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Comment by sinnerswing | Hacker News Reader

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sinnerswing·

the title is misleading then.

edit:

birth of reddit the idea started with pg, etc.

birth of reddit the company started with alexis, etc.

imo conception starts with the idea.

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My understanding is that Reddit would not be Reddit without Alexis. He came up with the name and (I believe) the alien/branding. But more importantly, he fostered a culture of doing the right thing over making an extra dollar, which ultimately enabled Reddit to beat Digg and become a core part of the culture. I wouldn't downplay his contribution to the "birth of Reddit."

There was a mother and a father - I'll let you decide which role was fulfilled by me and Steve.

This sounds like a loaded question. ;-) But in all seriousness, I think one of Steve's big contributions was rejecting the constant calls for tags, and opting instead to implement subreddits. (I'm just a guy watching from the sidelines; I could be wrong on some of these details.) It's a good reminder that listening to your users is not always the right way to make something they want.

Totally right. In fact, I was fighting with him during our YC summer about implementing tagging (which I also wanted, because we'd be able to spin up new verticals much much faster than trying to build new communities in new subreddits). I'ts a very good thing he won. More on this in Without Their Permission....

You brought up an interesting point about the idea for reddit, but you're wrong about the title of this thread.

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