Together with his friends, he created the website Reddit. Ohanian is also famous for being married to Serena Williams, a professional tennis player.
Alexis Ohanian Early Life
On April 24, 1983, Alexis Kerry Ohanian was born in Brooklyn, New York, to parents Anke and Chris Ohanian. After the Armenian Genocide, his grandparents became refugees and moved to the United States. Ohanian went to high school at Howard, which is located in Ellicott City, Maryland. During his 2001 commencement, he delivered the student address.
Alexis Ohanian, a graduate of the University of Virginia in 2005, joined the professional business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi during his time as an undergraduate. He graduated with degrees in both business and history.
Alexis Ohanian Reddit
After finishing college, he started several successful Internet businesses. The concept for MyMobileMenu was originally presented to Y Combinator by Ohanian and his friend Steve Huffman. Although the corporation ultimately decided not to pursue this idea, they gave the pair lots of feedback and encouragement for their future proposal. In 2005, he co-founded the news website Reddit, where people contribute content and rate it.
In the summer of 2005, Reddit was among the first group of companies accepted into Y Combinator. It was acquired by Conde Nast a year later for a price tag of between $10 and $20 million, however the exact figure was never made public. For many years, Alexis served on Reddit’s board of directors. In July 2015, he and Huffman both came back to Reddit full-time to run the company as its own entity.
Ohanian left Reddit in February 2018 to devote more time to the investment industry. In light of the murder of George Floyd, he also resigned from Reddit’s board on June 5, 2020, demanding that he be replaced with a Black candidate. As of the 10th of June, 2020, Black entrepreneur Michael Seibel will serve on the board of directors at Reddit.
Alexis Ohanian Other Companies
Ohanian established Breadpig in 2007 as an online company that locates, creates, and sells “geeky” products, with all proceeds going to non-profits in need of financial support such as the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Room to Read, a programme working to build a primary school in Laos. More than $150,000 has been donated to various causes thanks to the site since its 2007 inception.
Now, he has little to do with running Breadpig on a daily basis. He also directs marketing for the online travel agency Hipmunk. Ohanian established Das Kapital Capital in June 2010 to provide investment, advisory, and consultancy services to startups. Y Combinator has appointed Ohanian the role of Eastern Ambassador. Before leaving Y Combinator in 2016, he worked there as a partner full-time.
Alexis Ohanian Investments
Ohanian co-founded Initialized Capital in 2010, and the company has already invested over $500 million in early funding to companies like Instacart, Opendoor, Zenefits, and Cruise. In 2014, Ohanian was deemed the most influential investor in terms of his connections by research firm CB Insights. Alexis’s 2019 investment of $3 million in the daycare firm Kinside was made through his own company, Initialized Capital.
Alexis Ohanian Other Ventures
Ohanian and Lester Chambers, from the band The Chamber Brothers, collaborated in December 2012 to launch a Kickstarter campaign for the creation of a new album named “Lester’s Time Has Come.” Over $61,000 was collected. Ohanian used the website Tilt.com to generate $12,244 for the charity Black Girls Code two years later.
A book by Ohanian titled “Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed” was released on October 1, 2013. It was a best seller, coming up at number four on the Wall Street Journal’s list. In the same year, Ohanian also started hosting “Small Empires with Alexis Ohanian,” a weekly online series for The Verge.
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Ohanian collaborated with young activist Rayouf Alhumedhi in 2017 to lobby Apple to include a hijab emoji in its keyboard. Alexis facilitated an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session in which Alhumedhi defended her proposal. This emoji was introduced by Apple on July 17, 2017. In October 2014, Alexis released NYRD Radio; in January 2015, he released Upvoted; and in January 2020, he released Business Dad.
Alexis Ohanian Activism
Ohanian is an outspoken advocate for internet neutrality and free and open access. Ohanian voiced his opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act in both 2010 and 2011. Ohanian spoke to Congress, kicked off nationwide anti-SOPA/PIPA rallies in 2012, and spoke at the NY Tech Meetup march in New York, all of which contributed to the legislation’ ultimate defeat.
The Internet 2012 Bus Tour, which Ohanian co-led with Reddit’s general manager, Erik Martin, from Denver, Colorado, to Danville, Kentucky, advocated for an open Internet during the Presidential and Vice Presidential Debates. The Daily Dot recognised Alexis as the most significant activist of 2012 due to his advocacy for more open access to the internet.
He was also given the title of “Mayor of the Internet” by Forbes Magazine. Ohanian began lobbying the FCC for net neutrality in May 2014, and on January 15, 2015, he held a day-long phone-a-thon into the FCC and Congress. To protest the FCC’s plans to remove net neutrality, Ohanian used Tilt.com to establish a crowdfunding campaign titled “Save Net Neutrality: Billboard in FCC’s Backyard.”
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