Ars Technica is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, science, technology policy, and video games. Ars Technica was privately-owned until May 2008, when it was sold to Condé Nast Digital, the online division of Condé Nast Publications. Condé Nast purchased the site, along with two others, for $25 million and added it to the company's Wired Digital group, which also includes Wired and, formerly, Reddit. The staff mostly works from home and has offices in Boston, Chicago, London, New York City, and San Francisco. The operations of Ars Technica are funded primarily by advertising, and it has offered a paid subscription service since 2001. History Ken Fisher, who serves as the website's current editor-in-chief, and Jon Stokes created Ars Technica in 1998. Its purpose was to publish computer hardware and software-related news articles and guides; in their words, "the best multi-OS, PC hardware, and tech coverage possible while ... having fun, being productive, and being as informative and as accurate as possible". "Ars technica" is a Latin phrase that translates to "Art of Technology". The website published news, reviews, guides, and other content of interest to computer enthusiasts. Writers for Ars Technica were geographically distributed across the United States at the time; Fisher lived in his parents' house in Boston, Stokes in Chicago, and the other writers in their respective cities. On May 19, 2008, Ars Technica was sold to Condé Nast Digital, the online division of Condé Nast Publications. The sale was part of a purchase by Condé Nast Digital of three unaffiliated websites costing $25 million in total: Ars Technica, Webmonkey, and HotWired. Ars Technica was added to the company's Wired Digital group, which included Wired and Reddit. In an interview with The New York Times, Fisher said other companies offered to buy Ars Technica and the site's writers agreed to a deal with Condé Nast because they felt it offered them the best chance to turn their "hobby" into a business. Fisher, Stokes, and the eight other writers at the time were employed by Condé Nast. Layoffs at Condé Nast in November 2008 affected websites owned by the company "across the board", including Ars Technica. On May 5, 2015, Ars Technica launched its United Kingdom site to expand