IAmAlexis Ohanian, startup founder, internet activist, and cat owner - AMA

http://imgur.com/H2OsN

Hurray! I was hoping for this. Thank you. This is the real reason I did this AMA.

edit: Oh! and since this is the top post, I'm going to hijack it for a personal agenda ;)

It's not only the core argument of my forthcoming book, but the thing I love so much about the open internet: the technology is a truly level playing field. I talk about this a lot. And while so many of you are working to do your part to be Batmen and women for your respective Gothams (see vid for context) a level playing field is only valuable if anyone & everyone can get on it and with the right skills.

That's why another big part of my push in the last few years has been education (specifically STEM) and attracting more women and minorities to tech. I know I've been playing life on cheat codes and what gives me so much hope for an open internet is that without needing to ask permission, awesome people who'd have otherwise been shafted with a bad "life lottery ticket" have another platform for their awesomeness (the www).

It's not a magic wand, but while we fight for the open internet, I'm thrilled to promote and help those who are fighting for equipping all of us to be able to make the most out of it. This is everything from organizations like DonorsChoose.org to Khan Academy to AwesomeFoundation to blackgirlscode to the latest out of Toronto, Womenandtech. Hell, I'm even trying to help Zach Anner get his TV show back.

Basically, there's a lot of work to be done, but I know you can do it, reddit, one batman mask at a time. Actually, we don't even need to wear the masks but they feel awesome to wear.

http://i.imgur.com/GvGOf.png

NOOOO! SIDT! It's not like that. We've met IRL! What I have with shitty_watercolour isn't at all like what we have!!!

Hey Alexis! When you initially started the website, what were your hopes for it?

Steve and I just wanted to create a place where we could always come and find something new & interesting online.

Oh, and cats. Please spay & neuter!

I recently read about how you and Steve made hundreds of fake accounts at the beginning to get the site going. How much of your time was consumed with gathering useful links and posting them and how exciting was it to start seeing the site grow and people other than you and Steve upvoting those links?

Not hundreds. Maybe tens. I don't have a good enough memory. We submitted links (there were no comments back then) for the first month or so while we bugged friends into helping. The day about a month an a half in when we didn't have to do anything, submit a link, or even vote, was awesome, because we'd set a tone and apparently people didn't hate. it. I'm always telling people about the 1% rule) and why it's so important to treat those first hundred users well.

Remember, there was no 'social media' to speak of back in 2005, so all I had to spread the word was begging small bloggers to do writeups about a company they'd never heard of with a misspelled name and silly mascot.

How long did it take you guys to reach 10k users? Is there a chart somewhere?

Oof. Hmm.. you're in luck. I found an old pdf from keysersosa that he hacked together back in the day.... You can see when we launched a little less than a month into YC.

Also! If you enjoyed this, you should email chris AT hipmunk.com right now and DEMAND that he do an AMA. He's our first hire at reddit and pretty close to that at hipmunk -- chief scientist and smartest dude in the room. He's a Physics PHD from that safety school, Harvard.

You know one thing I've always wondered is, how much work went in to the website on a daily basis back when you were CEO?

And another question, how did it feel when the website made it this big? You must've had some bragging rights. :D

The reddit team continues to work ridiculous hours for the site. That's something that has stuck since the day Steve and I started, even long after acquisition. It's really remarkable, everyone at reddit really gives a damn.

It's pretty crazy. Especially since most of the significant growth happened after Steve and I left full-time positions - correlation or causation? I leave that up to you!

Fortunately, most people don't know what I look like. I even got taunted by a guy at an /r/NYC meetup a little while back because he asked how long I'd been using reddit and I said I'd been a user for quite some time, joking that it was "before reddit was popular."

He yelled at me and called me a hipster bitch or something. I'm not sure what makes a person so angry and it was the first time I'd ever encountered that vibe at a reddit event before, but so it goes.

You always beat me to every thread. CURSE YOU, SHITTY_WATERCOLOUR!

Here's the breadpig.

So pretty! Thank you :) I shall sing your praises in the breadpig post I write up tomorrow.

