Interview: Alexis Ohanian, Author Of 'Without Their Permission'

Steve Huffman, my co-founder, and I really had no idea that it would grow to be one of the top 50 sites in the U.S. At the time we were two undergrads at U.Va. who just wanted to keep living like college students for as long as we could. You know, I'm from a generation of people who got trophies for everything and, you know, I was really fortunate because I had not really had any big setbacks. I cannot deny the good timing we had. So much of success is tied to that timing that we can't really plan for. It's really easy to see that and map it to our digital mailbox, or our digital home, our digital storage.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/10/05/228798074/how-reddit-emerged-from-a-rejected-and-very-different-idea?ft=1&f=1008