Ellen Pao. Photo via Flickr user cmichel67.
Ellen Pao. Photo via Flickr user cmichel67.

Ellen Pao is out at Reddit.

The New York Times reported Friday afternoon that the interim CEO, who took over this past November, resigned after Reddit users expressed displeasure with the firing of a popular Reddit employee.

Reddit co-founder Steve Huffman is taking over as CEO, leaving his job as CTO at travel startup Hipmunk. Huffman founded Reddit with Alexis Ohanian in 2005.

In a post on Reddit, board member Sam Altman called the resignation a mutual agreement. Pao will remain an advisor to the board through the end of 2015.

“We are thankful for Ellen’s many contributions to reddit and the technology industry generally,” Altman wrote. “She brought focus to chaos, recruited a world-class team of executives, and drove growth. She brought a face to reddit that changed perceptions, and is a pioneer for women in the tech industry.”

Reddit-AlienPao told the New York Times that the departure was a result of disagreements between her and the Reddit board over the company’s future.

“Ultimately, the board asked me to demonstrate higher user growth in the next six months than I believe I can deliver while maintaining reddit’s core principles,” Pao wrote in a resignation post on Reddit.

In her post, Pao said that she’s “seen the good, the bad and the ugly on reddit” in her eight months at the helm of the company.

“The good has been off-the-wall inspiring, and the ugly made me doubt humanity,” she wrote. “I just want to remind everyone that I am just another human; I have a family, and I have feelings. Everyone attacked on reddit is just another person like you and me. When people make something up to attack me or someone else, it spreads, and we eventually will see it. And we will feel bad, not just about what was said. Also because it undercuts the authenticity of reddit and shakes our faith in humanity.”

Pao made headlines earlier this year after she filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against her former employer at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm. Pao ultimately lost the lawsuit in March after a jury sided with Kleiner Perkins for each of Pao’s claims.

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