Having never seen a picture of kn0thing, this is now how he will always be in my mind.

I wouldn't want it any other way.

Here's an interview he did about the story of reddit, and some of his personal life. One of the best interviews I've seen. Really hit me hard for some reason.

Edit: Here's a text version of the story written by Alexis himself. It's really a touching story.

Ah, thanks, that was the first time I was ever asked about my mom. I don't talk about it a lot. The whole thing was pretty cathartic. I was happy I did it.

Having been through "mom has cancer" and "daughter has cancer", dude...you are an inspiration. Thanks.

Fuck. I'm so sorry. I couldn't even fathom... but for what it's worth, I'm wishing you all the best. And if she's old enough to like reddit I'll send her something cool, just email me contact at alexisohanian.com

Yowza that made the tears stream pretty freely, it does lead to another question though, had circumstances been different and your mother health not been an issue would you have held onto reddit longer?

Maybe. But the benefit of hindsight and experience would've had even more of an impact. Ultimately, I don't spend a second wondering. I've been really fortunate with the way things turned out (and continue to turn out). No regrets.

Oh god, the terrifying red eyes.

Orangered. #ff4500.

Who was your favorite coworker at reddit? (don't worry, I won't tell anyone your answer).

The intern.

I don't buy it, we're gonna need to see some proof.

What happened to no AMAs from people that are famous due to reddit?

You have no idea how much I want to see what would happen if karmanaut banned Alexis for this.

Would never happen.

It'd be fun to sit back, eat some popcorn and watch the shitfest.

1. kn0thing banned from iAma

2. Karmanaut subsequently banned from reddit

if only dreams really did come true

Sigh. If they did, I'd be a viking by now.

Where's sober_economist when you need him?

Update! Here you are sir.

Hey Alexis, thanks for doing this!!

Fairly simple question: what are your favorite and least favorite subreddits?

Sure! Just learned about /r/upliftingnews yesterday. My fave of the moment.

Least favorite? /r/Cowboys

You would be well received in /r/nfl my friend

Oh, I'm there. And trying so damned hard to get /r/redskins an RG3 appearance.

Also, Chris Berman once made fun of me and my buddies. That was awesome.

Hey I was at that game! I can confirm I didn't see you doing that. But now I did.

Go skins HTTR

Woo! Look for me. Always with the Sean Taylor banner. Say something about narwhals and I'll buy you a $10 fedex beer!

When I found out about /r/upliftingnews yesterday, I felt like I had been living behind the moon. Good to know that that's where the Reddit founder lives, too.

We should get a duplex together. Or be space roommates?

What is this "reddit" you speak of?

Just a pinterest clone.

my wife calls pinterest "reddit for girls"

It is. I'm pretty sure somebody did a breakdown of the ratios of genders that visit various websites recently. Pinterest had the highest girls per guy ratio, Reddit had the opposite.

reddit is sadly not as gender-balanced (yet) as I'd like, but I hold up a big {Citation needed} sign whenever I see 'data' like that -- where did they get it?

That said, the conclusion still jibes with anecdotal evidence. But great subreddits like [/r/twoxchromosomes] give me hope that the platform is gender agnostic, but we've certainly got work to do.

Also! I've always thought pinterest was delicious done right. The behavior seems more like 'let me save this for later' (delicious) than 'let me share this with people now' (reddit) but maybe that's just how I use pinterest.

Here's a source for Albub's gender claim. The chart maker got their numbers from Google Ad Planner and here's the full breakdown of their data.

Thanks. Well, hmm, I wish we had better data for this -- even our internal demographic data just comes from surveys...

Anyway, I do agree that it's anecdotally male (reddit) // female (pinterest), but like I said, the user behavior on both sites is fundamentally different. I'm curious to see what the demographics of both platforms look like a few years from now....

[deleted]

Conflicted. I can no longer tell how much of it is circlejerk-satire and how much of it is earnest.

