Sam Altman (2015)

Are you considering getting Victoria back? she seemed pretty good at her job.

Seriously, what is your plan for monetizing Reddit?

At some point (Pao made it seem like it's months from now) the VC funding will run out.

The money made from Gold and from ads simply is not enough to keep up a site of this size.

Is the plan to monetize AMAs? Perhaps have sponsored posts on the front page? There has to be some plan to keep this site going, just give us some type of hint so we won't be blindsided like we have been with every other change in the past.

Why did you bring in Ellen Pao to be CEO? (You as the board collectively, not saying Sam Altman was personally behind it)

Does /u/spez have full hiring and firing powers of Reddit?

How do you think we can best prepare ourselves for the advance of AI in the future? Have you and Elon Musk discussed this topic, by chance?

How did Ellen's resignation come about?

What does being a "board member" mean exactly? What are your responsibilities? What do you do?

Given the power of the vocal minority - think gamergate, 4chan, the vitriol levied against Ellen Pao, twitter abuse, [insert other incident here where "the internet" knee-jerks] - in the current modern communications environment, how can communities like reddit ensure and protect freedom of expression? Is a service like reddit where downvotes en masse can instantly hide unwanted views the best place to do this?

About how many emails do you send / receive per day?

Hi, Sam. A simple quick question, where did this sudden burst of GREAT communication suddenly come from? I am referring to your announcement of Steve Huffman returning. It was an amazing post, and not something we have seen from recent reddit communications over the past month and a half.

There are suggestions that Ellen Pao was brought in to be the sacrifical scapegoat, making unpopular changes in order to be the lightning rod for the ire of the internet mob.

What can you do to put those rumours to bed?

Sam,

Let's be honest, $50MM in the bank will not last for many years for a site of this size based out of San Francisco.

I know you have given it thought and you really did not address my question. What is YOUR plan for monetizing Reddit?

What's the best part of your job? What's the worst?

How do you plan on fixing some of the communication issues between mods and administrators in your new role?

Do board members get paid ?

Care to give some insight on how you manage that? Apps you like (I'm assuming you use Outlook), add-ons, tips for staying sane?

Were you surprised by all of the vitriol directed at Pao from the Reddit community? Not in a "how did you feel about Pao" sort of way, but more of a "was this something you expected to see, or have past experiences led you to have a higher standard for Reddit's behavior" sort of fashion.

You've been left bankrupt by a gentleman thief. Someone gives you $100. What do you do with it?

Hi Sam. I'm just curious as a generality.

How much influence does the board exert on the operations of Reddit?

I know some companies are more or less fully directed by their board in scope and direction, and other boards are completely hands off, and let the CEO do whatever they want. And of course there are all levels in between.

Was just wondering how much involvement the Reddit board has.

Edit: An example of what I'm asking is all the conspiracy theorists here saying Pao was just a temporary fall guy for the board to implement unpopular policies and then resign, keeping the blame with her and away from the board and site in general. I think this is complete horseshit, but it is the basis for my question of the influence of the board at Reddit.

Is there anything in the works for dealing with inactive "squatter" mods? Also, how do you prefer your eggs to be cooked?

Thanks!

You might not want to answer this, but can I ask about the speculation that the board directed Pao to monetize the site, and that's where a lot of the unpopular changes have been coming from?

Not sure if you're planning on answering anything startup related, but here goes anyways. In short, my cofounder decided to bail about 2 weeks into working on our startup full-time, after a few months of (admittedly inconsequential) part time work. YC heavily discourages single founders for good reason, so what would you suggest to someone in my position do now? Prioritize getting customers, or prioritize trying to get a cofounder? None of my friends are too into what we were/I am working on. Do I try to sell all of them on it? Do I try "cofounder dating" events? (Seems like a recipe for disaster) For how common cofounders leaving in the early stages is, there's not much advice on how to deal with it out there.

Quick question: startups or corporate companies, which one in terms of learning is best for a new grad?

You recently joined the boards of YC companies Helion Energy and UPower, both of which are working on bringing new nuclear power generation technologies (fusion and fission, respectively) to market. Technological challenges aside, do you think negative public and political perception of nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima disaster will be a major obstacle to these companies' success?

What do you do when you're not boardmembering?

What is your favorite beer? And where is your favorite place to drink it?

Over the last 10 years at Y Combinator you have seen a lot of motivated and ambitious entrepreneurs with good ideas. Some of these succeeded, some failed.

In your opinion what are the most common traits between those who succeeded? This could be in the entrepreneurs themselves, their business model, and commonality you see in ventures that go on to succeed.

Thanks!

As a board member -- what do you actually do, besides ask Steve to come back?

What plans do you have for Reddit going forward?

I'm friends with two past YC co-founders. Both of them held a title similar to CTO and implemented the majority of the company's initial technical IP. This IP wasn't just back-end system design but included novel machine learning and optimization technology, and the companies were both offering ml/optimization as a service.

Both of these co-founders were fired by their other founders and their boards. In both cases, the other founders were not /particularly/ non-technical-- one co-founder had a scientific PhD and the other had a CS degree from a top school. In one case, I had worked with the CTO previously, and my take was that he was fired over mostly mild culture issues that I could see resolved easily at a larger company. In both cases, the boards seemed to struggle dearly with the CTOs' technical interests & communication abilities.

What advice can you give to ml/optimization start-ups to avoid this "fired CTO" problem? Do you think these start-ups underestimate the non-technical value (e.g. for recruiting) of a strong scientist?

What are your views on the future of tech disrupting politics from an engagement perspective? Do you think Brigade or Countable can do what the others who have mostly failed in that space have tried to do?

Unfortunate that half the people seem to be confusing you with Steve.

What other things is Y Combinator working on right now that you're particularly excited about?

Any plans to expand the Y combinator model to outside the US?

I've been quite floored over the years what a fun place this has been and I'm glad Steve is back on board. What right now excites you most about the future of Reddit?

Do you still write any code?

Which Ninja Turtle would you most want to be?

Does it worry you that by rejecting thousands of startups each year from YC, you likely end up discouraging some good founders with good ideas from continuing to work on their companies? I realize you always tell rejected companies to keep at it, but is there more you could do to mitigate the real impact of rejection?

What's one thing you'd like to see on Reddit? Be a feature, a tool, an anything.

With the popularity of YC soaring ( https://twitter.com/sama/status/618247698378985472 ), do you think there's still room for the outliers, or do you primarily focus on getting the pick of the litter?

(Followup: has the application/accept ratio gone up or down over time?)

You have been here 8 years but all of your comments are from AmA except two about business. Do you have another account or are you just really too busy for reddit?