Transcription
Track and field takes New York, the fastest women on the planet, a crowd to witness history, and a venture capitalist betting that women's sports have achieved escape velocity. It's pretty incredible. So I get it. Like I get how this could be a thing. Can Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit prove his biggest wins are still ahead?
I look at Formula One, the scale of that. It is an amazing business and it's humans going as fast as possible from point A to point B. In cars, in horses, those are great sports. These are humans just doing it with their own legs. And if we can't make that as big of a story or even bigger, I, I might as well find something else to do.
For two decades, Ohanian has amassed a fortune betting on ideas others overlook. He co-founded Reddit when social media was in its infancy, found success as an early stage investor and has helped launch the recent boom in professional women's sports. But there've been hurdles along the way. There was a messy exit from Reddit, a venture partnership dissolved and a power struggle over a soccer team. All on top of the pressures of being Mr. Serena Williams and his determination to lean into his role as the father of two young girls.
Do you get recognized? Nah, it depends on the context. It like in the Bay area, more often, ironically just 'cause of the whole tech scene thing, you know, certainly there's still folks who are like, Hey Reddit guy. There's obviously plenty of folks who are like, Hey, Serena's husband. There's even a few who are like Olympia's dad, which is is wonderful. It's also a little weird 'cause I'm like, she's eight, she hasn't done anything yet. He's built a reputation on Reddit nostalgia and tech idealism, but in the cutthroat worlds of venture capital in sports. Is that enough to get you over the finish line?
Are you ready for your AMA? Bring it? Yeah. Oh yeah. We are on our way uptown to meet Alexis. We're gonna start our day at a sneaker store. All right, let's look for some shoes. All right. Hopefully the guest says 15. Are you really a size 15? Yeah. Wait, let me see that. Are you, I'm not a size 15. Not in that neighborhood, huh. You need to pick out a shoe. Don't you pick out shoes for special events? I do, I do. You did the research. Yeah. Okay. If you look at the branding, we have like a kind of Athlos magenta, actually, you know, this one's not bad, so it might be a little too matchy matchy with the jacket. Match the outfit. Do you think outfit, I mean, I'm not great on the colors. My wife's really good at the color coordination thing.
Before he married tennis legend Serena Williams and before he co-founded Reddit, Ohanian was a middle class kid with roots in Brooklyn. I managed to talk to my parents into getting me a computer. It was a big investment and then an internet connection. And even though they had no idea what I was doing on that computer, I found strangers on the internet willing to help me with learning how to code and, and so that feeling that software provided and then the access to the knowledge freely given by experts to me, a dorky kid in my parents' house was, was life changing.
Fast forward to Hanian senior year at the University of Virginia where he and his roommate Steve Huffman, pitched tech incubator YCombinator on a mobile food app. But YC founder Paul Graham encouraged them to work on something else, a startup that could serve as the front page of the internet. You were in the inaugural Y Combinator class? Yeah, 2005 with 21 years ago, almost 21 ago. 20 years ago. With Sam Altman. It's a good crew. Steve Huffman, your co-founder at Reddit. That's the Twitch guys's Twitch guys. Justin and Emmett. In 2005, it was an eclectic group of folks in that first YC batch. It was not normal to wanna do a startup in 2005. And that was the genius of YC. They realized this opportunity before everyone else did. Let's give for us it was $12,000 for two college kids to go build a company. Maybe it could one day be worth billions. You know, Sam is the one exception. I think he had a roadmap to what tech could be in the world. Speaking for myself, I was just happy to not have a boss. I was just happy to, you know, build something that I cared about every day and and build something that just seemed fun.
This was just one year after Mark Zuckerberg had started "The Facebook" and one year before Twitter got off the ground, the internet was just starting to wake up to the idea that users, not editors could be the driving force for content. Ohanian and Huffman's site went all in on this concept, a site they named Reddit. The memes, the inside jokes, the crowdsourced investigations, even Snoo the mascot, which Ohanian drew himself would for many define internet culture of that era. This is the zeitgeist for a quarter of a billion people. After a year of building Reddit was courted by Conde Nast. Ohanian and Huffman sold for a reported $10 million. Life-changing money for them at the time, but in hindsight, a pittance for a company that today is valued at close to $35 billion.
