How the tech mogul’s net worth is now approaching $300 million

Of all the traits related to influential people, ethics is normally not at the top of the list. However, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian could also be an exception.

On March 21, 2024, Reddit went public on the New York Stock Exchange with an expected valuation of $6.4 billion. After a pointy rise in shares, the first day of trading ended with a market capitalization of $7.7 billion. Ohanian – the public face of Reddit and husband of tennis legend Serena Williams – was notably absent from the IPO ceremony and was nowhere to be found.

Despite deep ties to Reddit, he and co-founder Steven Huffman sold the company to Condé Nast in 2006 for $10 million, a couple of 12 months after they began it of their dorm room at the University of Virginia. But the longtime friends maintained influential roles on Reddit for years — until Ohanian took a daring stand on hate speech and resigned his board seat.

In 2020, Ohanian severed ties with Reddit amid widespread protests following a brutal police murder George Floyd, calling on the company to interchange him with a Black board member (which Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel did). The platform, which bills itself as the “front page of the internet,” has been heavily criticized for hosting channels that promote hate and racism. Many felt that Huffman (who had also publicly denounced racism) was too slow to act, and that since Ohanian had left, former business partners apparently they do not talk.

“I write this as a father who must be able to answer his black daughter when she asks, ‘What did you do?’” Ohanian wrote in his resignation letter.

Ohanian is known for his advocacy of inclusion, diversity and equal rights, and has pledged to make use of future profits from his Reddit shares to serve the black community and deal with reducing racial hatred. Quickly, actually he proved his mettle donating $1 million to former NFL player and activist Colin Kaepernick to the Know Your Rights Camp.

“I believe the resignation may actually be an act of leadership on the part of the people currently in power. To all those fighting to repair our broken nation: keep going,” Ohanian wrote in 2020.

From what we are able to tell, Ohanian holds fast to his ideals and continues to place family over business, as he planned to skip the IPO and spend spring break along with his daughters as a substitute. “Everyone is asking if I’m going to New York for the IPO @reddit – it’s my daughter’s spring break so I’m taking her and the girls on vacation,” he wrote on X.

Huffman continues to function CEO and is currently facing backlash over his 2024 compensation package, which incorporates an annual salary and a pre-IPO stock bonus of $193 million. Meanwhile, Ohanian’s total net worth is estimated at $150 million. But he recently published in October that he owns some Reddit stock from his time as CEO a decade ago. Ohanian also runs an early-stage enterprise capital firm, SevenSixSeven, and now, because of its IPO, his net worth may approach that of his wife, William. estimated at $300 million.

Regardless of how the IPO seems for Ohanian, he’s in good hands with Williams, which is making some winning investment moves. In a March 20 Instagram video, Williams gave a sneak peek at her strategy.

“After leaving tennis, I invest a lot. Mainly with “us” women, people of various skin colours and variety. I began investing over 12 years ago and have over 14 unicorns (corporations valued at over $1 billion) in my portfolio. I like investing and supporting individuals who have never had a likelihood to speculate their ideas. Did you recognize that before I began investing, female founders received lower than 2% of all Venture Capital money? Now I’m working on changing that number. If you’ve gotten a business, I’d love to listen to your story.

Do you hear this, entrepreneurs? We have a sense her DMs are going to explode.