The goal shouldn't be to be the next Silicon Valley (there'll always only be one of those) - it's to be your own startup community.

What one realizes there is that we are not in control of the [reddit] community, in any way, shape or form. We have no power over it and so we've lost this total control.

I don't have a crystal ball, but if you can ever put yourself in a situation where you are indispensable - where you aren't part of what looks like a fad, but you actually are a company, a brand that people trust and go to - at this point, you could put some of the mainstays of tech on anything, right?

Facebook makes me hate the people I know, and Reddit makes me love the people I don't.

Having that kind of endorsement and having Paul Graham's readership coming to your site and contributing to it and building the foundation of the community was just a really invaluable way to start Reddit.

If you want to succeed, you've got to be okay to just lose control.

There was a clear lesson here — and that was that the Internet loves Mister Splashy Pants.