1) Moderators, who provide a huge portion of the value of the site, are treated with disrespect by the organization.
2) An employee whose availability was useful to a few major subreddits was dismissed without warning, leaving those subreddits in the lurch, which is emblematic of the above disrespect.
3) Ellen Pao is CEO.
These are presented in decreasing order of relevance to the actual problem, and increasing order of urgency to those driving the discussion.
Pao needs to do an AMA. A small number of users is upset at her stance in favor of diversity and against sexism, and because she's historically refused to directly engage a community that's gotten used to having direct access to movie stars and presidents, those few have been able to convince many more that she's a cold bitch and doesn't deserve respect. She needs to be on the front page all day gracefully responding to the revolting things being said about her so that normal users can remember that she's an actual person and not an anonymous force of nature advancing evil in the world.
Edit: Seems that's what she's doing right now.
