Reddit co-founder discusses Internet age

The Johns Hopkins Innovation Factory, the JHU Association for Computing Machinery and StartUP! Hopkins hosted Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of web platform Reddit, for a talk in Shriver Hall on Tuesday evening.

Ohanian came as part of a book tour, which will travel to 77 colleges throughout the United States and Canada, for his new book Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed. Though there was a long delay before the event got underway, Ohanian drew a large crowd that filled more than half of the auditorium.

Ohanian’s remarks focused primarily on the vast opportunities that the college-aged generation will have with the rise of the Internet. He urged the crowd to pursue their dreams and utilize the opportunities the college-aged generation has at their fingertips to achieve success. Ohanian highlighted the importance of being active in pursuing one’s ideas.

“The difference between those of us who just have great ideas, and those of us who change the world are the ones of us who are willing to do crazy sh*t,” Ohanian said.

Ohanian, dubbed an Internet entrepreneur, is primarily known for launching the social news website reddit.com with co-founder Steve Huffman. Ohanian has since gone on to create the social enterprise Breadpig and the upstart online travel company Hipmunk. He has also invested in a number of other Internet startups.

Ohanian began his talk by introducing himself and his companies.

“I’m the guy who starts companies with cute mascots,” Ohanian joked.

He went onto discuss the rapid progression of the Internet as a platform for knowledge, ideas and connections and how the information superhighway has excited him from a young age.

“As soon as I found out about GeoCities, I built my first website,” Ohanian said, about building websites at the age of 15.

He said that Hopkins students today have an advantage having grown up with the Internet. Ohanian, who described using the Internet as almost like being able to speak a different language, discussed how the college-aged generation is more fluent in the Internet than any other generation — even the generation that built the Internet.

Ohanian also discussed his time at the University of Virginia and the early stages of the development of Reddit.

“We are in a perpetual state of figuring things out, we are always to some extent hacking because we find ourselves in new situations no matter what. So whatever it is you want to work on, do not let not knowing what you’re doing stop you because that is how we all start out,” he said.

Ohanian discussed the many hardships and difficulties that he and Hoffman experienced as they launched Reddit, including the constructive (and unconstructive) criticism that they received. He advised students to start pursuing their big ideas as soon as they can.

“One of the best things you could do right is getting used to doing stuff and getting used to some of those setbacks. Launching your first Etsy store if you love knitting and trying to sell some stuff you’ve made, or doing a Kickstarter campaign if you’re excited about whatever it is you’re excited about making, or building that Android App you’ve always wanted,” Ohanian said.

At the end of his speech, Ohanian did an interview in the style of his video series Small Empires with Hopkins alumnus Ralph Gootee. A graduate of the Applied Physics Laboratory, Gootee has gone on to work for companies such as Sony Ericsson and Pixar. He is currently developing an app called PlanGrid.

Gootee discussed his trajectory towards PlanGrid, which digitizes construction blueprints. He also gave advice to students about pursuing their own unique ideas as well as the benefits of working for a startup.

“People, in general, have interests, and you have interests as well. Seek out other people with interests, work with them, build things,” Gootee said.