Named a Best Book of 2018 by Fast Company, this is a "sharply written and brilliantly reported" (Shelf Awareness) look inside Reddit, the wildly popular, often misunderstood website that has changed the culture of the Internet.

Reddit hails itself as "the front page of the Internet." It's the third most-visited website in the United States -- and yet, millions of Americans have no idea what it is.

We Are the Nerds is an engrossing look deep inside this captivating, maddening enterprise, whose army of obsessed users have been credited with everything from solving cold case crimes and spurring tens of millions of dollars in charitable donations to seeding alt-right fury and landing Donald Trump in the White House. We Are the Nerds is a gripping start-up narrative: the story of how Reddit's founders, Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, rose up from their suburban childhoods to become millionaires and create an icon of the digital age -- before seeing the site engulfed in controversies and nearly losing control of it for good.

Based on Christine Lagorio-Chafkin's exclusive access to founders Ohanian and Huffman, We Are the Nerds is also a compelling exploration of the way we all communicate today -- and how we got here. Reddit and its users have become a mirror of the Internet: it has dingy corners, shiny memes, malicious trolls, and a sometimes heart-melting ability to connect people across cultures, oceans, and ideological divides.

Length: 514 pages	Word Wise: Enabled	Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

Review

A must-read for anyone hoping to make sense of the century ahead.

-- "Ashlee Vance, author of Elon Musk" --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

Christine Lagorio-Chafkin is an award-winning journalist who has covered culture, emerging technologies, and entrepreneurship for the past 15 years. She is senior writer at Inc. magazine and her work has appeared in many other publications, including The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, and the Washington Post. She was raised on a sheep farm in rural Wisconsin and now lives in New York City with her husband, cats, and toddlers. Her favorite subreddits are r/blep and r/ShowerThoughts. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

File Size: 28136 KB
Print Length: 514 pages
Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0316435406
Publisher: Hachette Books (October 2, 2018)
Publication Date: October 2, 2018
Sold by: Hachette Book Group
Language: English
ASIN: B079L5FTJD
Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:

Enabled
Word Wise: Enabled
Lending: Not Enabled
Screen Reader: Supported
Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #645,697 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #240 in Social Media
- #264 in Computer & Technology Biographies
- #249 in Media & Communications Industry (Kindle Store)

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Jack Cassidy

Felt like being there!

Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2018

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I always wondered what it would be like to start a tech company that became a huge success. Now I know! This book makes me feel like I'm really there. The writing pulls you into the story, with characters and situations that are so interesting, it reads like a novel.

As a tech person, I have friends who started less successful companies. As I read, I tried to figure out the difference between what they went through and what the Reddit people went through. It turns out there are a lot of similarities. The main difference is the amount of money and fame, both of which are mixed blessings. In an odd way, this makes me happier with my life.

(Note to reviewers: Don't use the name of the book, or your review will be rejected by the bad language filter.)

3 people found this helpful

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Luke Mroz

Great history of the obstacles this company overcame

Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2020

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This book is a great detailed history of a website that many internet users have interacted with in their lives at least once. I found three specific ideas in the book to be the most interesting. Number one the evolving relationship between the two founders and how they got closer and also at times drifted apart during their relationship in the past decade of working on the website. Number two the role that the interim CEOs who are not the founders played in the growth of Reddit.I think it is excellent that they are given the credit they are due for the positive changes and growth to the company and the strategy to make reddit more influential than it ever has been in the past. And number three the discussion which is very timely of the role of social media and free speech on the internet and the obstacles that all the social platforms are facing with controversial content. if you are a regular user of Reddit I strongly recommend this book!

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Margaret Stern

A must-read for those who love start-up stories

Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2019

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As an admitted business non-fiction geek, this book was a pure pleasure to read. Not only is Reddit a product of its times, but its founders and core team are a reflection of their generation, and in reading this book I felt like I was right there with them. I loved every minute reading this book - the author writes in vivid detail that reads like an ideal summer beach book, not a dry corporate biography.

In a world with plenty of business non-fiction culture to choose from (i.e. if you loved the StartUp podcast, Bad Blood, etc.), put this book at the top of your list.

