Launched in 2005, Reddit is a social news website that displays news based on your personal preferences and what the community likes. Your preferences are determined based on your history of voting stories up or down.
The company was started by two University of Virginia grads, Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman in the Y Combinator program. Two others, Christopher Slowe and Aaron Swartz, later joined the team.
Conde Nast, owner of Wired and other magazines/websites, acquired Reddit in October of 2006. Reddit competitors include Digg, Netscape and Newsvine.
In February 2008, Reddit began experimenting with allowing users to create their own subreddits,' such as shutupandtakemymoney, todayilearned.
In September 2011, the company changed hands from Condé Nast to its parent company, Advanced Publications. As part of the new structure, reddit incorporated and now reports directly to a board, including Alexis Ohanian , Bob Sauerberg (President), Joe Simon (Chief Technology Officer) from Condé Nast, and Andrew Siegel (Senior Vice President, Strategy and Corporate Development) from Advance.