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".