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The Kim Kardashian of Silicon Valley. People whose job is to be seen more than to, you know, build something.

flycaliguy 13y ago
Jealous much? I've seen his sex tape and it makes Kim's look PG13.
drzaiusapelord 13y ago
Reddit just seems like one of those projects that got really lucky. Digg was making its users upset, slashdot was too nerdy, and metafilter too hard to get into due to $5 cost. Early reddit was kind of a mess too. Congrats on his success, but its always odd to hear people give advice or talk about their projects when there's a large element of luck involved. To be fair, this may be true of all successful projects.
- kevando 13y ago
  I don't think reddit got lucky because even after becoming mega successful, it's still almost impossible to spam the site. And their "hot" algorithm is an amazing way to always provide fresh content (unless you spend hours on the site). Their luck did come though, from Digg's failure. I forget the number, but they almost doubled their page views the week after Digg's infamous update.
  - TillE 13y ago
    Reddit was popular but still very niche pre-Digg 4. Not unlike Slashdot. Digg's collapse rapidly transformed Reddit into something completely different, exemplified now by the celebrity AMAs and godawful crap on the front page. Reddit did get a number of things right, but it still won't last. They may look back at killing /r/reddit.com as a huge mistake; once upon a time, people did really talk about Reddit as one big community, and there was some sense of that. That's not the case anymore.
    - kn0thing 13y ago
      The reason digg died and we've thrived is because a month in, we realized being a platform for people to create their own subreddits (and thus many community forums) was the only way we'd scale. At some point if there were only one front page, we'd hit a ceiling, whereas as a platform, we can scale forever.
  - kn0thing 13y ago
    That's just not true. We saw a big bump the week after digg v4 (which more than a few of us saw coming) http://alexisohanian.com/an-open-letter-to-kevin-rose http://alexisohanian.com/an-open-letter-to-kevin-rose but it was not a doubling of pageviews. reddit's traffic has consistently doubled every year for the last 6 years.
- kn0thing 13y ago
  Spoiler: anything that ends up being successful is going to involve a non trivial amount of luck. It seems like you realized this by the end of your comment but it didn't dissuade you from hitting 'reply.'
kevando 13y ago
Hardly. That's like saying Peter Thiel's job is to sit back and lazily give people money rather than build something. They both have incredible success under their belt and choose to provide value in new ways. All book tours are shameless self promotion so you should expect that.
- uaygsfdbzf 13y ago
  He left reddit in 2009 FYI http://images.nethosting.com/reddit-timeline.jpg http://images.nethosting.com/reddit-timeline.jpg
  - ketralnis 13y ago
    I don't think that timeline is accurate. For one thing, Gold wasn't launched until 2010[1], not 2006, which is a huge difference. Additionally, while Alexis did move on to also doing other things, he never really left reddit. He's still on the board, for instance. 1: http://blog.reddit.com/2010/07/reddit-needs-help.html http://blog.reddit.com/2010/07/reddit-needs-help.html
  - kn0thing 13y ago
    False. I left in 2010 - this was the last thing I did: http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/apnsu/helping_haiti_because_we_ought_to_do_more_than/ http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/apnsu/helping_haiti_be... I left to go volunteer for Kiva in Armenia and stayed on as an advisor and eventually board member.
jaf12duke 13y ago
Built: reddit, hipmunk, breadpig Wrote: 2 books Invested: in dozens of companies Advised: hundreds of founders as a partner in YC Alexis is an investor in 42Floors. Easily one of the nicest, most supportive, most helpful investors/peers/role models I've ever come across. And yes, he's an activist! So he self-promotes. Explicitly for the cause of an open internet. And I'm so incredibly grateful that he promotes a cause I care so much about, but over which I have so little influence.
- uaygsfdbzf 13y ago
  Correction: hipmink (advisor) breadpig... and that's notable? reddit, what was it by the time he left? It took off long after he left. Investor, yes indeed.
  - dwaltrip 13y ago
    Do you have a point? Sounds like you are looking to berate. Oh he did actually build some stuff? But it doesn't meet my arbitrary criteria for notability/novelty!
  - wikiburner 13y ago
    You make some great points, Elon.
  - ketralnis 13y ago
    > reddit, what was it by the time he left? It took off long after he left 1. That just isn't true 2. If it were true, you don't think that early investment (in time, energy, ingenuity, whatever) pays off later? That you need a good foundation to build a house? Source: I was at reddit until 2011. This all sounds very personal, do you know Alexis?
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
marketforlemmas 13y ago
So which one of your start-ups is one of the top 100 websites in the world?
luckydude 13y ago
I've got a lot of respect for people who have built something. I've built stuff, seems like he did too. I'm sorry, don't know who you are, have you built something? No offense intended, just trying to figure out who you are.
kn0thing 13y ago
Why you gotta bring another Armenian into this?

