I'm an insider in Silicon Valley and have been waiting for this day. Now that Maxwell's connections to Reddit rigging, and Reddit in general (Ellen Pao) and Silicon Valley investors (Kleiner) are being revealed, my hope is that SV becomes more of a focus point. SV controls the narrative on the internet, and has been trying to isolate us for ages. Here's some interesting info you may not have known before:
In 2005, Reddit raised $100k in seed funding from Y Combinator.
This is Sam Altman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman), he was part of Y Combinator in 2011 and eventually became the head of Y Combinator for several years – the most prestigious SV investment incubator which is responsible for billion$ in its portfolio. A fun fact about Sam is that he dated Lachy Groom (https://www.smh.com.au/business/small-business/cant-drink-cant-vote--but-this-teenager-is-hot-property-in-silicon-valley-20120620-20mt9.html), who was 18 at the time when it was public – but they were dating before. At the time, Sam was in his late 20s or early 30s, we're talking creepy territory here. Y Combinator frequently invests in startups with young founders. Often these guys are 18 – sometimes even younger.
In 2014, Sam Altman led a funding round of $50mm into Reddit (https://venturebeat.com/2014/09/30/y-combinator-backers-upvote-reddit-with-50m-investment/). Other notable investors of interest who participated in the round include Peter Thiel (board member of Facebook, founder of Palantir), and Josh Kushner (brother of Jared Kushner), Jared Leto (another name that comes up in some Pizzagate theories).
Ellen Pao became the CEO in 2014 shortly after the investment and eventually resigns in 2015. Steve Huffman, co-founder of Reddit, takes over as the CEO of Reddit.
It was discovered, shortly after Pizzagate Subreddits were banned, that Steve Huffman, the CEO of Reddit at the time, had a second account moderating /r/cannibals and posted a photo eating a pizza with the caption "Learning the truth about human flesh" (https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.explicit.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.u5RIb86oAYY-NRz3ch-zNgHaET%26pid%3DApi&f=1)
Along the Reddit journey, co-founders Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian swap the CEO role. Then, last month, Ohanian resigns and Reddit appointed the current CEO of Y Combinator as their new CEO. (https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/10/21285835/reddit-board-replacement-alexis-ohanian-michael-seibel-y-combinator).
In 2019, Sam Altman announced he is fully transitioning out of Y Combinator to work on OpenAI – an Elon Musk (and friends) backed startup focused on artificial intelligence.
Another notable event is that in 2007, Aaron Swartz, a co-founder of Reddit, was fired. This story alone is wrapped in controversy and it is speculated he discovered CP on MIT servers. Did he learn something about Reddit too?
My opinion: Sam Altman was always sketchy to me. He likes young boys and dated a minor. He's not the only investor in the valley like this (Keith Rabois, among others). But clearly there is something special about Reddit. More concerning, Sam is focused on an AI company now. What are they working on? Something about the whole thing screams MARK OF THE BEAST to me.