I, like most, find people who use the reddit platform for awful stuff to be awful people. Just like @deadbabygoon (I didn't spend much time looking but this is rather offensive) doesn't ruin the credibility of twitter, I don't see why these awful reddits would ruin the credibility of the reddit platform.

That's really the issue though, people tend to view reddit as more of a community sharing all of the same beliefs versus a means of hosting for specific groups of people. So while it may not affect those familiar with the workings of reddit I feel like it can definitely alter outside opinions of the website.

Yep. I need to do a better job communicating that.

Quick question. Why does that administration still cling to the name "reddits" when the community almost exclusively calls them "subreddits"? GET WITH THE TIMES, OLD MAN.

That's a question for Yishan ;) I'll bring it up at the next board meeting.

What's your thoughts on /r/yishansucks ?

Funny. Bonus: his wife subscribes to it.

Well it's sort of like redditors try to fit their stereotype. First of all by calling themselves "Redditors" it's sort of all encompassing and makes it seem like it's just one like-minded website, as opposed to one with very different factions. I agree that it would maybe be ridiculous to say hey "I'm a redditor who browses subreddits xyz" I'm just saying that the reaction is to be expected when there are redditors going around narwhal baconing, and proclaiming their love for the "reddit".

Actually, that's my fault. I came up with the neologism, added it to our FAQ and kept mentioning it in comments/blogposts and it clicked :) I remember because when I had the idea, Steve told me it was stupid.

That said, I crafted this long before we'd even really gone down the road of user-created subreddits. Back then reddit didn't even have any form of categories.

I know 'tweeple' hasn't really caught on the same way, but it's fairly common among various different communities of twitter users.

Can you post your favorite picture of your pet cat?

EDIT(!!): Edited to sound less creepy.

EDIT: I've never received this much karma. Which means people are reading this entry. So PLEASE read the following (since Karma is black kitty and therefore relevant):

Black cats and dogs are usually looked over in shelters...please if you are looking to adopt, don't overlook these little guys/girls because they might not have another opportunity to find a home.

Since I can't have kitties....I made a small donation to a local no kill shelter in my area (I always give when they are doing events....but this one was just for Karma).

Hmm, I don't take too many photos of her...she's all black and her name is Karma (I wanted to call her Upvote, but my gf downvoted it).

Here's a good photo said gf took.

The founder of Reddit owns Karma. You heard it here first, people.

She definitely owns me. But owning Karma was the best decision I made right along with investing in reddit gold!

The founder of Reddit doesn't take many pictures of his cat. My world has just been shattered.

I do talk to her in a weird higher-pitched voice, though.

Your cat is business cat.

She is! She broke the glass ceiling with her paws!!!

Cute! I'm assuming your 'non-internet' friends/family think that the name Karma on a black cat is just ironic.

Yep. Hipster points!

When she behaves badly, do you look at your gf and say "Karma's a bitch"?

LOL. Nice. Only if she were a dog ;)

I do say "Good Karma" when she's good, which she always is. And sometimes "Bad Karma!"

Here's an exercise montage starring Karma.

I had to watch it again and when I did she came running over.... she's getting fit I tellz yah.

In your opinion, why did reddit succeed and digg fail when digg had such a huge head start?

Basically, we always moved toward the best interests of users and they went the opposite way.

Longer version here. And here.

I've asked you this in person before, but you kind of dodged it. Don't you think the fall of Digg can at least partially be attributed to simply reaching a critical mass? And if so, do you think reddit will suffer the same fate at some point? Granted, the subreddit ecosystem very effectively disperses that "mass", but I think its inevitable at some point.

Funkyy is pretty much spot on. It echoes the stuff in my two linked posts -- the final nail really was v4 and I suspect they would've been able to keep growing otherwise until at some point they copied our user-created subreddits. Frankly, we figured it was only a matter of time before they did.

Hopefully this answer doesn't feel like a dodge :)

Can you ban Karmanaut?

I don't have those powers anymore.

[deleted]

Only when Jedberg is not wearing his pants.

So basically whenever.

Hi. you have done a great job with Reddit. Reddit is unique and has raised a very outstanding community which can be never found in the internet. And I love it!

