6 ms·

He wasn't a co-founder. Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian founded Reddit. They acquired Aaron's company half a year later.

dillona 15y ago
He frequently claims to be a cofounder, though. He gave a talk at my university advocating people to release journal articles they have access to as students to the Internet. The whole thing was very strange, as he was claiming to be a cofounder of a well known company he was not a cofounder of and he was openly advocating illegal activity.
- gregory80 15y ago
  Wow, that's very weird. What school did he speak at, did anyone record it?
  - dillona 15y ago
    University Of Illinois Video at: http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/Conferenceware/Schedule/Videos http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/Conferenceware/Schedule/Videos
    - gregory80 15y ago
      that's unreal. Min 29 on seems to be where the direct discussion of "rule" breaking begins. Rule breaking by Swartz being getting the JSTOR files from students and placing them online.
beforebeta 15y ago
his website mentions him as a co-founder "...He also cofounded the online news site Reddit, where he released as free software the web framework he developed, web.py..."
- thirsteh 15y ago
  People who feel they have to talk about themselves in the third person tend to be rather untrustworthy.
  - cincinnatus 15y ago
    Writing bios in the third person is common practice, it makes it convenient for people who need a quick bio of you to copy and paste.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
kooshball 15y ago
from pg > Aaron's not wrong to call himself one of the founders. The company behind Reddit was a merger of two startups, one that made Reddit and one that made Infogami, and in that situation the founders of both startups are considered founders of the combined company. http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1octb/reddit_cofounder_aaron_swartz_discusses_how_he/c1okmc http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1octb/reddit_cof...
- gojomo 15y ago
  And further: 'founder'/'cofounder' are not technically-rigorous terms, but a matter of common agreement. Followers of the iterative/lean approach should recognize that 'founding' is not a point event, at a single moment (of inspiration, document-signing, code-commit, whatever), but rather a process that continues. Any team that adds a new key person early could reasonably consider that person another 'founder'/'co-founder'/'founding employee'. Consider all the 'looking for co-founder' posts, from people who've already made some progress.
- argos 15y ago
  alexis doesn't seem to agree https://twitter.com/#!/kn0thing/status/93374221685755904 https://twitter.com/#!/kn0thing/status/93374221685755904 one talks about a merger and the other of an acquisition
  - redthrowaway 15y ago
    They seem to still be pretty pissed at him.
    - encoderer 15y ago
      What's the backstory there?
      - redthrowaway 15y ago
        He went to europe while they were in the middle of crunch time, then promptly took a week of sick time upon his return. They fired him shortly thereafter. Steve talks about it here: http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/d2njs/til_there_was_a_third_cofounder_of_reddit_who_was/c0x40yz http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/d2njs/til_the... In Aaron's words: "Yeah. I was unhappy working in an office and didn’t hide it. So I’d come in late and set up lots of off-site meetings and stuff. And my boss wasn’t really thrilled about that. Also, I think he was upset about me disappearing for so long on vacation. One of the places I went to in Europe was the Chaos Computer Conference. And while I was there I hung out with my friend Quinn Norton, who was reporting on the event for Wired. She took my photo for one of her articles and it was featured on wired.com’s front page. “Heh,” I joked. “I bet the first time my boss finds out where I am is when he sees my photo on the front page of his own website.”" So yeah, he earned his firing and the emnity of his coworkers the old-fashioned way. Edit: Also, there's some speculation on the thread I linked to that Aaron was a cofounder who received a payout in the CN deal. He wrote web.py, sure, but if he walked away with $1MM+ without showing up to work, that could explain why they still hate his guts.

dillona 15y ago

He frequently claims to be a cofounder, though. He gave a talk at my university advocating people to release journal articles they have access to as students to the Internet. The whole thing was very strange, as he was claiming to be a cofounder of a well known company he was not a cofounder of and he was openly advocating illegal activity.

gregory80 15y ago
Wow, that's very weird. What school did he speak at, did anyone record it?
- dillona 15y ago
  University Of Illinois Video at: http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/Conferenceware/Schedule/Videos http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/Conferenceware/Schedule/Videos
  - gregory80 15y ago
    that's unreal. Min 29 on seems to be where the direct discussion of "rule" breaking begins. Rule breaking by Swartz being getting the JSTOR files from students and placing them online.

beforebeta 15y ago

his website mentions him as a co-founder "...He also cofounded the online news site Reddit, where he released as free software the web framework he developed, web.py..."

thirsteh 15y ago
People who feel they have to talk about themselves in the third person tend to be rather untrustworthy.
- cincinnatus 15y ago
  Writing bios in the third person is common practice, it makes it convenient for people who need a quick bio of you to copy and paste.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

kooshball 15y ago

from pg > Aaron's not wrong to call himself one of the founders. The company behind Reddit was a merger of two startups, one that made Reddit and one that made Infogami, and in that situation the founders of both startups are considered founders of the combined company. http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1octb/reddit_cofounder_aaron_swartz_discusses_how_he/c1okmc http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1octb/reddit_cof...

gojomo 15y ago
And further: 'founder'/'cofounder' are not technically-rigorous terms, but a matter of common agreement. Followers of the iterative/lean approach should recognize that 'founding' is not a point event, at a single moment (of inspiration, document-signing, code-commit, whatever), but rather a process that continues. Any team that adds a new key person early could reasonably consider that person another 'founder'/'co-founder'/'founding employee'. Consider all the 'looking for co-founder' posts, from people who've already made some progress.
argos 15y ago
alexis doesn't seem to agree https://twitter.com/#!/kn0thing/status/93374221685755904 https://twitter.com/#!/kn0thing/status/93374221685755904 one talks about a merger and the other of an acquisition
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  They seem to still be pretty pissed at him.
  - encoderer 15y ago
    What's the backstory there?
    - redthrowaway 15y ago
      He went to europe while they were in the middle of crunch time, then promptly took a week of sick time upon his return. They fired him shortly thereafter. Steve talks about it here: http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/d2njs/til_there_was_a_third_cofounder_of_reddit_who_was/c0x40yz http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/d2njs/til_the... In Aaron's words: "Yeah. I was unhappy working in an office and didn’t hide it. So I’d come in late and set up lots of off-site meetings and stuff. And my boss wasn’t really thrilled about that. Also, I think he was upset about me disappearing for so long on vacation. One of the places I went to in Europe was the Chaos Computer Conference. And while I was there I hung out with my friend Quinn Norton, who was reporting on the event for Wired. She took my photo for one of her articles and it was featured on wired.com’s front page. “Heh,” I joked. “I bet the first time my boss finds out where I am is when he sees my photo on the front page of his own website.”" So yeah, he earned his firing and the emnity of his coworkers the old-fashioned way. Edit: Also, there's some speculation on the thread I linked to that Aaron was a cofounder who received a payout in the CN deal. He wrote web.py, sure, but if he walked away with $1MM+ without showing up to work, that could explain why they still hate his guts.