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Shopper's Delight

Fascinating read

Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2018

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So engrossing, especially for a nonfiction work. I absolutely loved it and at times couldn’t put it down. A seamless blend of fact, narrative, color and fascinating tidbits. Highly recommended!

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Kevin Ryan

Informative, interesting & entertaining

Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2018

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Great writing, great reporting. I’ve always had trouble grasping what Reddit actually was, and this book explained it via an engrossing and entertaining story. Can’t recommend “We Are the Nerds” enough!

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Giampietro Zebellin

Learn how Reddit started.

Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2019

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Great book about Reddit and its cofounders.

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Informative, Thought-Provoking and Provoking -- Just Like Reddit! : )

Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2018

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

Basic Premise: The history of the website Reddit -- from its founding to the present day.

Short Plot Synopsis: This book tracks the founding of Reddit and follows its founders (Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian) through the site's infancy, trouble adolescence and (hopefully) long adult life.

The Good:

* I never visited Reddit before reading this book (in fact, I didn't fully understand what Reddit was exactly), yet I was completely interested the entire time I was reading this book. I think that's always a good sign, don't you?

* The book is easy to read and you get invested in learning about the people involved in making Reddit and in the site's continued life. The fact that Reddit was involved in so many different cultural "zeitgeist" moments makes it feel fresh and relevant. You'll realize that you knew more about Reddit than you thought.

* As I mentioned before, you don't have to have any interest or experience with Reddit to enjoy this book. It isn't overly technical, but I do think it presents an inside view of what goes into the making of sites like these: the hours of time, the accidental nature of how a decision made on the fly can have ramifications down the road, how interconnected tech companies are. (It seems like every friend of Huffman and Ohanian founded another website that is in regular use today.) The book also presents a lot of food for thought about what constitutes free speech and how much it needs to be protected. Due to Reddit's freeform "open" nature, it led it to become a breeding ground for some pretty controversial and ugly subreddits. It makes you think about the struggle that the site faces and continues to face: how much should it let these groups flourish? For this reason, I think this book is about a lot more than the story of Reddit. It becomes a book about freedom of speech and where the limits of that freedom should be.

The Bad:

* Some pretty nasty groups found a home and a voice on Reddit, and the books covers many of these controversial groups and discussions -- getting into subject matter that some might find offensive. For this reason, I would recommend caution when reading the book. If you're easily offended, you might find some of the subject matter in this book to be disturbing.

* I found that I just wanted more ... more details, more follow-up on particular stories. I felt like the book could have been longer -- but that is just because I became so engrossed in some of the stories and wanted to find out more. It wasn't a failing of the author -- she just had a lot of good material and had to tell the story she was telling and couldn't go down every rabbit hole she found.

* You'll find yourself wasting even more time online than you do now if you weren't already familiar with Reddit. I found myself going onto the site to see what it was all about and spending way more time on it than I should have. It feels a bit addictive in a way.

* I would have loved to see some photos. (Note: I received an early review copy of the book via Amazon Vine so perhaps the finished book will include photos.) I found myself Googling many of the people mentioned in the book to find out more about them.

Final Thoughts: This was a fascinating read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was educational, informative and thought-provoking. I actually read this book because my husband wanted to read it but didn't want to have to write a review of it so I agreed to read it. I'm so glad I did!

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a biography of Reddit's founders (not an exploration of Reddit itself)

Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2018

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

I can't believe this isn't (yet) spelled out more clearly in any of the marketing materials, but this is a **biography** about Reddit's founders, rather than an exploration of Reddit itself. I'm a fan of popular science books and business/marketing books, and things that examine the dynamics of online phenomena (like Reagle's "Don't Read the Comments" book about the marketplace of online reviews), or in-person shopping trends (like more people turn right after entering a store than turn left), but that's not what this book does--it's a biography about Reddit's founders.

If you're expecting an exploration of the dark corners of Reddit and how human behavior plays out at scale, this isn't the right book for you. If you're wanting a biography about the founders (with all those "real details" like what brand of snack foods they ate in college), then read on...

11 people found this helpful

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