Paul Graham’s lecture helped inspire Reddit’s founders to apply to Y Combinator.
During spring break in 2005, University of Virginia roommates Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian traveled to Boston to hear Graham, a programmer and entrepreneur. After the lecture, they spoke with him, and Graham invited them to apply to his new startup incubator, Y Combinator.
Their first proposal, My Mobile Menu, would have let users order food by text message, but it was rejected. Graham then invited them to brainstorm another idea. That session produced the concept of a site he called the “front page of the Internet.” Huffman and Ohanian joined Y Combinator’s first class, built Reddit with its support, and launched the site in June 2005.
A common mix-up is crediting Y Combinator itself, rather than Graham, as the answer. Y Combinator funded and accepted the founders, but Graham was the entrepreneur whose lecture and follow-up conversation set the application process in motion. Huffman wrote the original site in Common Lisp.