1. What made you start a website like this? what was your inspiration?

2. What do you think about the current Reddit community? Is Reddit now as exactly as you imagined? or do you expect anything more from the current community?

3. How do you think the future of Reddit will be? and what do you expect the future to be?

Thank you. But to be fair, this thing has grown far beyond what Steve and I started in that Medford apartment with. Sure, we can take credit for starting the planter box, tilling the soil, adding seeds, and watering, etc, but it's since grown into a freaking ecosystem.

Hopefully that metaphor wasn't too strained and you catch my drift.

1. Steve and I had applied to the first round Y Combinator with a different idea (Steve wanted to be able to order fastfood from his cellphone and pick it up when he walked in and I thought it could be a brilliant business). We were rejected from YC, but the next morning PG called my cell and offered us the chance to come back as long as we changed our idea.

   We jumped at the chance, took the next train back to Boston and met with him for about an hour. He pushed us to drop mobile (it was 05) and think about a web app that we'd personally want to use every day. We left that meeting with a phrase in our heads that PG crafted "front page of the internet." Then it was just up to me and Steve to make it.

   At the time, we were intrigued by delicious/popular, which was an interesting byproduct of their bookmarking service. Incidentally, we didn't learn about digg until weeks after we launched. It goes to show how much our ignorance helped, because you may remember all the blatant digg-clones that came and went before digg did -- Steve and I weren't trying to just copy, we were thinking about solving this problem from a clean slate.

2. I need to get better at distinguishing between the many varied reddit communities. The culture & community on /r/NBA is very different from the culture on /r/aww and reddit is just the platform that enables such varied discourse. Steve and I always debated about subreddits vs tagging and I'm happy he won, because although it's taken longer to grow and develop, it's resulted in this marvelous variety in communities all using this common platform. So in a way, all of these varied communities are what we'd hoped for, but we've still got a ways to go until the reddit platform really is the ubiquitous way online communities share and discover content.

3. Subreddits for all the things!

Out of curiosity, what was the idea with tagging? One big front page ad people just tag the post with a corresponding topic?

I am also glad Steve won if that's the case!

I wanted submitters to choose, say, three tags to identify the post with to quickly create a rather broad categorization system.

So the submit page would be:

URL: Headline: Categories/Tags (3):

Now that subreddits are established you should introduce a system that allows the same post to be submitted to a number of subreddits, but only appear on someone's front page or /r/all once. It would be similar to tagging but the communities would persist.

At this point, I like how one post submitted a few different reddits with different headlines creates different discussions based on community.

(Imagine if I submitted an article about a Skins victory over the Cowboys to both subreddits because it's technically could be categorized as cowboys and redskins news, I would give it an awesome headline for a Skins fan but it'd be awful for a Cowboys fan).

What are your thoughts on the whole Funnyjunk/Oatmeal ordeal?

The whole thing is ridiculous. And just when it can't get any more absurd - it does!

So what I'm saying is this.

I've actually have been hoping you were going to do one of these! I have a lot of questions for you!

1. Do you think you have become an inspiration to many young Armenian and Armenian-Americans

2. What type of influence did the Armenian Culture have in your career.

3. What is the greatest thing you experienced when you visited Armenia?

4. Do you like khorovats? And if you do, how does it compare to most American Foods!

You are a huge inspiration for me! I hope I can do great things as an Armenian just like you!

Barev!

1. I don't know. I did an interview with Yerevan Magazine and another Armenian publication. I grew up in a suburb of Maryland where I didn't know many Armenians so I was rather isolated from that half of my identity. I knew the history (and food!) of course, but I grew up far from Glendale. I actually know the community in Yerevan better from my 3 months living there. But if I can inspire, that's awesome. I get inspired by people I don't even know on reddit every day.

