Alexis Ohanian
speaker
292 appearances
3 recordings
3 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard 12 Jun
Alexis Ohanian’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Why change it if it ain't broken? And instead of doing what I should have done, which would have been better leadership, which is actually bring folks in, win them over, make the case, get the buy-in, and then change the product plan, I just hired a freelance team to go and build it. Because... I made a half step of an effort to make the case and do the right thing as a mature manager.
And when I wasn't getting the progress I wanted, my impatience and my relentlessness was like, I can hire other people to build it. We'll just build it. And it worked. We shipped it. Reddit had a mobile app called iReddit. And it was doing well. I was really happy with that pun. I hope people would say iReddit on Reddit. I don't know if anyone's ever said that. But that was the hope.
But then a year later,
i leave you know the handcuffs had come off and fully vested and then what happened the app died because there was no one left to support it and there was no institutional buy-in and so imagine four years later five years later i come back and now it's 2014 and everyone knows you need a you need a mobile app you have to have a mobile app and the culture of reddit is still solidly desktop is only what matters why do we need a mobile app and i'm like
I failed. I failed. We had this five years ago, and yet here we are, and we actually now need to do it right this time, actually get the buy-in, actually bring in the folks. We finally shipped an app probably a year later. So it was an unwillingness to actually lead, and it was a relentless desire to just – keep moving forward with or without an actual team.
And that is a terrible way to be a CEO. Terrible. It's something frankly, I think I still struggle with in a lot of ways. I will never be hanging out on a beach. I will never retire. I love the work that I do. Yeah, if I do it well, I get very well rewarded for it. And that helps. But it's not about that. I love the work that I do. It's very satisfying.
It's something I genuinely would want to do all the time. And my wife knows this. And she's someone who knows a thing or two about relentlessness and hard work. But even she would admit and has said on numerous occasions at the dinner table that sometimes I take it a little too far.
Swear to God. And I actually had an LP, so one of our investors. So about 10% of the money we invest out of 776 is my money. But then 90% of it is from institutions, universities, all values aligned, good folks. And I had one of our LPs casually be like, oh, hey, I heard you were, or I saw you were at the Olympics. Looked like it was a lot of fun.
And I was like, are you implying that I was just hanging out at the Olympics for two weeks? And he's like, no, it's the summer. I totally get it. Like, it's fine. And so I was retelling this story to my wife. And she's like, I will literally call him up because they know each other. It'd be casual.
And I will assure him that I have countless times complained about the fact that you're working too much. And I'm like, baby, from any partner, that would be powerful. But coming from you, right, it carries a lot more weight. But the reality is... I love this. And unlike being a professional athlete, I get to do this forever.
As long as my brain's working, I have compounding that I get out of age and experience. And it's the unfair advantage of all of us who are not professional athletes is that we actually continue to compound the expertise over time and get to keep doing the thing that we loved in our 20s, in our 30s, in our 40s, in our 50s. And it's a great blessing. And so...
Yeah, I have this and I think the downside has been historically making sure I was either I was building teams and building organizations that were aligned with this. And that was a big part of the decision four years ago to say, okay, you know, Caitlin, who I founded 776 with, she joined me early in the Reddit turnaround. Almost that time was like six years earlier.
I know she's got the same, whatever, brokenness, that relentlessness, that hunger, and having a partner like her. And then Lizzie, who also came over, now she runs my foundation. Those are the folks I just want to spend the rest of my years building with and working with. And that's not a judgment. Like, y'all got to find whatever you need.
And I think one of the things that always gets so twisted, because I am, look, hashtag business dad. I'm out here making pancakes every Sunday for my girls. I do crepes on Saturdays. I post it on social. Yes, I've gotten into smoking meats lately, and I'm very proud of that. But like all things on social media, you're seeing a curated version of the things.
But the promise that I made to my kids was, is the same promise I make to my team, which is like I'm sorry to my childhood friends, but I'm like, When I'm on the clock for work, I'm going to show up here the best way that I can. When I'm on the clock for my family, I'm going to show up there the best way that I can. And that's frankly all the bandwidth I have in my life.
And I think one of the areas I should be investing more into, and maybe there'll be a time, but it's the relationships I have with other men. And these are the guys, I've known them since I was five. These are my best friends. We're in the group chat daily. We see each other now maybe once a year, twice a year, but I, and you know, I got to organize it.
I organize a really proper guy's trip at least once a year. Now we've added a second one. But that's the one area where I know I've made a sacrifice. And I've just said, look, this isn't a part of the equation anymore. We used to play video games all the time after school. We'd get off the bus. We'd go to Mike's house, fire up Goldeneye on the N64.
wouldn't do my homework and but that's that's chat to my life that's closed and now i have to make these trade-offs and so when i always get a little miffed when people twist it as like oh this guy's not that serious and it's like no like there is nothing wrong with caring about being the absolute best at work and also for your family those things should not be mutually exclusive and i don't know how we created this myth that it had like yeah it sucks there's no such thing as balance you've got to figure it out you're always never doing enough
But hell, modern women have had to endure this for quite some time now. And I think only recently has it come up for dads. But I'm glad it's getting talked about more and I'm fine with the juxtaposition.
I mean, these are the guys who still, like, they'll give me shit all day long. And that's great because I need it sometimes. And it's helpful. Also, knowing these guys for as long as I have, it's 100% genuine. And you see it, right? Like, you get – as you find success, as you find fame, as you find wealth – there's a difference in the relationships.
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