Rejected on Day One. Built the Front Page of the Internet.
Two college kids pitched a food ordering app. The investor said no. Then he said build the front page of the web.
In 2005, two nervous college students took a train to Cambridge, Massachusetts.
They had one idea: an app to order food from your phone. They pitched it to a famous programmer and investor named Paul Graham.
He said no.
The two friends got on the train home, sad and quiet. Then Graham called them back. He did not like their idea. But he liked them. He had a different idea for them: build the front page of the web.
One of those students was Alexis Ohanian. The site they built was Reddit.
That rejection turned into one of the biggest communities on the internet, a public company, and a life that would later include tennis legend Serena Williams, a venture fund called 776 and the richest prize money in women's track.
It all started with the word no.
A kid from Maryland who loved computers
Alexis Kerry Ohanian was born on April 24, 1983, in Brooklyn, New York. His father's family was Armenian. His mother was an immigrant from Germany.
He grew up in Ellicott City, Maryland. He was a gamer and a computer nerd who loved the early internet.
He went to the University of Virginia, where he studied commerce and history. There he met his roommate and best friend, a computer science student named Steve Huffman.
Alexis was the talker. Steve was the coder. Together, they wanted to start something.
The bad idea that became Reddit
After Paul Graham told them to scrap the food app, Alexis and Steve joined the very first batch of Y Combinator, the startup program Graham had just started.
In June 2005, just weeks after graduating, they launched Reddit. It was a simple list of links. Users voted stories up or down. The best rose to the top.
In the early days, almost nobody visited. So Steve and Alexis made fake accounts and posted links themselves, just so the site looked busy.
Slowly, real people showed up. Then more. Then a flood.
Later, programmer Aaron Swartz joined the team too.
Selling at 23
In October 2006, just 16 months after launch, Reddit was bought by Condé Nast, the magazine company behind Wired and Vogue.
Alexis was 23 years old. He was now a young man with money and a famous website.
But he did not slow down. He travelled. He started other projects, including a travel search site called Hipmunk. He gave a TED talk about how the internet lets small people make a big splash.
He also started investing in other startups. In 2010, he teamed up with Garry Tan to create Initialized Capital. Their early bets included companies like Coinbase and Instacart.
In 2013, he wrote a book called Without Their Permission. The message: you do not need anyone's permission to build something on the internet.
Love on a Rome hotel patio
In 2015, in a hotel in Rome, Alexis sat down at a table near a group of people. One of them was Serena Williams, one of the greatest athletes of all time. She tried to scare him away with a joke.
It did not work.
They got talking. They became friends. Then more. In November 2017, they got married in New Orleans. Their daughter Olympia was born that year. In 2023, they welcomed a second daughter, Adira.
Becoming a dad changed him. He started speaking loudly about paid leave for fathers and about how parents build careers and families at the same time.
The seat he gave away
Alexis had come back to Reddit in 2014 as executive chairman to help save it during hard times, alongside Steve Huffman as CEO.
Then came June 2020. After the killing of George Floyd, protests spread across the United States.
Alexis did something almost no founder does. He resigned from Reddit's board. He asked that his seat go to a Black board member.
He explained it as a father.
"I am writing this as a father who needs to be able to answer his black daughter when she asks: 'What did you do?'"
Reddit gave the seat to Michael Seibel, a respected Black founder and Y Combinator leader.
It was a loud statement, and it cost him something real: a seat at the table of the company he started.
Seven Seven Six
That same year, Alexis started his own venture capital firm. He named it Seven Seven Six, often written 776, a nod to the year 1776 and the idea of a new beginning.
776 invests in founders across tech, sports, media and climate. It also gave $100,000 grants to young people working on climate problems.
In 2024 Reddit finally went public on the New York Stock Exchange. The site Alexis started in a dorm-sized apartment was now a public company.
Rebuilding old rivals and new leagues
In his forties, Alexis keeps building in surprising places.
In March 2025, he and Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg, bought Digg back. Digg had been Reddit's big rival in the early days. The two former competitors wanted to rebuild it as a kinder community site. Its open beta launched to the public on January 14, 2026.
He also started Athlos, a professional track meet only for women. The first Athlos meet was held in New York in 2024, with some of the biggest prize money in the sport. For 2026, Athlos announced it would give winners equity in the league for the first time and move to London, with a meet set for September 18 at StoneX Stadium. In August 2026, he told athletes the New York meet would not happen this year so the team could go all in on London.
Where he is now
Today, Alexis Ohanian is an investor, founder of 776, co-owner of the new Digg and founder of Athlos. He is also a husband, a dad of two and one of the internet's most recognisable founders.
He does not run Reddit anymore. But he still acts like the student who was told no and kept going.
Why the story matters
Alexis Ohanian's life keeps coming back to one idea: a no is not the end.
Paul Graham said no to a food app, and Reddit was born. Early Reddit had no users, so the founders played the users themselves. He sold young, then came back when Reddit needed him. He gave up his board seat to make room for someone else. He bought back an old rival to build something better.
For young builders, the lessons are simple. Pick your co-founder well. Fake it until real people show up, then earn them. And remember that the power you gain is also a seat you can hand to someone else.
The word no gave him everything.
The Record
Born: April 24, 1983
From: Brooklyn, New York; raised in Ellicott City, Maryland, USA
Studied: Commerce and history, University of Virginia
Book: Without Their Permission (2013)
Built: Reddit (with Steve Huffman), Initialized Capital (with Garry Tan), Seven Seven Six, Athlos, the new Digg (with Kevin Rose)
Timeline
1983 Born in Brooklyn, New York.
2005 Graduates from UVA. Launches Reddit with Steve Huffman through Y Combinator.
2006 Reddit is sold to Condé Nast.
2010 Starts Initialized Capital with Garry Tan.
2013 Publishes Without Their Permission.
2017 Marries Serena Williams. Daughter Olympia is born.
2020 Resigns from Reddit's board and asks for a Black successor. Starts Seven Seven Six.
2024 Reddit goes public. First Athlos meet in New York.
2025 Buys Digg back with Kevin Rose.
2026 Digg opens to the public. Athlos goes to London.
Watch alongside this story
Short cuts from interviews, keynotes and launches. Each plays only the moment that matters.