We Are the Nerds: The Birth and Tumultuous Life of Reddit, the Internet's Culture Laboratory by Christine Lagorio-Chafkin (2018) - If you are interested in learning about the beginnings and history of Reddit, this is the book you should get. It's a detailed account of the website's humble beginnings and it's eventual rise to one of the most visited sites in the world. Brilliantly written and sharply reported, We Are the Nerds is a gripping read not only about Reddit but also about social media, digital technology, and digital entrepreneurship. This is not just a book about a famous website, how it was hatched, and how it rose to weld such immense online power. It can also serve as a guide book for people planning to build startups and organize online communities.
Christine Lagorio-Chafkin, the author of the book, is an award-winning journalist who has covered entrepreneurship, emerging technologies, and culture for a variety of influential publications like the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the New York Times, and Inc. Needless to say, she had the credentials to pen a book that gives justice to what Reddit is and what it represents. To gather information for the book, Lagorio-Chafkin did dozens of interviews with Reddit's founders (Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman) and employees. The book earned a Best Book of 2018 citation from the Fast Company magazine.
Without Their Permission: The Story of Reddit and a Blueprint for How to Change the World by Alexis Ohanian (2013) - What better way to learn more about Reddit than read a book about it that was written by no other than one of the co-founders. However, this book is more on how to run a website like Reddit than about Reddit itself. If you look for this book in a library or bookstore, it will be at the business section. Not history or autobiography. In fact, the book has a different title in an alternative edition. In the edition published by Grand Central Publishing, the title of the book is Without Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed. This should give you an idea as to the contents of the book.
In this book, Ohanian puts forth his business philosophies - the same exact business philosophies that enabled him and his co-founder to build an immensely popular and successful digital property. Ohanian offers his tips and ideas on how to harness the power of the internet to create communities and potentially change the world for the better. Ohanian puts on a teacher's hat and breaks down the steps on how to take an idea and turn it into a real online business. In Ohanian's own words, "I'm writing this book to inspire as much as to inform."
The Revolution That Wasn't: GameStop, Reddit, and the Fleecing of Small Investors by Spencer Jakab (2022) - The topic of this book is a perfect example of the power that Reddit holds. Within Reddit are thousands of close-knit and knowledgeable communities that can accomplish almost any goal they set their eyes on. During one crazy week in January 2021, financial traders on Reddit's "wallstreetbets" subreddit brought some of Wall Street's biggest players to their knees. This was the GameStop squeeze and it's the main focus of this detailed and riveting work of journalism by Jakab. Jakab dissects how the controversial squeeze unfolded and how it affected Wall Street in the short-term and in the long-term.
The Revolution That Wasn't isn't just a historical account of the GameStop controversy. It's also an enlightening explanation of online brokerages, investments, profit motives, financial mechanisms, and technological innovations and how all of these play a part in the game that is Wall Street.
