freak, a mistake granted legs and will hopefully suffer from a terminal illness.
  Fuck Caillou. Fuck Steve Greedy Pig Boy Spez Huffman
  
  The more I see you post, the more I like you.
- That's an insult little dick energy

They lost 93 million on 2023, and paid the CEO more than double that.
Nope - can't think of a single thing they could do to make reddit profitable.
- Well kinda but not really, he owns around 4% of Reddit which is where the $193m comes from because of the $5b valuation.
  Still, fuck spez
- They paid him just shy of 400k. The stock and options he was given have nothing to do with reported losses. It's all monopoly money until IPO, them we'll see what it's worth.
  
  Paying yourself 190 million in stock options when the company is running at a loss is pretty much blatantly admitting that the company is severely overvalued. My guess is that it will tank 90% once it goes public. If not more, Reddit produces nothing inherent of value and they are really hostile to their users.

Honestly, I'm kinda looking forward to the IPO - because it might be the last enshittification straw that breaks the camel's neck that will finally drown reddit for what it has become.

He wasn't paid that amount. He got 341,000 in cash and the rest was in stocks and options (which will only be worth that much if the company performs well financially). This us place is just like Reddit, nobody ever reads the article.
- It doesn't really need to perform well financially. He can sell everything as soon as it goes public and retire
  
  But they never do that. Musk could have been supping margaritas on a man made island with oompa loompas in a private ocean a long time ago
- Unable to delete so editing instead. Leaving Lemmy.world due to privacy concerns.
  
  Still not how that works, if he wants cash he has to sell, selling stocks is heavily taxed. Now he can take a loan against the stocks but if they don't do well then he's not going to get much for them. It's a risk and taxes is paid like it or not.
  Still a shit system, but that's a different discussion, but they pay taxes.
- This place is also just like reddit in that comments like yours seeking to seem smarter than everyone else by pointing out technicalities in the article as evidence everyone has the wrong idea, without appreciating the full context, and deliberately ignoring the overall point.
  Executives paid in stocks and options are completely normal, and those stock options have a value. Moreover, those things were not given to other employees nearly as much as they were given to the CEO.
  The actual dollar amount he receives from Reddit is not what matters. What matters is the amount of compensation given to him in comparison to everyone else at Reddit and to other CEOs at other companies, especially when taking his performance into account.
  The point is Reddit is effectively giving way too much of its value to one person who has done little to actually make it profitable in all the time he's been there while routinely making mistakes and allowing scandals that have hurt Reddit's reputation.
  
  The context is important since it informs us about why he's doing this, which is probably to further inflate his stock value
- But also Tim Cook's total compensation for 2022 was $99 million and Satya Nadella's 2023 was $48 million. Paying him more than CEOs of actually profitable companies and what amounts to nearly 1/4 of revenue is a pretty big outlier.
- Steve Jobs was wealthy despite having a salary of $1 per year.
  
  Arw you suggesting that reddit shares are going to be worth a lot of money? I see a an 18 year old company that still can't turn a profit, so I don't exactly see how the IPO can be a success.

Hope the IPO is a fucking disaster and Hufflepig goes bankrupt

So why does your CEO get paid quarter of a billion a year if they had to hike their APIs unreasonably and kill all 3rd party apps because "reddit wasn't profitable" despite not paying a dime to the mods running their website niether to contribitors, posters nor users ?!?! Reddit is scummier than Uber

Seems to me the institutional investors aren't interested at the price they're asking.
- Nah, if you click through to the sign up they ask you for a bunch of personal information on a form hosted on reddit.com and then say "there are a limited number of spots, we will accommodate as many people as we can."
  A month from now, 99% of people who fill out that form will be "wait listed" but reddit will have their real name and phone number forever. That's the grift.

While cutting off reddit apps that are better than the bloated shitshow that is the reddit app

Most of that money is in stock, so he's doing this to further inflate his stock value

What's next? Reddit Coin? NFTs?
- Doesn't reddit already have NFTs?
  
  They also do have a reddit vault for crypto
- That's already there since a couple of years.
- Maybe Shoes..

So my 16 year account with 90k legit comment karma wasnt good enough to be invited?
Now I dont get to early participate in the fomo panic IPO being forced by investors?
I could've made or lost tens of dollars.
- I’m at 10 year with about 500k combined. They sent me one. I laughed. Made me feel about as special as being given a pizza Friday at a job I’d been working for just as long. Actually, I would have been happier with the pizza.
- that's so weird because I got an email inviting me to participate and I haven't ever been considered a 'prolific poster'. I'm only at 60k and 12 years. I had no clue I was invited until I looked in my spam folder.

Should have marked self harm/suicide

This is such an amazing grift. I can't wait until more social media firms start trying to direct-market their stock to their user base.
- No way this can backfire
- And watch as being a shareholder confers no tangible benefits for owning stock in the website of which you are a user, or worse, you get benefits, but they are limited to how much stock you have.
  
  That's how stock normally works.

The loss porn will be great material for WallsStreetBets

That little "tldr" at the beginning of that text wall makes me feel gross

And they don't even let you report it as the spam it is.
- I got banned for doing this. "Report abuse", they called it.
  
  No one regrets getting banned from nazi digg.
  
  So instead of Report abuse, they see it as Report abuse.

How do I buy puts on this?
- CBOE will create options for it pretty soon after IPO, probably that week or the next. You'll definitely be able to buy puts on it before you'll be allowed to short sell it.

Ironic that reddit goes the way of digg.

tldr: this will let you save money while you lose money

Yep. Did the same.

How much would that be divided each currently active Lemmy instance?

I was in the first round of invites.
I might buy some depending on initial price. May as well milk them a bit like they're doing to their users.
- You never know when they'll dump. Hoping you can dump before others do in a pump and dump is not usually a good bet.
  
  Smart move could be to short it.
  But then, I thought that Facebook's IPO would flop, too.
  
  The moment insider lock up ends.
  
  You don't wait until peak. You wait until there is a small gain and bounce.
- Only use money you are willing to lose
  
  Isn't that true of all gambling?