Ohanian went on to become a partner at Y Combinator where he mentored startups and co-founded Initialized Capital with Gary Tan, a firm that backed companies like Instacart and Coinbase. But Ohanian decided to go it alone starting his own venture firm. 776, named after the date of the first Olympic Games. What's your snapshot on where venture capital is at the moment? It's been a really difficult environment. Yeah. What's your take? There's a middle of VC firms that are just, as the kids would say, "mid" That are probably gonna have a really hard time because they can't get into the deals that the, the biggest and baddest firms can, can easily get into and have the capital to get into. And I think you're in a business where there are these outsized mega firms, right? The Sequoias, the Andreessen's, but also the sort of newer generations, like the Thrives. And they will continue to get more and more capital as they clearly are, you know, the big dogs with the war chest that can double down in those big winners at the later stage. And then at the early stage, there are firms, I like to believe SevenSevenSix is one of them that can win against all comers and that have a clear value proposition and want to be the best.
Early Through SevenSevenSix Ohanian has backed an eclectic portfolio, including companies like Doji, which lets users virtually try on clothes, Mast, a forest restoration company, Feastables the snack brand launched by Jimmy Donaldson, AKA MrBeast, and Monumental Labs where they're using robots to make stone construction scalable. Today Ohanian is capturing footage to post to his social media followers. It's part of the SevenSevenSix playbook, capital plus megaphone. Boop.
Ohanian made his most famous VC bet five years ago in an asset class most of his peers had long ignored women's sports. On Season 1 of The Circuit, he told us how it came to pass In 2019, I drunkenly tweeted from the Women's World Cup that women's soccer was the most undervalued opportunity in sports. And a bunch of people on Twitter said, all right, you know what, Alexis, put your money where your mouth is. He went in with three partners to buy Angel City Football Club, bringing capital from SevenSevenSix, along with additional investment from Serena. What was your relationship to women's sports before Serena? Non-existent As a casual American sports fan, if you just ask us, you know, close your eyes and think of American soccer excellence, you can only think of women 'cause the men have never been great. And so it all starts with the money. None of this, you're never gonna hear me talking about the charity of it, the the social issues, the feminism. No, no, no, no. This is excellence. This is the market rewarding excellence and looking around. I just couldn't believe that these other sports soccer especially where there isn't a strong male counterpart in America. Why there wasn't something. Yeah, just four years later, the club's value had soared from two to $250 million along the way. There were reports of infighting over the team's direction. It was later bought by Disney CEO. Bob Iger and his wife Willow Bay and Ohanian moved on to fund other sports ventures. A UK women's soccer team, a women's sports bar franchise, a team in Tiger Woods Golf League, and a professional women's volleyball team.
And we haven't even gotten to Athlos. What's Athlos? You say The the future of track and field. Really like a Formula 1 type model. Building is a formula 1 for track and field. Let's build a formula 1 of track and field In case you miss that. Athlos is Ohanian's take on Formula one meets track and field, part racing, part spectacle, and definitive proof that Alexis Ohanian's marketing muscle is everything everywhere. All at once from a launch party at Tiffany, which made sparkling crowns for the winners to an electrifying long jump qualifier in Times Square, featuring gold medalist Tara Davis Woodhall to Randall's Island in New York City where all roads lead to the second annual Athlos event. A track meet Ohanian wants to take on the road and around the world.
Women's sports are having a moment. You know, we're seeing what's happening with soccer. The WNBA is having a moment, but also there's a lot of controversy around these sports. And so there's a question about what happens when you fast track a league to prominence. How do you have the correct leadership and the correct vision in place to sustain that momentum? Can you explain the various revenue streams, the broadcast rights, the sponsorships, the merch, the ticket sales, the athletes getting a cut. Yeah. How does it all work together and when does this become profitable? So for any emerging league, those media deals you see for the NFL, NBA, billions of dollars, that is a long ways away. So we said from jump, we're not gonna try to make a little bit of revenue out of the gate for broadcast. I'd rather make no money and instead reach millions of people. So last year we made no money on broadcast, but we reached 3 million viewers. 'cause we were everywhere. YouTube, X, DAZN ESPN Plus ESPN two. This year we actually added Ion. And then one of the important things we did was we, we set the record for prize money last year simply by doubling the top prize. It was only $30,000, we made it 60. And we wanna work in concert with our athletes. So 10% of all the revenue in some from this event also goes into a pool that goes to all those athletes. When you're buying merch, when you're buying hot dogs, you're buying tickets. That revenue comes together. When Athlos expands Next year, three top athletes will also have equity. Tara Davis Woodhall and sprinters Sha'Carri Richardson and Gabby Thomas. And that means a voice in shaping athlos.
