There actually were no bots on Reddit when it first went online (were bots a thing in 05?). But Alexis and Steve both admitted to having multiple accounts to post links for those first few weeks to make it seem like there were more users than there actually were. Remember back when it first went online all you could do was post news articles. No comments, gifs, pics, or subreddits. It wasn’t until someone created Imgur for the express purpose of being able to post pictures on Reddit that you were able to do so.