The birth of Reddit

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 9 September 2020

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Steve Huffman had been programming software since he was eight-years-old. At the University of Virginia, he met his future business partner, Alexis Ohanian. The pair went on to found Reddit, a discussion website where anyone can post links, photos, videos or questions on all kinds of different topics. The website now has an online following of over 430 million users, who contribute to over 138,000 different communities. Robbie Wojciechowski has been speaking to Steve Huffman about how it all began.

Photo: The Reddit logo (Credit: Reddit)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more watching listen on BBC sounds.
0:29.2	This is the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service.
0:37.0	I'm Robbie Voichowski and today I'm taking you back to the early 2000s and the beginnings of one of the internet's most popular
0:44.0	websites, Reddit. I've been speaking to Reddit's co-founder Steve Huffman about
0:49.5	how it all started. Reddit looks like this giant digital city.
0:54.8	It's just like a city where you can live and work and play on Reddit.
1:01.3	You can do all sorts of things that I think reflect the human condition.
1:06.4	Reddit is a website and anyone who wants to can post links, photos, videos or discussion questions about all kinds of topics.
1:14.3	Anything from relationship counseling, to movies, from politics to autism
1:18.9	are discussed on the platform.
1:20.3	Over 330 million users regularly talk to each other on any of
1:24.9	Reddit's 138,000 different communities. In 2004, the founders of Reddit, the town has been like that,
1:34.0	because there ain't no Holla that girl.
1:36.0	I ain't no Holla
1:38.0	that girl. In 2004, the founders of Reddit,
	...

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