Alexis Ohanian

• 1. Introduction

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  Alexis Ohanian has a plaque in his honor at Booth 19 of a Waffle House in Charlottesville, Virginia. It reads: "Site of Alexis Ohanian's Waffle House Epiphany." A division manager named Derick Moore had it installed to mark the moment.

  Ohanian, an American internet entrepreneur born on the 24th of April 1983, once planned to become an attorney. Then he walked out of an LSAT and went to that restaurant. Seated in the booth, he realized he wanted to start a company instead.

  Who was the person behind the plaque? What did he build once he left that table, and what did it cost him, and others, along the way?

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• 2. Roots

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  The paternal grandparents of Alexis Ohanian fled Bitlis and Kharput during the Armenian genocide. They eventually reached the United States as refugees and settled in Binghamton, New York. His father, Chris, a travel agent, was born in San Francisco. His mother, Anke, a pharmacy technician, came from Hamburg, Germany.

  Through his mother, Ohanian spoke German as a second language in childhood. He identifies strongly with his Armenian heritage but says he has little proficiency in Armenian. He is his parents' only child.

  Brooklyn, New York City, is where Ohanian was born, and the family later moved to a Maryland suburb. They were the only Armenians in the neighborhood, so his parents sent him to a summer camp sponsored by AGBU. The camp kept him tied to their culture. At Howard High School in Columbia, Maryland, he delivered a commencement address in 2001 at Merriweather Post Pavilion.

  A 33.6k dial-up modem in middle school started Ohanian's fascination with technology. With his parents' support he took programming classes at community college. He also learned to code and build websites on message boards. His parents bought him a 486 SX computer, which he took apart and put back together. He then built websites for nonprofit organizations for free. By his own account he "tricked" them, hiding behind email so they never learned a teenager in his parents' basement was the builder.

  The only computer science class at his high school drew him in, since he hoped to become a programmer. At the University of Virginia, however, his confidence in that path faded. He double majored in history and business commerce and minored in German. Looking back, he says he should have stayed with computer science, given where his career went. He graduated in 2005, and a college roommate named Steve Huffman was about to become his business partner.

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• 3. Front Page

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  MyMobileMenu, a food ordering application, was the first idea Ohanian and Huffman carried to Y Combinator in 2005. The firm passed on it. It did encourage the pair to come up with another idea it might fund. They returned with reddit.com, an online bulletin board meant to become the "front page of the Internet".

  Reddit joined the first batch of Y Combinator start-ups in the summer of 2005. Aaron Swartz is also counted among its co-founders. In 2006, Condé Nast acquired the site for an undisclosed amount between $10 million and $20 million. Ohanian kept working closely with Reddit as a member of its board of directors.

  In July 2015, Ohanian returned full-time, alongside Huffman, to lead the now-independent company. He stepped back in February 2018 to focus on investing again.

  On the 5th of June 2020, Ohanian resigned from Reddit's board. He asked to be replaced by a Black candidate, responding to the murder of George Floyd. Days later, Michael Seibel, an African-American entrepreneur, was named to the board.

  That same month of July 2015, when Ohanian came back to lead the company, brought a dismissal that would test Reddit's relationship with its volunteers.

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• 4. The Firing

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  On the 2nd of July 2015, Reddit fired Victoria Taylor, its communications director. She was an administrator who coordinated celebrity interviews from the company's New York office. In protest, volunteer moderators of the IAmA community set their forum to private, which effectively switched it off. Other volunteer moderators followed. They said the company "routinely demands" that volunteers accept major changes that add to their workload.

  The next day, an IAmA moderator posted that "Chooter (Victoria) was let go as an admin by u/kn0thing". That username is Ohanian's. The assertion was not widely reported.

  Media outlets such as Variety blamed interim CEO Ellen Pao for the dismissal. Harassment aimed at Pao over other controversies intensified. She resigned a week later.

  On the 12th of July, former CEO Yishan Wong told the Reddit community that Taylor had been fired by "the CEO's boss". He accused Ohanian of scapegoating. After Pao's resignation, Ohanian gave a fuller account of his part. The AMA and IAmA changes came from him, he said, but he still reported to Pao.

  In 2017, Pao criticized Ohanian for dodging the fallout. In the days right after the firing, she noted, he had gone to Wimbledon.

