The Reddit (RDDT) AMA (or “ask me anything”) is a free-for-all question and answer session where big names duke it out with anonymous users masked by handles like “testees_testees_123.” It can be delightfully informative, but also delightfully weird. Some even morph into uncomfortable grilling sessions, as was the case with Woody Harrelson’s AMA, which quickly devolved into a game of rape accusations.
Fab CEO Jason Goldberg took to Reddit yesterday for an AMA following the news that the company had raised $105 million, and while his experience wasn’t nearly as torturous as Mr. Harrelson’s, Redditors certainly didn’t cut him any slack.
Some questioned Fab’s members-only strategy. The model, Mr. Goldberg argued, “led to more than 5 million members signing up in the first year to Fab. We are going to be removing the login requirement in just a few weeks.”
One Redditor took issue with Fab’s incessant emails: “Why won’t you stop emailing me?”
“Change your preferences,” quipped Mr. Goldberg.
Another was angry he couldn’t shop on the site at work due to its occasional NSFW nature. “Can you stop having vibrators on the front page of your site?” he implored.
Mr. Goldberg copped to making a pretty penny off of swanky sex toys. “Are vibrators really that risque?” he asked. “I mean, we’ve sold tens of thousands of them. They’re well designed and clearly in demand.” A very modern man, that Jason Goldberg.
Other Redditors complained about the site’s slow servers, while others were nicer, congratulating him on the funding and asking for advice from the successful CEO. Unfortunately, a lot of the more positive questions didn’t get any upvotes, and were relegated to the bottom of the thread. But to his credit, Mr. Goldberg was kind enough to answer almost all of them.
The minefield nature of the AMA encompasses the joy of Reddit, though: you never know what kind of interactions might emerge.
Sadly, Mr. Goldberg’s AMA only got 25 upvotes.