When Alexis called you and said he wanted to start Athlos, what did you say you wanted? Like what was your advice? Well, he asked me, he is like, what do you want as an athlete? And I was like, I wanna see that long jump meet as sexy as the a hundred meter dash. And he asked me, what's my dream? And I told him my dream is street meets. So I told him, you know, it would be cool to jump in Times Square. And he was like, Times Square? And I said, Times Square. What does this event mean to you being not just an athlete here, but but an owner? Oh, it means everything. I mean, for Athlos to listen to me and hear what I have to say, and I'm so, so thankful. I'm so, so blessed for everything that has come my way, including this crown and including $60k in my account. We've already been paid. I haven't even finished cooling down yet. And I've been paid Instant payouts to athletes put some ground between Athlos and Grand Slam Track. GST, which is backed by gold medalist Michael Johnson and a venture firm chaired by Bill Ackman promised prizes up to a hundred thousand dollars for winners, but limped out of the gate, plagued by low attendance, loss of backers and complaints. That prize money was slow in making its way to athletes, including a reported $180,000 owed to Gabby Thomas.
Michael Johnson tried to do this with Grand Slam Track. Yeah, you famously tweeted, please pay me. Because I'm serious about that. Right? We dedicate so much to the sport and we put so much out there, I expect payment. Yeah. And so Athlos is committed to making that happen instantly. Grand Slam Track has since secured more funding with reports, it's planning to reboot the league and has begun to pay money owed to athletes. What makes you think this is gonna be different? Well, I think this is gonna be different because I'm a part of it and I know Alexis, we all have equity in it, so we want this to work. And we're not, we're not signing up for anything that we don't believe in fully. So we're committed to to getting paid.
Okay. If you wanna interview the athletes, what do you wanna ask them? I wanna ask them what's their favorite movie what's their favorite, what's their favorite color? That's good. And are you enjoying Athlos? Good one. Yeah. And you want to, you wanna lead that question a little bit. You wanna lead 'em and say, how great of a time are you having it out there? So they already feel primed to say good stuff. Right? Okay. Okay. Here's another one. Who's your favorite athlete? My favorite athlete is...Mom. What? What? Good answer. What about papa? You're not an athlete That's true. That's very true. But this guy is. Noah Lyles is best known for capturing gold in the 100 meters at the 2024 Olympics. How pumped you to be here? I'm pretty excited. I ain't gonna lie. I love a spectacle. That's what I'm here for. What's your take on Athlos? Like, do you think this is an inflection point for track and field? It's up to Athlos to decide, to be honest. Right now it's kind of an all-star meet with the ability to turn into something, but it's, it's gonna be up to them to really push the boundaries of what it can be. How hard is it to get paid what you're worth as a professional athlete In my sport, very hard, very hard. I still don't think I get paid what I'm worth.
By sunset, the talkings done, the stage is set and the crowd is primed to see Olympic level competition. Let's go, let's go. So I've never been to a track and field meet, but this is really cool. Like to see these athletes up close doing their thing. Like these are the fastest women in the world and it is pretty incredible. So I get it. Like I get how this could be a thing. Don't ever doubt yourself. There are endless possibilities in this world. Just give yourself a chance. All right, well let's give yourself this Tiffany's crown.
As Athlos comes to a close, Ciara takes the stage and the city that never sleeps is already moving on to tomorrow's headlines. For Ohanian, it means a new chance to promote his projects and go toe to toe against the Internet's trolls. Just a week before Athlos, he found himself in the cross hairs. After speaking out against immigration raid, I have I think 10 million people saying, I mean, some just vile stuff about me on Twitter because I tell the story of my mom who was an undocumented immigrant, fine. Like, like I would rather have that statement in the public record. You know, if I had tweeted that five years ago, it wouldn't have certainly met that level of toxicity and criticism.