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• 5. Funds and Franchises

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  In 2007, Ohanian launched Breadpig, which he called an "uncorporation". It produces geeky merchandise and gives the proceeds to charity. By 2012 he was no longer involved in its day-to-day operations.

  After leaving Reddit in 2010, Ohanian spent three months in Yerevan, Armenia, doing microfinance work as a Kiva fellow. That same year he helped launch the travel search website Hipmunk, where he now acts as an adviser. In June 2010 he started Das Kapital Capital, which focuses on start-up investing, advising and consulting.

  Initialized Capital, which Ohanian co-founded in 2010, made seed investments in start-ups including Instacart, Zenefits, Opendoor and Cruise. Across three funds it has managed over $500 million. In 2014, CB Insights analyzed all the investors in tech and ranked Ohanian number one for network centrality. That measure captures the breadth of an investor's connections with others in the ecosystem and the quality and depth of those links.

  Through Initialized, Ohanian invested $3 million in the childcare start-up Kinside in 2019. In 2020 he put $4 million into Dispo, also known as David's Disposable. In April 2021 he invested $10 million in the social startup pearpop in a Series A round. Other investors, including Bessemer Venture Partners, Sound Ventures, Slow Ventures and celebrities, supplied $6 million more.

  Y Combinator gave Ohanian the title "Ambassador to the East". In that role he met East Coast applicants, mentored New York founders and generally represented the firm. He also served as a part-time and then full-time partner. In 2016 he left to help launch the third Initialized Capital fund with Garry Tan.

  In June 2020, Ohanian ended his role as managing partner at Initialized. In June 2021 he announced a new venture capital firm that he leads, named 776.

  July 2020 brought a different kind of bet. Ohanian became the founding control owner of a primarily female group awarded a new franchise in the National Women's Soccer League, the top level of the sport for women in the U.S. The team, later unveiled as Angel City FC, started playing in 2022. Women hold a majority interest. The group includes 14 former members of the U.S. women's national team, Oscar-winning actor Natalie Portman and many other actors, entertainers, media personalities and sportspeople.

  In 2024, Ohanian launched Athlos, a women's-only track and field event. On the 14th of May 2025, he bought a 10 percent stake in Chelsea Women FC for £20 million and took a seat on its board of directors.

  March 2025 brought a revival. Ohanian co-purchased Digg with its original founder, Kevin Rose, and relaunched it as a rebooted news aggregator. Digging and burying features were restored, under the tagline "The front page of the internet, now with superpowers." The closed beta offered 21 communities, such as gaming, technology and entertainment, and admitted 67,000 users by invitation. The open beta launched to the public on the 14th of January 2026.

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• 6. Open Internet

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  In late 2010 and early 2011, Ohanian spoke out against the Stop Online Piracy Act in Congress and the PROTECT IP Act in the Senate. He spoke to members of Congress and helped lead the Internet-enabled campaign that eventually overturned both bills. He also helped launch the national protests of the 18th of January 2012. At the New York rally, organized by NY Tech Meetup, he was among the speakers.

  In October 2012, Ohanian joined Reddit General Manager Erik Martin on the Internet 2012 Bus Tour, which ran from Denver, Colorado to Danville, Kentucky. The aim was to campaign for the open Internet during the presidential and vice presidential debates. One stop spurred the idea of a "National Geek Day" in Washington, D.C.

  For this advocacy, The Daily Dot ranked Ohanian number one on its list of the ten most influential activists of 2012. Forbes Magazine dubbed him "Mayor of the Internet".

  In May 2014, Ohanian began lobbying the FCC to support net neutrality. The effort culminated on the 15th of January 2015 in a day-long phone-a-thon with the FCC and Congress.

  On the 10th of December 2012, Ohanian teamed up with Lester Chambers of The Chambers Brothers to launch a Kickstarter project. Its goal was a new album called "Lester's Time Has Come". Fast Company reported that Ohanian aimed "to prove that there are new, sustainable funding opportunities for artists now thanks to platforms like Kickstarter". The project raised over $61,000 for Chambers.

  Two years later, Ohanian raised $12,244 on Tilt.com for the non-profit Black Girls Code. The same site hosted his May 2014 campaign "Save Net Neutrality: Billboard in FCC's Backyard". It protested the FCC's plans to eliminate the idea of net neutrality.

