Ellen Pao arrives at San Francisco Superior Court in San Francisco, California March 3, 2015.ROBERT GALBRAITH/Reuters
Ellen Pao resigned as interim chief executive officer of Reddit Inc. after a user revolt at the online forum, the company announced.
Steve Huffman, a Reddit co-founder, is taking over as CEO, the San Francisco-based company said Friday. Huffman, chief technology officer at the travel startup Hipmunk Inc., has had no official role for several years at Reddit.
"First, I'm super excited. Second I am terrified," Huffman said in an interview.
Pao apologized earlier this week to the Reddit community after a mass online protest over the firing of Victoria Taylor, who staffed a popular feature. Pao has faced vitriol from Reddit users called for her firing.
The uproar didn't spur the move, which was a "mutual decision over a number of weeks," Sam Altman, a Reddit board member, said in an interview.
Pao also called the decision mutual.
"We had different views in the potential growth rate in users for Reddit this year," she said in an interview. "We couldn't come to an agreement on that and I decided to step down."
Pao ignited debate in Silicon Valley with her failed gender discrimination lawsuit against her former employer, the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.