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The Complete Story of Reddit! It was 2005. Alexis Ohanian was sitting in his law school entrance exam when he had a sudden realization—he didn’t want to be a lawyer. So, he just walked out mid-exam, went to a Waffle House, and decided to do something else. Teaming up with Steve Huffman, his best friend, roommate, and fellow tech enthusiast, they set out to create something big. THE FIRST IDEA: Their first startup idea was My Mobile Menu or MMM, a food-ordering app that let users order food from their phones before arriving at a restaurant. But it was too early for the market. In 2005, phones weren’t advanced enough, and restaurants didn’t sign up. A LUCKY BREAK: During their vacation, they heard that Paul Graham was giving a talk at Harvard on startups. Excited, they drove 500 miles to attend. After the talk, Alexis asked, “Can we buy you a drink and get your feedback?” Paul liked their hustle, agreed, gave his thoughts about MMM. Then, Paul Graham launched Y Combinator. Alexis and Steve got a personal invite to apply, and they thought they were in for sure. But guess what? Their idea was rejected. THE PIVOT: Paul still believed in them, so he offered them a spot—if they came up with a better idea. Thus, they sat in a restaurant brainstorming ideas and they came up with Reddit—a platform where users could post short content, and others could upvote or downvote. YC accepted this idea, and they joined its first-ever batch alongside Sam Altman (Loopt) and the Twitch founders. For months, they built Reddit’s prototype, and launched it in beta even when it wasn’t fully ready (due to Paul's request) They got 1,000 users through Paul Graham’s blog, but most were inactive. So, Alexis and Steve created fake accounts to post content and engage. This trick worked! Real users slowly joined, and Reddit grew. Soon, they hit 12,000 active users. Then came subreddits—separate sections for topics like politics, programming, etc, making it easier to browse. NEW CO-FOUNDER: Paul Graham introduced them to Aaron Swartz, a brilliant coder. He merged his startup with Reddit and helped introduce work on their ideas like adding comments. But tensions soon arose—Alexis and Steve felt Aaron didn’t deserve equal credit and barely treated him as a co-founder. THE ACQUISITION: In 2006, media giant Condé Nast acquired Reddit for $10–$20 million. The founders became millionaires, but Aaron hated it, believing corporate ownership would kill Reddit’s spirit. Aaron was fired in 2007 and later erased from Reddit’s history. Eventually, even Alexis and Steve left. EXPLOSIVE GROWTH: Despite all this, Reddit kept growing: 2008: ~1 million users 2009: ~3 million users 2010: ~6.5 million users 2011: ~20 million users 2012: ~35 million users In 2012, Barack Obama did a AMA on Reddit which made Reddit crash due to traffic, skyrocketed its popularity, and helped Obama’s election campaign. THE REVOULT OF 2015: As Reddit grew, so did its problems like; 1) The Boston Marathon Witch Hunt in 2013 where saw users wrongly accused an innocent man, leading to harassment. 2) Toxic subreddits began thriving, filled with hate groups, violent content, and illegal activity. 3) CEO Ellen Pao personally banning hateful subreddits. This frustrated the users, which led to a revolt and forced the CEO out. STEVE'S RETURN: In 2015, Steve Huffman returned as CEO, and Alexis rejoined as chairman. Sam Altman, Reddit's board member, himself announced this on Reddit. The original founders tackled many issues, but user revolts continued. THE API WAR: In 2023, Reddit decided to charge devs for API access, killing multiple content moderation tools and even Apollo, a third-party Reddit app with 1.5 million users. Thousands of subreddits went dark in protest, but Reddit didn’t care! This was a step toward profitability and IPO preparation. IPO & PROFITs: In March 2024, Reddit went public, listing at a $9.5 billion valuation, 48% higher than expected. Then in October 2024, Reddit announced its first-ever profitable quarter, reaching $348.4 million in revenue and $29.9 million in profit. Today, Reddit is valued at $6 billion, has over 500 million registered users, and is a massive platform with a subreddit for everything you can think of. It’s basically countless social media platforms inside one giant social media platform. From a law school dropout to running a social media empire, they had one of the most incredible journeys ever!