Reddit co-founders Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian lived and played together for about eight straight years, first as college roommates. world of warcraft He then helped lay the groundwork for a discussion forum service that is now used by nearly 270 million people. But that history was missing from Reddit's investor sales pitch published Thursday announcing plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange. Ohanian was not mentioned at all in Reddit's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Mr. Huffman, who has been CEO of Reddit since 2015, and Mr. Ohanian, who served on the company's board of directors for years after retiring from business operations, have been criticized by some of the hate on Reddit. In 2020, we parted ways over how to handle content that is full of content. Since then, they have hardly spoken. The lack of a nod to Mr. Ohanian in the new document may reflect both that split and Mr. Huffman's attempt to shed new light on the 19-year-old company.
Disputes between startup co-founders are common, and not all investor pitches recount the details of a company's history. But the gregarious Ohanian was the public face of Reddit during its formative years, and for its early users, a kind of spiritual leader who shaped the community's culture while Huffman worked on the code. Some users still closely associate his Reddit with Ohanian and are eager for his involvement. But Mr. Huffman has taken the reins in more recent history, leading the effort to develop a path that could lead to stable profits that he and Mr. Ohanian could never have imagined early on.
A new proposed offering, known as a Form S-1, filed with the SEC could allow Reddit to debut on the stock market as early as next month under the ticker symbol RDDT.
Reddit and Ohanian did not immediately respond to requests for comment.in post Ohanian, who currently runs venture capital firm Seven Seven Six, wrote on Thursday. Founder, please continue. ”
In his S-1, Huffman briefly describes Reddit's beginnings without naming his co-founders. “I think August 13, 2005 was the day Reddit was really born,” Huffman said. “We've been online for a few months now, and we've never had so many posts from our users that they dominated the front page on any given day. That morning, we were surprised. , I opened Reddit and discovered for the first time that the homepage was filled with posts from real users.”
The filing also lists the number of Reddit shares owned by executives or individuals who personally own more than 5% of the company. Ohanian is not on the list because he and Huffman sold Reddit to Condé Nast (Wired's parent company) for about 300,000 yen. 10 million dollars We relinquished ownership in 2006, a little over a year after our founding. Both left the company permanently in 2009.
Huffman has amassed a total stake of 3.3% in Reddit since returning as CEO, according to the S-1. Mr Ohanian said: Another X post He said Thursday that he still owns the stock from when he was Reddit's executive chairman about a decade ago.