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> For Paul Graham, cofounder of Y Combination who worked with Swartz, Huffman and Ohanian, Aaron Swartz is right to call himself a Reddit founder. > Speaking o

> For Paul Graham, cofounder of Y Combination who worked with Swartz, Huffman and Ohanian, Aaron Swartz is right to call himself a Reddit founder. > Speaking on Reddit a few years ago, Graham said: “The company behind Reddit was a merger of two startups…and in that situation the founders of both startups are considered founders of the combined company.” [1] sounds pretty clear to me.. 1: https://www.thefocus.news/tech/aaron-swartz-reddit/ https://www.thefocus.news/tech/aaron-swartz-reddit/

ehsankia 6y ago
This may be unfair as Aaron isn't there to give his side of the story, but the way I understand is that the YC put these 1+2 people (who were all talented) together to help build reddit, but Huffman and Ohanian were far more interested in building reddit as it was originally their project and they had been working on it for 6 months, and it seems like Aaron wasn't as interested in it. So yes, while Graham did forcingly merge these two together, I don't think it necessarily makes Aaron a co-founder and contributor. EDIT: Just to add, Aaron's project was "infogami" which seems to be a CMS system, and I'm not sure how much of that actually contributed to reddit. It seems like his project was mostly scratched and the project that Huffman & Ohanian were working on ended up being the real success.
- Zak 6y ago
  Early versions of reddit's wiki were more or less reskinned infogami. As to the co-founder question, Aaron was definitely a co-founder of the merged reddit/infogami company, but he didn't contribute much after that, leading to his departure. I think that, rather than any controversy over his arrest is why Steve and Alexis didn't really consider him a co-founder.
  - dpritchett 6y ago
    Here’s Swartz detailing how Reddit was rewritten in his own Python framework a scant six months after launch: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/rewritingreddit http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/rewritingreddit

ehsankia 6y ago

This may be unfair as Aaron isn't there to give his side of the story, but the way I understand is that the YC put these 1+2 people (who were all talented) together to help build reddit, but Huffman and Ohanian were far more interested in building reddit as it was originally their project and they had been working on it for 6 months, and it seems like Aaron wasn't as interested in it. So yes, while Graham did forcingly merge these two together, I don't think it necessarily makes Aaron a co-founder and contributor. EDIT: Just to add, Aaron's project was "infogami" which seems to be a CMS system, and I'm not sure how much of that actually contributed to reddit. It seems like his project was mostly scratched and the project that Huffman & Ohanian were working on ended up being the real success.

Zak 6y ago
Early versions of reddit's wiki were more or less reskinned infogami. As to the co-founder question, Aaron was definitely a co-founder of the merged reddit/infogami company, but he didn't contribute much after that, leading to his departure. I think that, rather than any controversy over his arrest is why Steve and Alexis didn't really consider him a co-founder.
- dpritchett 6y ago
  Here’s Swartz detailing how Reddit was rewritten in his own Python framework a scant six months after launch: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/rewritingreddit http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/rewritingreddit