Interview with the Managing Director of Steemit, Elizabeth Powell
In today’s episode of The Steemit Podcast, @andrarchy interviews the Managing Director of Steemit, Elizabeth Powell (@elipowell). Elizabeth was made Managing Director of Steemit in the wake of the decision to reduce Steemit’s staff by 70%. Ned Scott, the founder of Steem and steemit.com, made the decision to step aside and hand the reins of the company over to Elizabeth who had spent the previous 6 months building Steemit's Communications team from scratch.
At that time, Elizabeth was facing a Herculean task. Steemit was hemorrhaging money. During the crypto bull market, the cost of running Steem nodes had ballooned peaking at around $220,000 a month. Those nodes aren’t just used by steemit.com, but by most of the major Steem applications.
Returning Stability
The length and depth of the crypto bear market meant that Steemit was eating into its cash reserves at a rapid rate. Drastic measures had to be taken in order to return Steemit to an economically sustainable path, and restore stability to the Steem ecosystem that depends on Steemit Inc. to run public nodes and produce software upgrades to the Steem blockchain.
In this interview Elizabeth describes what Steemit has been doing over the course of the last 6 months to right the ship, and what we have planned for the next 6 months as we transition from “survive mode” to “thrive mode.”
About @steem.marketing
@steem.marketing is an account created by @andrarchy (Head of Communications & Advocacy for Steemit Inc.), that is intended to be used for the purpose of hosting and supporting content that helps to market Steem. If you are interested in being featured on this account e-mail him at andrarchy@steemit.com.
Steem Marketing
Thank you.....really appreciate hearing how Steemit is doing.
Wishing you all the best in your endeavours!
Cheers!
Hi Elizabeth and co.
I really hope things improve from here on in and if there is anything I can do to help, please feel free to send me message.
There are two big challenges that I can see need addressing before we can thrive - I believe addressing these will be critical to rallying.
Long term, loyal Steemians have lost trust - since the the team committed to a SMT release date and didn't make it. In many people's minds its a bit of a Yoda moment, either do or do not. The price of Steem was dropping at the time @ned gave a committed date, many people trusted and held on, ignoring the power down by Steem inc an @ned promised SMT and committed to a date. What steps are being taken to repair the damage of a promise not kept. An apology from @ned and a new commitment date, would go a very long way I think. For those who follow the politics its pretty clear some powerful steem holders have also acted...unfairly. However for most of us we don't care much about whales, we just want Steem to work and so we look to Steem inc to respond.
Most Steemians who did the right things, supported the platform, brought friends and family onboard and powered up - are now facing a situation where a platform designed to reward content actually only rewards people who cash out as soon as they get it!
Many of my posts which paid up to $100, I powered up...now to only be worth a few $. I don't have the huge reserves to sell off that Steem inc does and I'm needing some incentive to keep working so hard (as selfish as that sounds). In many ways all the content creators who ever powered up are also like employee's - Can Steem inc please deploy some short term/immediate relief to the extended Steem family (those content creators who have put in effort and no have little to show), now the immediate threat employee situation has been taken care of, how can you restore the faith of the greatest, long term supporters.
I have some ideas, should you seek thoughts
All the best to all of us and a more successful future Steem blockchain.
just stumbled on this, really great to get communications in whatever form, just gives everyone the confidence needed to not get scared and pull out. @steemit needs to keep the channels open so we don't lose faith.
thank you
It was nice to hear some dollars mentioned in terms of costs and then also savings. We haven't gotten too many specifics like that before. Thank you.
Better late than never, for once I feel hopeful for the future of Steem and Steemit! Eli seems to be a great leader and a true professional, I'm glad Ned listened to the community and decided to step down. Steem has wasted so much potential and time that it's insane!
You're on the right track Eli, I'm keeping eye on the advances you make. Perhaps I'll be buying more Steem even, that's something that hasn't happened in a long, long time.
Yea, I bought some recently when we went down to the low $.30s. I bought it mostly because steem seems to be priced like it won't do much right while many of the other projects ahead it are priced as if they will do a lot right. If steem gets some things right, it has a lot of room to run.
Yeah, we've been building a solid foundation for a long time. And even LTC boomed hard after being "dead" for years.
Hello @steem.marketing Please forward this message to Steemit Inc. please read this post. It could be a game changer for Steem...
https://partiko.app/@streetstyle/can-steem-make-a-move-to-get-on-the-spedn-app-using-flexacoin-crypto-wallet?referrer=streetstyle
Posted using Partiko iOS
Great news! I've been here for 3 years and I plan on staying aboard the mother ship.
I can feel the STEEM price wanting to rise more each time you release PR :) keep it up!
I despised seeing Google Adsense - it made me want to leave Steemit.
Just leave Steemit.com and use SteemPeak.com. Steemit is not Steem.
Posted using Partiko iOS
@quochuy please explain or share a link that explains the difference between steemit and steempeak - they look the same - how are they not connected? Thanks.
Steemit is just a frontend (dapps) that talks to the Steem blockchain. Steemit is owned and maintained by Steemit Inc (the company) and SteemPeak is owned and maintained by some Steemians.
You can create your own frontend website that also talks to the Steem blockchain and decide whether to display ads on it or not
Posted using Partiko iOS
Thanks @quochuy - I actually started to figure this out myself after I replied to you - I think will switch to steempeak because I detest where steemit is going.
Thanks for the suggestion...
You’re welcome.
Although I do understand your frustrations, I was also attracted by Steemit due to the absence of annoying advertising banners but I also do understand their stance in the current situation. They need some revenue and ads are an efficient way to get some. I hope they will add some kind of revenue sharing with the content creators too.
Posted using Partiko iOS
I agree with both of you, and can add that using adblockers in your browser works just fine on steemit. Never seen an ad on steemit because of it, I couldn't even tell you where they are normally displayed ;)
At last we already surpassed the bear market. Thank you for this significant update. A good thing I never lost hope with the Steem blockchain. Keep steeming everyone!
Welcome to Steemit @elipowell