Of all the traits associated with powerful people, ethics are usually not at the top of the list. However, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian may very well be the exception.
On March 21, 2024, Reddit went public on the New York Stock Exchange with a projected value of $6.4 billion. After shares popped, it ended the first day of trading with a market cap of a whopping $7.7 billion. Ohanian — the public face of Reddit and husband to tennis legend Serena Williams — was notably missing from the IPO ceremony, nowhere to be found.
Despite being deeply associated with Reddit, he and co-founder Steven Huffman sold the company to Condé Nast for $10 million in 2006, about a year after they started it from their dorm room at the University of Virginia. But the longtime friends maintained powerful roles at Reddit for years — until Ohanian took a brave stand on hate speech and relinquished his seat on the board.
In 2020, Ohanian cut ties with Reddit during widespread protests in the wake of the brutal murder by police of George Floyd, urging the company to replace him with a Black board member (which they did, Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel). The platform, which touts itself as the “front page of the internet,” had been sharply criticized for hosting channels that promote hate and racism. Many believed Huffman (who also publicly condemned racism) was too slow to act, and since Ohanian left, the former business partners reportedly do not speak.
“I’m writing this as a father who needs to be able to answer his black daughter when she asks: ‘What did you do?’” Ohanian wrote in his resignation.
Ohanian has been known for his advocacy of inclusion, diversity, and equal rights, and he committed to using future gains from his Reddit stock to serve the black community and focus on curbing racial hate. In fact, he quickly proved his mettle by donating $1 million to former NFL player and activist Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp.
“I believe resignation can actually be an act of leadership from people in power right now. To everyone fighting to fix our broken nation: do not stop,” Ohanian wrote in 2020.
From what we can tell, Ohanian is holding strong to his ideals, and still prioritizing family over business, as he planned to skip the IPO and hang with his daughters on spring break instead. “Everyone asking if I’m going to NY for the @reddit IPO — it’s my daughter’s Spring Break so I’ll be taking her and the girls on holiday,” he posted on X.
Huffman is still CEO and is currently facing backlash for his 2024 pay package, which includes an annual salary and a pre-IPO stock bonus totaling $193 million. Meanwhile, Ohanian’s total net worth is estimated at $150 million. But he recently posted on X that he holds some Reddit stock from when he was executive chair a decade ago. Ohanian also runs an early-stage venture capital firm, SevenSixSeven, and now with the IPO, his fortune might be approaching his wife William’s net worth, estimated at $300 million.
Regardless of how the IPO plays out for Ohanian, he’s in good hands with Williams, who is making some winning investment moves. In an Instagram video on March 20, Williams gave us a peek into her strategy.
“After evolving from tennis, I do a lot of investing. Mostly in ‘us’ women, people of color and diversity. I started investing over 12 years ago and I have over 14 unicorns (companies worth over 1b) in my portfolio. I like to invest and support people that never had a chance at getting their ideas invested in. Did you know that before I started investing, women founders had less than 2% of all Venture capital money going to them? I now work to try to change that number. If you have a business, I would love to hear your story.”
Do you hear that, entrepreneurs? We have a feeling her DMs will be blowing up.