2. I hate to bring it back to the genocide, but knowing what sacrifices my relatives made was incredibly motivating. As is the case with many immigrant stories, it creates invaluable perspective. I got to go out-of-state to UVA ($$$) without a single student loan because my great aunt, Vera Ohanian, saved money all her life for my college fund. She had no children of her own and wanted to be sure that I could go anywhere I wanted for college. So you can be damned sure that when I got to UVA, I took full advantage of the tuition. That's why I double majored in business and history (with high honors) and minored in german. I was told by deans that they'd never seen anyone complete a distinguished majors degree in the college and a degree in the business school and a minor to boot, all in 4 years.

   But maybe they didn't meet many Armenians ;) we're tenacious.

3. Fresh lavash. Oh, and apricots.

4. I must've eaten it every other day in Armenia. I don't eat a lot of meat these days, but as a general rule I wish 'the typical American diet' were less based around packaged and fast food. The long-term effects of this are going to be awful.

Do you get a lot of pressure to more effectively monetize Reddit?

I'm the one putting pressure on our CEO, Yishan :)

In all seriousness though, we never want to sacrifice the community for revenue. We've grown (costs) slowly by having a small team and I believe we can keep that up while also responsibly growing the business.

Stay tuned. Yishan and the team have some nifty ideas...

What are your thoughts on the Reddit Enhancement Suite? And what do you think could make it better?

It's nifty. I don't actually use it anymore, but mostly because I'm content without it. (and lazy?). That said, I don't have any good feedback :(

The biggest product enhancement reddit needs atm imho is subreddit discovery, which we're working on. That'll be a glorious day when we nail it.

the day that reddit becomes totally homogeneous.

No no! People will subscribe to the subreddits they want to follow, not unlike how people use twitter to pick & choose to follow the communities they're interested in.

What's the story behind the username 'kn0thing'?

Kn0t is "Knot", referring to Alexis' long-time love of ropes and the ancient art of knotsmanship. The "O" was replaced with a "0" to show how Alexis is in-tune with the 1337ness of today's world. "Hing" is another name for the Asafoetida spice, which is cultivated in Afghanistan and has a smell reminiscent of cow dung. This is obviously a social commentary on Alexis' part about how he feels that the state of US affairs in Afghanistan is pure bullshit.

Wow. The real answer is way less interesting.

I was in highschool and really liked Metallica. It's my favorite song, King Nothing, turned into a username I could use in Quake2CTF.

Have you ever posted pics anonymously in r/GoneWild?

No. No one wants to see that.

I disagree. You're one of the top all time on /r/ladyboners.

http://www.reddit.com/r/LadyBoners/comments/u552p/reddit_founder_alexis_ohanian/

I just can't help but feel like you're about to spring a joke on me....

I imagine thousands of people reading this AMA disagree.

I am not one of them.

They've all mistaken me for Ted Mosby :)

I tell people all the time that I graduated with the guy who co-founded Reddit, as if we know each other. We clearly do not. But thanks for giving me some cred, dude :)

Any thoughts on the Teresa Sullivan debacle?

Oh hai! Nicely done. Feel free to namedrop. I'll even photoshop a photo of us high5ing on the Lawn if it helps.

I'm just in awe of the whole thing. It seems super shady. And as a regular donor to the university, I've told fundraising that I'm holding off until this gets a satisfactory resolution.

Hey Alexis,

Thanks for making awesome things for all of us to use and enjoy. My questions-

1. In your role as YC ambassador, you probably read a ton of applications from hopeful startup founders. What makes an application stand out? Conversely, what sort of things on an app would cause you to hesitate in moving it forward in the application process?

2. Do you think it's necessary to move out to the bay area to be successful in today's startup world? What are some other great places to work on a tech-related startup?

Thank you!

Sorry for the delay!

1. Quite a few. And it gets harder each round because quality and volume go up. I'm not actually the best person at YC to ask because I don't have nearly as much data as the partners. But we want to see a team we can believe in, which we largely gather from what they've built together in the past. It's not a science, though, and it continues to impress me that YC has had consistently great rounds of startups (FD: I'm an employee of YC and investor in a bunch of startups)

2. Definitely not! We started and sold reddit from Medford and Somerville, MA! And I live in NY now not just because I was born here and family is close and I love New York, but it's also a great place to do a startup. Only downside is our Mexican food isn't as good as SF, but I'm dealing with that.

