I think this was definitely expected, though as forwardslash said, not this soon. In a lot of ways I think Pao was a scapegoat - Not just for the community, but also for those who run reddit. Basically, I see her job to have been: 1.) Do things that would make the investors happy, that they knew would make the community unhappy 2.) when the community inevitably hated those things, take the fall and the hatred. 3.) leave, golden parachute in tow. After having Pao leave, they may "fix" a few things, but all of the changes will stay in place, but the community will be happier. Win-Win for the people who run Reddit. When I said that I was surprised she's leaving this soon, I'm mostly surprised that they didn't try to get a few more changes out of her - maybe they figured they'd gotten as much out of the situation as they could.