Alexis Ohanian
It takes discipline not to let social media steal your time.Collection: Time
To join in the industrial revolution, you needed to open a factory; in the Internet revolution, you need to open a laptop.
Being effective at social media, whether for business or personal use, means capturing people who have short attention spans. They're only a click away from a picture of a funny cat, so you have to make your thing more compelling than that cat. And that can be a high bar.
My junior year, I went to an LSAT-prep course. I flipped over my test and thought, 'You bastards.' I walked out and went to Waffle House. That's where I had what I call 'The Waffle House Epiphany': I didn't want to be a lawyer. I wanted to make a dent in the universe.
My entire career has been built on the understanding that I am not only not the smartest person in the room, I am definitely not the smartest person in the world. And I am instead going to try to create as many opportunities to connect those great ideas and help them be great.
On my father's side, I'm descended from immigrants, one of whom was a Syrian refugee from the Armenian genocide, and my mother was an immigrant from Germany whose visa had expired and, for a year and change, was undocumented here in the U.S.
I went to high school in Ellicott City, Maryland, and I felt pretty ambivalent about the whole thing. It just took time away from my doing things on the Internet - like creating clans in Quake II or starting a Web design nonprofit. In school, I was just a kid. Online, I had authority.
Let's all strive to be more entrepreneurial, and I think we'll all be in a better place.
Status quo just means that everyone's doing it. It doesn't mean that this was divinely ordained, and of course this is the right decision.
The social-media landscape changes incredibly fast, so you have to be open-minded and nimble to keep up with it.
I hate phone calls, so I believe in a telephone armistice. To me, the idea of calling someone unprompted is basically saying, 'Hey, stop whatever you're doing and talk to me right now.' If you find yourself in the middle of something, getting an unprompted annoyance is incredibly frustrating.
The best part of being an angel investor is seeing these kids coming up with companies that get way more traffic than Reddit had when we sold it. I think, 'Are you kidding me? They're just kids, and they've done so much.'
So much of Reddit as a product was built on the shoulders of giants... We did some novel remixes of it but, at the end of the day, it was that: Grit and good luck.
Maybe libertarians especially like Reddit because it is a perfect marketplace of content. Every Redditor is created equal, whether you're the highest karma Redditor or a brand-new Redditor with 10 karma points. No submissions or votes are more equal than others.
Pitch tip: Speak confidently about your product, but be able to admit when you need more information, and get it to the people you're pitching quickly after the meeting.
I want to stay hungry. I really believe my resources are best used to help projects that make the world suck less.
The reason people need advice on using social media is that they're a much more complex and nuanced way to communicate than a conversation or email.
Most redditors are at least college educated. A number of them have post- or, rather, graduate degrees. A number of them are in the IT tech world.
I am consistently impressed by reddit. I'd say on a near weekly basis, by little things. Whether it's - I absolutely love seeing the Photoshop jobs that people do. Not of silly cats, but of redditors who are like, 'I have this photo of like my mom. This is the last photo I took with her. She was in the hospital. Can any of you clean this photo up?'
I get a lot more out of the - the touchy feely stuff that happens on reddit. And while I love the snark, and it makes me laugh, I am happy that there is this wonderful balance that plays out on reddit. Or you can get both. I enjoy having my cake and eating it too, especially if it's not a lie, and chocolate.
Our competition has always been anything that is wasting your time when you're bored at work. In a broad sense. We want people to come to reddit to find out what's new and interesting online, but we realize they usually do this when they should be working or perhaps when they start or when they end their day. And that's always been the goal.
Waking up every morning with a company is a lot of pressure. But when you're aware of what other people are waking up with, it's a whole lot easier.
Founders are supposed to be not at all interested in selling. But there is a price at which a founder can't help being interested.
Reddit was created for people to speak freely and authentically and also for us to protect and value privacy. We're sort of the anti-Facebook in that regard.
The Internet is too transformative for incumbents to not want to try to stifle or curb it - incumbents in the sense of multinational corporations, governments, take your pick.
The biggest threat to the Internet is, frankly, always going to be complacency. I want to see more and more of us activated and people thinking of themselves as defenders of it.
I'm a real believer in counter-speech when it comes to crazy stuff we don't like.
Love making jewelry? Awesome! Find blogs that inspire you, follow people on social media who have great taste, start an Etsy store, and borrow a friend's DSLR to take some beautiful photos of your craft. All of this costs $0.
I'd like to see the word 'entrepreneur' knocked off its pedestal. Being 'entrepreneurial' is something I look for not only in founders to invest in, but also employees to hire.
Republicans want to keep the open Internet safe from big government. Democrats want to keep it safe from big corporations. I say we agree to agree and move ahead.
Reddit has attracted a lefty, libertarian audience since the beginning.
The reason why I think Reddit is still around and some of our competitors are not is because we were really adamant about maintaining the integrity of the site.
Until we actually get legislation that protects our rights online, we will continue to fight against stupid, lobbyist-bought legislation. We want bills that protect us, not ones that destroy us.
Reddit offers the opportunity for us as humans to connect on a much deeper, broader level because users have an alter ego and aren't tied to a social network of friends with whom they want to share how perfect their lives are.
Ramen in L.A. is much better than ramen in San Francisco. That's just a fact.
Like most entrepreneurs, getting motivated to work has never been a problem for me; focus comes through delegating tasks to the best people you can find.
Word of mouth now has a unprecedented influence because it spreads so far and so fast.
People want a remarkable experience; it's what they'll talk about, largely because the bar has been set so low by so many companies.
Reddit is a network where someone with a million karma points has an equal shot as someone with 10 karma points to hit the #1 post or comment.
It's so fantastic to see redditors thriving because Reddit was able to be a part of their journey. Over the last decade, we've seen countless people improve their lives because of it - from quitting addiction to getting a Hollywood screenwriting deal - and I hope there will be many more talents who'll be discovered on our platform.
If I can accomplish anything in the next however-many years, it is this: To help a generation realize, or to think of themselves, not just as consumers but also creators.
I've been learning how to soft-scramble eggs. And once you've had an amazing soft-scrambled egg, you cannot go back. It takes a little bit more work, but they're really great.
What makes Reddit special is that people feel free to express themselves. Where we want to draw the line is where that feeling of being able to express oneself freely starts to infringe on someone feeling like they can express themselves.
I'm probably the worst Silicon Valley insider ever. I don't hang out with Silicon Valley people.
I do genuinely believe that, when given and presented with all the information and all the actual facts, the vast majority of people will make the right choice.
If you've never seen people taking the pledge of allegiance for the first time as U.S. Citizens, it will move you: a room full of people who can really appreciate what I was lucky enough to grow up with, simply by being born in Brooklyn.
It thrills me to write reference letters for enterprising founders who are looking to get visas to start their companies here, to create value and jobs for these United States.
I try not to have the computer in the bedroom. I used to sleep with it, though. I used to wake up spooning my laptop.
Unless it's really an emergency, I'm not going to bother you. And you can see people chafe at that. 'You're in the same office and instant-message each other? Why don't you just walk over?' That's the perfect example of how ingrained the status quo is. To certain people, it may seem lazy, but I would argue it's much more efficient and considerate.
It's a fight to get anyone other than your mom to care about your startup.