What's your opinion on the recent /u/Trapped_in_Reddit fiasco (And similar ones to it in the past)?

Ignoring the internet drama portions, you have to admit that "witchhunting" is a rather serious flaw in the community and site. The fact that users can be targeted and effectively silenced with a sea of downvotes solely because the community hates them (because of legitimate reasons or misunderstandings) is a violation of redditquette on a massive scale.

Do you have any idea of how to fix this issue? Do you think it's an issue that even needs fixing?

Thank you.

So, I took a gander as I totally missed the fiasco when it happened. Now I'm just really confused.

We've always been vigilant about doing our best to thwart "downvote brigades" just like we are against "upvote brigades."

Witchhunting is a flaw of human behavior, which admins can only do so much against. I have no idea of how to fix it from a software pov, beyond what we're presently doing.

Sorry for the 'meh' answer.

Where do you see Reddit in 10 years? What will you do to stop Reddit from becoming Youtube Comments? This is a real concern.

The commenting system Steve built is a thing of beauty. Yes, pun threads win the day in the more mainstream subreddits, but take a look somewhere like /r/askscience. It's pretty awesome.

With that and better subreddit discovery, I'm hopeful we can continue to grow this vast network of varied subreddits an communities all over the internet can continue to share and discuss great web content.

If you were to do it differently, would you? Or has the journey so far been worth it?

Alternatively, did you ever see yourself getting to this point?

There are plenty of things I'd do differently, but I wouldn't want to fuck anything up ;)

I expected to be President of the Universe and wielding a real lightsaber by 25, so really everything has been a disappointment.

What's the most disgusting thing you've seen on the internet? or Reddit in general?

I used to occasionally visit rotten back in high school. It's a shame you can't un-see things, but I'm not sure what I'd say is most disgusting.

I'm the kind of person who'd much rather look at photos of kittens, anyway.

Thank you for doing this! I am a big fan!
Here i go :

• Do you wear long socks or short socks?

• How much profits does reddit make?

• What do you think of new search engines like DuckDuckGo?

• Do you think it is harder to start-up a project than it was back in 2005?

• Long socks. I love bizarre, colorful dress socks and wish I had more of them.
• Enough :)
• I love DDG - it's my browser. I've been a fan of Gabe since that was just his pet project while he was a stay-at-home-dad.
• Easier! Launching hipmunk compared to reddit was night and day because of all the different ways people can now share awesome things. Granted, there's more competition, but it's only gotten cheaper and easier to get something going (e.g., we had to order servers from newegg, build them, and install them in the colo facility back in 2005 -- now just AMEX the AMZN EC2/S3 account or just heroku it!)

If you could urinate any one liquid without anatomical difficulty, what would it be and why?

Potable water. Think of all the water I'd save ;)

Hi Alexis, just wanted to say that you are a sexy beast! Good day!

Is your username a pickup line?...

because it's working.

Is your cat an inside or outside cat?

Inside. I live in Brooklyn. She wouldn't last long outside - she was maybe a month or so old when the shelter found her and she hasn't been outside since. I thought about getting a leash though....

One thing I really admire is that you've seemed to stay so level-headed throughout all the media coverage and success that you've had- is this difficult? Your public image is unique- you're painted as a jokester yet still taken very seriously. How often are you evaluating your statements and making sure you're words aren't being interpreted the wrong way?

Interesting. I don't think too much about my public image but what you're telling me could be a lot worse ;)

All of the live TV coverage SOPA/PIPA brought was a great education in how to deliver a message in a short time period to a distracted audience. I was pretty awful at first, but I dug through feedback in reddit/HN/twitter comments and rewatched tape of masters in the medium (e.g., Hitch) to figure out craft soundbytes that the format craves.

I've improved, but I'm always very critical about my appearances because I know there's stuff I'd like to do differently next time. e.g. I was on CNN this am talking about the reddit fundraisier for the bus monitor and I should've been wayyyyy more succinct.