March 2024

I met the Reddits before we even started Y Combinator.

In fact they were one of the reasons we started it.

YC grew out of a talk I gave to the Harvard Computer Society (the undergrad computer club) about how to start a startup.

Everyone else in the audience was probably local, but Steve and Alexis came up on the train from the University of Virginia, where they were seniors.

Since they'd come so far I agreed to meet them for coffee.

They told me about the startup idea we'd later fund them to drop: a way to order fast food on your cellphone.

This was before smartphones.

They'd have had to make deals with cell carriers and fast food chains just to get it launched.

So it was not going to happen.

It still doesn't exist, 19 years later.

But I was impressed with their brains and their energy.

In fact I was so impressed with them and some of the other people I met at that talk that I decided to start something to fund them.

A few days later I told Steve and Alexis that we were starting Y Combinator, and encouraged them to apply.

That first batch we didn't have any way to identify applicants, so we made up nicknames for them.

The Reddits were the "Cell food muffins."

"Muffin" is a term of endearment Jessica uses for things like small dogs and two year olds.

So that gives you some idea what kind of impression Steve and Alexis made in those days.

They had the look of slightly ruffled surprise that baby birds have.

I met the Reddits before we even started Y Combinator. In fact they were one of the reasons we started it.

Steve and Alexis came by train from Virginia to a talk I gave at Harvard, and over coffee told me the idea we'd later fund them to drop: ordering fast food on your cellphone. Before smartphones, that was not going to happen.

But I was impressed with their brains and energy. In that first batch we gave applicants nicknames; the Reddits were the "Cell food muffins." They had the look of slightly ruffled surprise that baby birds have.

I met Steve and Alexis before YC existed; in fact they helped inspire it. Their fast-food-on-a-cellphone idea was hopeless, but their brains and energy weren't.

Their idea was bad though.

And since we thought then that we were funding ideas rather than founders, we rejected them.

But we felt bad about it.

Jessica was sad that we'd rejected the muffins.

And it seemed wrong to me to turn down the people we'd been inspired to start YC to fund.

I don't think the startup sense of the word "pivot" had been invented yet, but we wanted to fund Steve and Alexis, so if their idea was bad, they'd have to work on something else.

And I knew what else.

In those days there was a site called Delicious where you could save links.

It had a page called del.icio.us/popular that listed the most-saved links, and people were using this page as a de facto Reddit.

I knew because a lot of the traffic to my site was coming from it.

There needed to be something like del.icio.us/popular, but designed for sharing links instead of being a byproduct of saving them.

So I called Steve and Alexis and said that we liked them, just not their idea, so we'd fund them if they'd work on something else.

They were on the train home to Virginia at that point.

They got off at the next station and got on the next train north, and by the end of the day were committed to working on what's now called Reddit.

They would have liked to call it Snoo, as in "What snoo?"

But snoo.com was too expensive, so they settled for calling the mascot Snoo and picked a name for the site that wasn't registered.

Early on Reddit was just a provisional name, or so they told me at least, but it's probably too late to change it now.

Their idea was bad though. Since we thought then that we funded ideas rather than founders, we rejected them — but it seemed wrong to turn down the people we'd been inspired to start YC for.

We wanted them, so they'd have to work on something else — and I knew what. Delicious had a del.icio.us/popular page of the most-saved links that people used as a de facto Reddit. Something like it was needed, but built for sharing links rather than as a byproduct of saving.

So I called and said we liked them, just not their idea. On the train home, they got off at the next station, caught the next train north, and by day's end were committed to Reddit.

They'd have liked to call it Snoo, but snoo.com was too pricey, so Snoo became the mascot and the site got an unregistered name — provisional, but too late to change now.

We rejected their idea but couldn't bear to lose the founders, so we told them to work on something else: a del.icio.us/popular built for sharing links. They turned the train around that day.

As with all the really great startups, there's an uncannily close match between the company and the founders.

Steve in particular.

Reddit has a certain personality — curious, skeptical, ready to be amused — and that personality is Steve's.

Steve will roll his eyes at this, but he's an intellectual; he's interested in ideas for their own sake.

That was how he came to be in that audience in Cambridge in the first place.

He knew me because he was interested in a programming language I've written about called Lisp, and Lisp is one of those languages few people learn except out of intellectual curiosity.