And it's not just politics. The day before Athlos Ohanian was defending Serena against ESPN personality. Stephen A. Smith who'd questioned her motives for performing at Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl halftime show. If I'm married and my wife is going to join trolling her ex, go back to his ass because clearly you, you, you don't belong with me. Stephen A. Smith, You had some, I think you had some marriage advice for me. Is that right Or, oh, Well you know what, I, I, listen, I did it. People, you know, headlines are headlines. You do not shy away from a debate. You know it, You're beef with Stephen A. Smith. How's that going? I, I don't know what you're talking about, But yeah, why do you, I mean, it does seem like you are out there, you're out there sticking up for Serena. Yeah, well, I mean, what would any husband do? I think is a simple sort of self-evident, right? Why do you say that? The folks out there right now who are like, well, you created the platform that enabled this kind of trolling discussion. Yeah. On the social media side. Look, the same reason that I felt a responsibility to step away when I did the way I did. Yeah. Is the reason why I have so much peace moving the way that I move now. Because look, I can't change the past, but I can learn from it and I can do better. And so that's, that's my job.
While Reddit achieved steady growth in the years after Ohanian and Huffman sold, it was increasingly plagued by hate groups and toxic communities. In 2014, Ohanian was brought back as executive chair to right the ship. But he left in 2020, four years before Reddit went public. A lot was made of the fact that you weren't at the IPO. Was it? Yes. Really? Why weren't you there? Well, I wasn't invited. I did not expect to be invited though, given, yeah, But - given the fact that I resigned in protests in 2020, you know, that was a very public statement. In order to get the company to finally ban some of these communities, I'd already had opposition about communities like watch people die and some of these really violent and racist communities and yeah, So there is some bad blood or hurt feelings or bruised egos. Not for me. But here's the thing, you know, the way I look at it, I've got plenty more IPOs to go to.
Ohanian's resignation came on the heels of the George Floyd protests in his public statement. He urged the company to replace him with a black board member. And Reddit did appointing Michael Seibel, then CEO of Y Combinator. Why leave rather than lean in to fix what was broken? When you're in a boardroom, especially when you've been like the founder and face of a company for 15 years, you're in a boardroom with four other people and they're all telling you why the watch people die. community is an important part of Reddit and why we need to preserve that community in spite of your protests because of free speech and because of how helpful it is for first responders, whatever bull... When you come out of a board meeting like that and you go home to your wife as I did, and I'm saying like, God, am I the crazy one? Like, am I wrong on this? 'cause like I know this community is full of snuff videos, suicide videos, murder videos, mostly of people in the developing world. 'cause that's how that video footage gets leaked out. And there are millions of people on Reddit who come to this and discuss it and share and bond and like, that feels vile. That feels wrong. It's not something I'm proud of. But when you're told, you know, and the the room is very obviously against you and and told, no, no, no, it's, don't worry about it, you're wrong. It was, it was a weird, very surreal experience. Serena clocked it real quick. She was like, no, those people are crazy. Watch people die is a horrible community. And you were absolutely right. And thank God I had one person in my life who at least was able to call that bull. And I feel very fortunate that I'm never gonna have to be in a room like that again.
Reddit said in a statement that it was widely agreed upon to ban watch people die in 2019, and that 2000 other communities were banned for violating Reddit's policy on hateful content in 2020, the year Ohanian left the company. Lessons learned, Ohanian is now taking another stab at social media. He and the former CEO of Digg Kevin Rose, once arch rivals, are teaming up to revive Digg. I mean, I really disliked you for a long time and rightfully so, Which has been rebranded as a community with humanity at its core. But humanity doesn't seem to attract eyeballs much these days. If the engine of virality is extremism and Digg is supposed to be the antidote, how do you drive engagement? I think what we found in authentic human online community is it's the last bastion of really high quality content. And so whether you want to know an opinion about a movie, whether you want to know about a camera to buy, there is always gonna be real, real value there. But what I worry about is there is this, this flywheel of, you know, if we know these models are trained on content that are now largely botted or AI generated, you know that authenticity loop breaks down real quick and that that trust breaks down real quick. There clearly needs to be some other version of, you know, if you just want to show up and you know, find a community of people who love cameras, where do you go to get authentic, real human reviews of those things?
In a world increasingly crowded by bots and algorithms, Ohanian is once again betting on community, on the pitch, the track, in our cities and even in social media. The question now becomes, can a master of marketing sell us back on authenticity? What advice would you give founders today that's different than what you got back then? The biggest advice which Paul Graham put on everyone's shirt, and I think it still holds true, which is make something people want. In 20 years now I can say having started multiple companies, seeded many, many more, that founding principle never goes away. I think the founders for today need to know just how much responsibility they have. So I would say move decisively. Move earnestly. Be aware of what you're building and know that like this responsibility starts right now for building something that is gonna have a very big impact on the world.