Jealous much? I've seen his sex tape and it makes Kim's look PG13.

Reddit just seems like one of those projects that got really lucky. Digg was making its users upset, slashdot was too nerdy, and metafilter too hard to get into due to $5 cost. Early reddit was kind of a mess too. Congrats on his success, but its always odd to hear people give advice or talk about their projects when there's a large element of luck involved. To be fair, this may be true of all successful projects.

kevando 13y ago
I don't think reddit got lucky because even after becoming mega successful, it's still almost impossible to spam the site. And their "hot" algorithm is an amazing way to always provide fresh content (unless you spend hours on the site). Their luck did come though, from Digg's failure. I forget the number, but they almost doubled their page views the week after Digg's infamous update.
- TillE 13y ago
  Reddit was popular but still very niche pre-Digg 4. Not unlike Slashdot. Digg's collapse rapidly transformed Reddit into something completely different, exemplified now by the celebrity AMAs and godawful crap on the front page. Reddit did get a number of things right, but it still won't last. They may look back at killing /r/reddit.com as a huge mistake; once upon a time, people did really talk about Reddit as one big community, and there was some sense of that. That's not the case anymore.
  - kn0thing 13y ago
    The reason digg died and we've thrived is because a month in, we realized being a platform for people to create their own subreddits (and thus many community forums) was the only way we'd scale. At some point if there were only one front page, we'd hit a ceiling, whereas as a platform, we can scale forever.
- kn0thing 13y ago
  That's just not true. We saw a big bump the week after digg v4 (which more than a few of us saw coming) http://alexisohanian.com/an-open-letter-to-kevin-rose http://alexisohanian.com/an-open-letter-to-kevin-rose but it was not a doubling of pageviews. reddit's traffic has consistently doubled every year for the last 6 years.
kn0thing 13y ago
Spoiler: anything that ends up being successful is going to involve a non trivial amount of luck. It seems like you realized this by the end of your comment but it didn't dissuade you from hitting 'reply.'

kevando 13y ago

Hardly. That's like saying Peter Thiel's job is to sit back and lazily give people money rather than build something. They both have incredible success under their belt and choose to provide value in new ways. All book tours are shameless self promotion so you should expect that.

uaygsfdbzf 13y ago
He left reddit in 2009 FYI http://images.nethosting.com/reddit-timeline.jpg http://images.nethosting.com/reddit-timeline.jpg
- ketralnis 13y ago
  I don't think that timeline is accurate. For one thing, Gold wasn't launched until 2010[1], not 2006, which is a huge difference. Additionally, while Alexis did move on to also doing other things, he never really left reddit. He's still on the board, for instance. 1: http://blog.reddit.com/2010/07/reddit-needs-help.html http://blog.reddit.com/2010/07/reddit-needs-help.html
- kn0thing 13y ago
  False. I left in 2010 - this was the last thing I did: http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/apnsu/helping_haiti_because_we_ought_to_do_more_than/ http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/apnsu/helping_haiti_be... I left to go volunteer for Kiva in Armenia and stayed on as an advisor and eventually board member.

jaf12duke 13y ago

Built: reddit, hipmunk, breadpig Wrote: 2 books Invested: in dozens of companies Advised: hundreds of founders as a partner in YC Alexis is an investor in 42Floors. Easily one of the nicest, most supportive, most helpful investors/peers/role models I've ever come across. And yes, he's an activist! So he self-promotes. Explicitly for the cause of an open internet. And I'm so incredibly grateful that he promotes a cause I care so much about, but over which I have so little influence.

uaygsfdbzf 13y ago
Correction: hipmink (advisor) breadpig... and that's notable? reddit, what was it by the time he left? It took off long after he left. Investor, yes indeed.
- dwaltrip 13y ago
  Do you have a point? Sounds like you are looking to berate. Oh he did actually build some stuff? But it doesn't meet my arbitrary criteria for notability/novelty!
- wikiburner 13y ago
  You make some great points, Elon.
- ketralnis 13y ago
  > reddit, what was it by the time he left? It took off long after he left 1. That just isn't true 2. If it were true, you don't think that early investment (in time, energy, ingenuity, whatever) pays off later? That you need a good foundation to build a house? Source: I was at reddit until 2011. This all sounds very personal, do you know Alexis?
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]

marketforlemmas 13y ago

So which one of your start-ups is one of the top 100 websites in the world?

luckydude 13y ago

I've got a lot of respect for people who have built something. I've built stuff, seems like he did too. I'm sorry, don't know who you are, have you built something? No offense intended, just trying to figure out who you are.

kn0thing 13y ago

Why you gotta bring another Armenian into this?