Steve's kind of vacuum-cleaner curiosity is exactly what you want when you're starting a site that's a list of links to literally anything interesting.

Steve was not a big fan of authority, so he also liked the idea of a site without editors.

In those days the top forum for programmers was a site called Slashdot.

It was a lot like Reddit, except the stories on the frontpage were chosen by human moderators.

And though they did a good job, that one small difference turned out to be a big difference.

Being driven by user submissions meant Reddit was fresher than Slashdot.

News there was newer, and users will always go where the newest news is.

As with all the really great startups, there's an uncannily close match between the company and the founders. Reddit has a certain personality — curious, skeptical, ready to be amused — and that personality is Steve's.

He's an intellectual, drawn to that Cambridge audience by Lisp, a language few learn except out of curiosity — exactly the vacuum-cleaner curiosity you want when starting a list of links to anything interesting.

No fan of authority, Steve liked a site without editors. The top programmer forum then, Slashdot, was much like Reddit except that moderators chose the frontpage. That small difference was big: user submissions made Reddit fresher, and users always go where the newest news is.

The really great startups match their founders uncannily, and Reddit's curious, skeptical, anti-authority personality is Steve's. His intellectual curiosity and dislike of editors made it fresher than rivals like Slashdot.

I pushed the Reddits to launch fast. A version one didn't need to be more than a couple hundred lines of code.

How could that take more than a week or two to build?

And they did launch comparatively fast, about three weeks into the first YC batch.

The first users were Steve, Alexis, me, and some of their YC batchmates and college friends.

It turns out you don't need that many users to collect a decent list of interesting links, especially if you have multiple accounts per user.

Reddit got two more people from their YC batch: Chris Slowe and Aaron Swartz, and they too were unusually smart.

Chris was just finishing his PhD in physics at Harvard.

Aaron was younger, a college freshman, and even more anti-authority than Steve.

It's not exaggerating to describe him as a martyr for what authority later did to him.

I pushed them to launch fast — a version one needn't be more than a couple hundred lines. They launched about three weeks in, and it turns out you don't need many users to collect a decent list of links, especially with multiple accounts.

Two more joined from their batch, also unusually smart: Chris Slowe, finishing a physics PhD at Harvard, and Aaron Swartz, a freshman even more anti-authority than Steve. It's not exaggerating to call him a martyr for what authority later did to him.

A version one was only a couple hundred lines, so I pushed them to launch fast — they did, three weeks in. Two more unusually smart YC batchmates joined: Chris Slowe and Aaron Swartz.

Slowly but inexorably Reddit's traffic grew.

At first the numbers were so small they were hard to distinguish from background noise.

But within a few weeks it was clear that there was a core of real users returning regularly to the site.

And although all kinds of things have happened to Reddit the company in the years since, Reddit the site never looked back.

Reddit the site (and now app) is such a fundamentally useful thing that it's almost unkillable.

Which is why, despite a long stretch after Steve left when the management strategy ranged from benign neglect to spectacular blunders, traffic just kept growing.

You can't do that with most companies.

Most companies you take your eye off the ball for six months and you're in deep trouble.

But Reddit was special, and when Steve came back in 2015, I knew the world was in for a surprise.

People thought they had Reddit's number: one of the players in Silicon Valley, but not one of the big ones.

But those who knew what had been going on behind the scenes knew there was more to the story than this.

If Reddit could grow to the size it had with management that was harmless at best, what could it do if Steve came back?

We now know the answer to that question.

Or at least a lower bound on the answer.

Steve is not out of ideas yet.

Slowly but inexorably the traffic grew. And although all kinds of things have happened to Reddit the company since, Reddit the site never looked back.

The site is so fundamentally useful that it's almost unkillable — which is why traffic kept growing through a long stretch after Steve left when management ranged from benign neglect to spectacular blunders. You can't do that with most companies. But Reddit was special, and when Steve came back in 2015, the world was in for a surprise.

People thought they had Reddit's number: a Silicon Valley player, not a big one. But if it could grow this large with management harmless at best, what could it do with Steve back? We now know the answer — or at least a lower bound. Steve is not out of ideas yet.

Reddit's traffic grew slowly but inexorably, and the site never looked back. It's so useful it's almost unkillable — which is why it kept growing even through bad management, and why Steve's 2015 return surprised everyone.