Biography
Yishan Wong is an American technology executive who served as chief executive officer of Reddit from 2012 until November 2014. Before joining Reddit he held engineering and management roles at PayPal and was an engineering director at Facebook, experience that shaped his approach to scaling consumer internet platforms. He took over Reddit's leadership as the site was growing rapidly and beginning to grapple with the commercial and governance challenges of a massive user-generated-content platform.
Wong was notable for articulating a strong free-speech philosophy for Reddit. He argued that the company would not ban subreddits merely for hosting legal but offensive content, while drawing a line at behavior that caused real-world harm, such as organized harassment or the distribution of nonconsensual intimate images. This stance became a defining and contested feature of Reddit's identity during his tenure.
His time as CEO coincided with the September 2014 'The Fappening' episode, in which stolen private nude photographs of celebrities circulated widely on Reddit. Under the harm-based limits Wong described, Reddit ultimately shut down the subreddits dedicated to spreading the leaked images, a decision that tested the balance between his free-speech principles and the platform's responsibilities.
Wong resigned in November 2014 after the board declined to support his proposal to relocate Reddit's office from San Francisco to the less expensive Daly City; he reportedly stopped coming to the office when the plan was rejected and cited accumulated stress. He was succeeded on an interim basis by Sam Altman for roughly a week and then by Ellen Pao. In 2020 he founded Terraformation, a company focused on combating climate change through large-scale reforestation. In 2022 he drew renewed attention with a widely shared commentary reflecting on Reddit's history and moderation.