That's incorrect revisionist history.

Reddit was a large part of the cause for Digg to implode. users had been flooding from Digg to reddit for years before Digg finally imploded. There was an entire series of "digg vs reddit" comics.

Both sites launched within a year of each-other. Digg always had the prettier website, which did a better job at looking professional and attracting users. But reddit had better algorithms for promoting content to the front page and the threaded comment system that attracted in-depth discussions. Digg's algorithms sucked so much that their front page always seemed to be links that had reached Reddit's front page 6 hours earlier.

Though, you might be right about the "trying to prove he's special" thing.