Hacker News Reader

Pao's appointment at Reddit always struck me as odd. Was she really the best person they could find?

Well, obviously she was the best person, otherwise they would not have hired her. The definition of "best" is malleable. You may not understand the reasons why they chose her, but clearly they had them.

> "she was the best person"

No, based on the evidence she seemed to be the best person.

I don't have much of an opinion on what exactly happened, but your claim there is overly confident.

When you hire someone you say that the person you hire is the best person available at that time for that role. Otherwise you hire the other person you think is best.

I'm not saying she wasn't, i'm just saying that neither they nor you can tell whether she actually was. Just that she seemed to be it. Maybe she was the best one, maybe appearances weren't quite that, maybe there were candidates they didn't recognize despite them being better. There are many options. Claiming she actually and factually was the best one is just overconfident though.

And yes, they may have said "she is the best", but that doesn't mean they actually got that right.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com