Christopher Slowe

Christopher Slowe
Born
Christopher Brian Slowe

(1978-11-08) November 8, 1978 (age 45)
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Businessman, co-founder and CTO of Reddit
Academic background
Alma materHarvard University
ThesisExperiments and simulations in cooling and trapping of a high flux rubidium beam (2007)
Doctoral advisorLene Hau

Christopher Brian Slowe (born November 8, 1978) is an American businessman. He gained his PhD in physics from Harvard University, and went on to co-found Reddit, with Aaron Swartz, Alexis Ohanian, and Steve Huffman. He later departed Reddit and began work for Hipmunk, where he was Chief Scientist. He returned to Reddit in 2017 and is currently its CTO.

Career

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Slowe was awarded his PhD in physics from Harvard for his thesis "Experiments and simulations in cooling and trapping of a high flux rubidium beam".[1][2][3][4][5] His thesis advisor was Professor Lene Hau. During his time as a research assistant at Harvard, he also began to devise computer programs. Whilst studying, in the final year of his PhD he and a group of other Harvard students received startup funding from Y Combinator for their company TBD, later renamed Memamp. "I just wanted to design something to make it easier to work on my thesis," Slowe explained. "And I'll still be happy if that's what I end up with."[6] Memamp failed as both Google and Apple introduced software similar to that which Slowe was seeking to develop. Immediately upon graduating he left academia to join Reddit, a social news website.[7][8][9]

Reddit was acquired by Condé Nast Publications, the owner of technology Magazine WIRED in October 2006. Conde Nast wanted Reddit to "just focus on building out, which may involve adding to the current staff of four (all co-founders), who will all move from Boston to San Francisco and work at Wired's office."[10] Fellow co-founders at Reddit departed after the Conde Nast acquisition, Aaron Swartz resigning, and Huffman and Ohanian seeing out the legal duration of their contracts, before moving immediately to travel startup Hipmunk.[11] Slowe remained Reddit's longest standing employee, and CEO, until 2010, when he left to become Chief Scientist at Hipmunk.[12] There was much speculation as to the terms of his departure, but Slowe remained diplomatic, despite rumours of underfunding and understaffing by new owners Conde Nast. In an interview with TechCrunch he stated "it was time to do something new ... that is less fully formed with room to explore."[13] Slowe took on the job of troubleshooting most of the Hipmunk travel software.

Slowe rejoined Reddit in 2017 as chief technology officer.[14]

References

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  1. ^ "Experiments and simulations in cooling and trapping of a high flux rubidium beam". Gradworks.umi.com. Retrieved January 26, 2013.
  2. ^ Slowe, Christopher; Vernac, Laurent; Lene Vestergaard Hau (July 8, 2004). "A High Flux Source of Cold Rubidium". Review of Scientific Instruments. 76 (10): 103101. arXiv:physics/0407040. Bibcode:2005RScI...76j3101S. doi:10.1063/1.2069651. S2CID 15352396.
  3. ^ Slowe, Christopher; Ginsberg, Naomi S.; Ristroph, Trygve; Goodsell, Anne; Hau, Lene Vestergaard (May 1, 2005). "Optics and Photonics News – Ultraslow Light & Bose-Einstein Condensates: Two-way Control with Coherent Light & Atom Fields". Optics & Photonics News. 16 (5). Opticsinfobase.org: 30. Bibcode:2005OptPN..16R..30S. doi:10.1364/OPN.16.5.000030. Retrieved January 27, 2013.
  4. ^ Dutton, Zachary; Ginsberg, Naomi S.; Slowe, Christopher; Hau, Lene Vestergaard (2004). "The art of taming light: ultra-slow and stopped light". Europhysics News. 35 (2): 33–39. doi:10.1051/epn:2004201. Retrieved January 27, 2013.
  5. ^ Dutton, Zachary; Budde, Michael; Slowe, Christopher; Hau, Lene Vestergaard (2001). "Observation of Quantum Shock Waves Created with Ultra- Compressed Slow Light Pulses in a Bose-Einstein Condensate". Science. 293 (5530). Sciencemag.org: 663–668. arXiv:cond-mat/0107310. doi:10.1126/science.1062527. PMID 11431534. S2CID 10025783. Retrieved January 27, 2013.
  6. ^ "Among the Summer Founders — Remembering Aaron Swartz — Medium". Medium.com. Retrieved January 26, 2013.
  7. ^ "the front page of the internet". Reddit. January 9, 1907. Archived from the original on June 28, 2011. Retrieved January 26, 2013.
  8. ^ "Dream job 3: Lead programmer for a dot-com start-up – 25 October 2009". New Scientist. October 25, 2009. Retrieved January 27, 2013.
  9. ^ "Y Combinator's First Batch: Where Are They Now?". Thenextweb.com. August 5, 2012. Archived from the original on November 18, 2017. Retrieved January 27, 2013.
  10. ^ "Behind the deal, volume III: Wired buys Reddit". Valleywag.com. October 31, 2006. Archived from the original on February 17, 2013. Retrieved January 26, 2013.
  11. ^ "Better Flight Search and Hotel Booking". Hipmunk. June 29, 2012. Archived from the original on January 7, 2016. Retrieved January 26, 2013.
  12. ^ "Reddit Chief Christopher Slowe Jumps Ship, Joins Old Boss At Hipmunk". Business Insider. November 1, 2010. Archived from the original on June 1, 2013. Retrieved January 26, 2013.
  13. ^ "Reddit Chief Takes Flight To Hipmunk, Explains Why He's Leaving Now". TechCrunch. November 1, 2010. Archived from the original on December 5, 2011. Retrieved January 26, 2013.
  14. ^ Matney, Lucas (August 27, 2017). "Reddit's new CTO was the company's first hire". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on February 20, 2018. Retrieved May 17, 2018.
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