“If anything, I was very naive,” Ohanian said. “You have to consider $10 million of value creation in 16 months. When we first got the offer, I’m thinking: It’s been not even a year. This is more money than my parents will earn their entire working lives.”
Even without billionaire status to their name, Reddit’s founders have nonetheless found new pathways to success.
Huffman eventually returned to Reddit and has led the company as CEO for the past decade. Ohanian, meanwhile, has become a prominent tech investor and advocate for women’s sports.
“CEOs around me are starting to understand this and want to be amazing leaders, partners, and dads,” he added.
The Reddit founders’ decision to sell early is far from unique: it’s a familiar crossroads in Silicon Valley, where entrepreneurs must decide between a guaranteed payout or risking it all for potentially far greater rewards.
And while the payday was substantial, it was not as rewarding for the cofounders as they anticipated.
“I think the biggest lesson… coming into a fair amount of money pretty quickly, was that money itself is no end,” Systrom said at SXSW in 2019. “It doesn’t make you happy. It doesn’t solve health problems. It can help in those things.”
