Bay Area workers ‘broadly,’ don’t think they have to work hard, says Reddit CEO

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Many Bay Area tech workers have a sense of entitlement, don’t think they have to work very hard, and are out for themselves, according to the CEO of one major tech company. That’s according to Reddit CEO Steve Huffman who recently appeared on Scott Galloway’s “The Prof G Pod” podcast.

Huffman appeared on a May 4 episode of the popular podcast where he spoke with co-host Ed Elson. Huffman, speaking about the early days of running Reddit, the popular social media platform, said they were idealistic — which was not always to their benefit.

“We were really idealistic, and I think in many ways the idealism has been very good, but we were also idealistic about not being a business,” said Huffman, “which is not a great way to run a sustainable business.”

Huffman, who founded Reddit with his college roommate in 2005, also spoke to a broader culture among Bay Area tech workers.

“Wrapped up in some of that idealism was also, like, not working hard,” he said. “In the Bay Area, broadly, is this — it’s almost an entitlement of, ‘I work at these companies, but I don’t have to work very hard and I’m here for myself.'”

Huffman eventually told his employees something like, “If we don’t work really hard and work really smart and make this thing successful both from a user point of view and business point of view, then we don’t get to do this, and we’ll never achieve our mission.”

After initially leaving Reddit back in 2009 to cofound travel website Hipmunk, Huffman returned to Reddit as CEO in 2015.