How the Newly Independent Reddit Sees Its Mission

When I worked for Wired.com, I sat about 50 feet from the Reddit guys and I'm friendly with co-founder Alexis Ohanian because we are both men named Alexis. Their offices were a drywalled-in corner of Wired.com's half of the Wired floor of an old brick warehouse in San Francisco. It was clear that our corporate overlords were not sure what to do with this strange site run by a tiny team of nerds. It was not the most freewheeling startup situation, but Reddit grew anyway, especially after Digg lost its dominance in the social news space.

We're friendly for more reasons than that, Alexis -- you're also rather awesome.