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Comment by hayksaakian | Hacker News Reader

This podcast is very consumer-oriented

Things I wish they covered but didn't

- How did Reddit get acquired, and why?

- Why did Alexis leave Reddit originally, and why did he come back?

- What is the exit strategy for Kash? Are they planning on literally taking over Visa, or is an XXX million dollar exit to PayPal good enough?

- how will Kash beat its closest competitors? There are "pay with an app" companies. Why are you better than stripe behind an app frontend.

I don't plan on listening to this podcast again unless I hear it's become less "consumery".

View on HN

- How did Reddit get acquired, and why?

I wish I could just copy paste the section from my book, but it happened because word spread about reddit and how well we were doing (this started right around when Steve + I got back from Google in Nov 05 and turned down their acqui-hire offer) and the head of Biz Dev from CondeNet reached out to me via a mutual friend. He proposed we work on a project together (lipstick.com) and this ultimately led to acquisition talks.

- Why did Alexis leave Reddit originally, and why did he come back?

Our contracts were up Halloween 2009 and I stayed on for a few more months to get things in place and wrap up some things before leaving to go volunteer in Armenia with Kiva for a few months. Needed to get away from SF and connect with my roots.

I was on the board when Yishan made his sudden departure and ultimately came back because the timing was right + reddit needed the help. Reddit means so much to me and it was really hard watching it struggle.

If you are interested in more in-depth stories on Reddit. You might be interested in the podcast Alexis Ohanian did with Steve Huffman when Reddit turned 10

https://www.reddit.com/r/Upvoted/comments/3b2ypq/episode_24_...

Thanks! Gonna get Steve to sit down again soon for us to talk about the next 10 years...

Episode 2 was much better. Justin Kan really gets into the business/growth of justin tv

https://soundcloud.com/akharris/startup-school-radio-ep-2-ju...

So glad you found the second episode more to your liking! The focus of each episode shifts based on who is on the show and where the story takes us. My guess is that different episodes will resonate with different people.

Looking forward to more feedback!

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