  In early 2017, Ohanian worked with a teenager named Rayouf Alhumedhi on a campaign for a hijab emoji. He helped arrange an AMA for her on r/twoxchromosomes about her idea and responded to critics. On the 17th of July 2017, Apple released its version of the hijab emoji.

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• 7. Mascots and Microphones

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  Snoo, the Reddit alien, is one of several mascots Ohanian has created for the companies he started. He also drew the Breadpig pig with bread wings, Chip the chipmunk of Hipmunk and the Initialized Capital honey badger.

  In 2009, Ohanian spoke at TED about a whale named Mister Splashy Pants.

  On the 1st of October 2013, he published his book Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed. It ranked fourth on The Wall Street Journal's best sellers list for hardcover business books. To promote it, he went on a five-month tour with 150 stops and 75 universities.

  The summer of 2013 brought Small Empires with Alexis Ohanian, a weekly online series hosted by Ohanian on The Verge. It focused on rising startups in New York City. The first season ran for nine episodes, and the second premiered in October 2014.

  On the 15th of October 2014, Ohanian launched the NYRD Radio podcast. Guests have included Tim Ferriss, James Altucher, Carter Cleveland, the founder of Artsy, and Cameron Russell. A segment called Office Hours lets aspiring entrepreneurs apply to work through an idea with him.

  On the 8th of January 2015, Ohanian released "Episode 0" of Upvoted, Reddit's podcast. Each week it follows a different real story from Reddit and features a guest at the center of that story. In January 2020, Initialized Capital introduced Business Dad. In it, Ohanian talks with successful men across business, sports and entertainment about fatherhood and balancing career and family.

  On the 28th of January 2021, Ohanian appeared on a Twitch livestream on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's channel. Guests including TheStockGuy and Alexis Goldstein shared their opinions on the GameStop short squeeze.

  Honors followed through the years. Forbes put him on its "30 Under 30" list in 2011 and 2012. In 2013, Wired featured Ohanian and Erik Martin as "champions of innovation" in its 20th Anniversary issue. Crain's named him to its "40 Under 40" list in 2015, and Fast Company listed him among its "Most Creative People in Business" in 2016. On the 21st of May 2020 he gave the commencement address at Johns Hopkins University. The next year he spoke at the University of Virginia. In December 2022, Money magazine named him a 2023 Money Changemaker.

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• 8. Family and Giving

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  In 2008, Ohanian's mother, Anke, died from brain cancer.

  On the 29th of December 2016, Ohanian became engaged to Olympian tennis player Serena Williams. Their daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian, was born on the 1st of September 2017 in West Palm Beach, Florida. The couple married on the 16th of November 2017 in New Orleans. Guests included Beyoncé, Anna Wintour, Kelly Rowland and Kim Kardashian.

  Ohanian has said that watching Williams compete changed how he measures success in business. Williams is also among the many owners of Angel City FC. The couple gave their daughter a doll called Qai Qai, which became famous on social media. In May 2023, an announcement before the Met Gala revealed that Williams was pregnant, and she appeared there visibly pregnant. In August 2023, she gave birth to their second daughter, Adira River.

  On the 28th of November 2024, Ohanian underwent surgery to remove thyroid nodules, to prevent possible cancer.

  After his daughter's birth, Ohanian became an advocate of paternity leave and wrote about it in the New York Times. He described his experience this way: "After my wife nearly died giving birth, I spent months at home caring for my family." In June 2019, he announced plans to bring a pledge to lawmakers on Capitol Hill in late 2019. The goal was to push for federal paid family leave legislation. He hoped to meet "plenty of dads on both sides of the aisle".

  In April 2015, the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, Ohanian visited Armenia. He toured rural villages supported by the Children of Armenia Fund.

  Since 2022, Ohanian has funded climate-related projects started by young founders through the 776 Foundation Fellowship Program. It is modelled after the Thiel Fellowship. Students aged 23 or younger receive a total of $100,000 over two years, plus guidance and other resources. In return, they drop out of school to work on combating climate change, whether through scientific research, a startup or a social movement. Selection is competitive and annual, and 20 fellows are chosen each year.

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