Fortune reached out to Reddit and Huffman for comment.
Instead of dwelling on the rejection, the young innovators pivoted.
Within 16 months of Reddit being created, Condé Nast acquired the platform for a mere $10 million. But things shifted at the company. One of Reddit’s founding figures who led the platform’s development, Aaron Swartz, left in 2007. And in 2008, the site allowed users to create their own feeds—called subreddits—creating popular threads on topics like politics and science, but also spreading controversial content.
In 2009, Ohanian and Huffman left on Halloween after their three-year contracts expired. In the years following, Reddit came under intense scrutiny for child pornography, nude photos of celebrities, and conspiracy theories proliferating on the platform.
The next year, Huffman returned as CEO and spent a decade turning the company around. By 2024, the company began its IPO at $34 per share, reaching an intra-day high of about $55.39 per share, about 63% higher than its starting price.
Today, Reddit’s market cap sits at about $38 billion.
