Steve Huffman

We wanted a place where people could share links from around the web and talk about them.

And submit links and talk about them, they did.

In fact, one of the first inside jokes on Reddit was, I didn't read the article, but ... And then a thousand words about the article they didn't read.

But from these conversations emerged communities.

First one, then a couple, then a dozen, then thousands and hundreds of thousands.

The communities sometimes are interesting, helpful, funny, weird.

Sometimes all of these things.

I left in 2009, I was gone for five years.

And when I came back,

the platform was in a different place.

It was at a low point.

Among many reasons, the most important was there was no policies.

There was no guardrails about what behavior was acceptable or not.

And so while communities are created naturally, they emerge naturally when people are together, a platform, a system where many communities can coexist in a healthy and sustainable way and thrive, that has to happen on purpose.

And that's what we've

been working on.

A few years ago, the US Surgeon General declared loneliness an epidemic.

Seventy-three percent of people surveyed said technology contributes to that loneliness, which is not great if you run an internet technology company.

But at the same time, people are spending more and more time at in-person events.

So in the most chronically online era, people are seeking out in-person connection.