1. Alexis Kerry Ohanian is an American internet entrepreneur and investor.
45 Facts About Alexis Ohanian
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Alexis Ohanian is best known as the co-founder and former executive chairman of the social media site Reddit along with Steve Huffman and Aaron Swartz.
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Alexis Ohanian co-founded the early-stage venture capital firm Initialized Capital, helped launch the travel search website Hipmunk and started the social enterprise Breadpig.
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Alexis Ohanian's mother, Anke, was an immigrant from Germany and Ohanian spoke German at home as a young child.
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Alexis Ohanian was born in Brooklyn, New York City and the family moved to a Maryland suburb during his youth.
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Alexis Ohanian attended Howard High School in Ellicott City, Maryland and delivered a commencement address in 2001 at Merriweather Post Pavilion.
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Alexis Ohanian would go on to double major in history and business commerce and minor in German and has said, in retrospect, that he should have stayed with computer science given his work in technology.
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Alexis Ohanian says his obsession with technology started in middle school when he got a 33.6k dialup modem.
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At one point, Alexis Ohanian planned to become an attorney but instead walked out of a LSAT prep course and went to a local Waffle House in Charlottesville, Virginia.
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Alexis Ohanian passed but encouraged the duo to come up with another idea it could potentially fund.
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Alexis Ohanian continued to work closely with Reddit as a member of its board of directors.
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Alexis Ohanian returned to Reddit full-time with co-founder Huffman in July 2015 to lead the now-independent company.
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Alexis Ohanian stepped back from the company in February 2018 to focus on investing again.
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In June 5,2020, Alexis Ohanian resigned from Reddit's board, asking to be replaced by a Black candidate in response to the murder of George Floyd.
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In 2007, Alexis Ohanian launched Breadpig, an "uncorporation" that produces geeky merchandise and gives the proceeds to charity.
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Alexis Ohanian helped launch the travel search website Hipmunk this same year and now acts as an adviser.
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In June 2010, Alexis Ohanian launched Das Kapital Capital, which focuses on start-up investing, advising, and consulting.
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Alexis Ohanian was given the title "Ambassador to the East" by the early-stage venture firm Y Combinator.
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Alexis Ohanian held the role of part-time partner and full-time partner at Y Combinator before leaving in 2016 to help launch the third Initialized Capital fund with Garry Tan.
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In July 2020, Alexis Ohanian was the lead investor in a primarily female group that was awarded a new franchise in the National Women's Soccer League, the top level of the sport for women in the US The new team, later unveiled as Angel City FC, started playing in 2022.
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In June 2020, Alexis Ohanian ended his role as Managing Partner at Initialized, and in June 2021, Alexis Ohanian announced a new venture capital firm he is leading named "776".
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Alexis Ohanian co-founded Initialized Capital in 2010 and made seed investments in start-ups including Instacart, Zenefits, Opendoor, and Cruise.
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In 2020, Alexis Ohanian invested $4 million in Dispo.
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In 2017, Pao criticized Alexis Ohanian for avoiding the fallout by attending Wimbledon in the days immediately following Taylor's firing.
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Alexis Ohanian has created all of the mascots for the companies he started: Reddit alien "Snoo", Breadpig pig with bread wings, Hipmunk chipmunk "Chip", and Initialized Capital honey badger.
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In late 2010 and early 2011, Alexis Ohanian spoke out against Congress's Stop Online Piracy Act and the Senate's PROTECT IP Act.
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Alexis Ohanian helped lead the Internet-enabled campaign that eventually overturned the two bills.
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In October 2012, Alexis Ohanian teamed up with Reddit General Manager Erik Martin and embarked on the Internet 2012 Bus Tour from Denver, Colorado to Danville, Kentucky to campaign for the open Internet during the presidential and vice presidential debates.
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In May 2014, Alexis Ohanian began lobbying the FCC to support net neutrality, culminating with a day-long phone-a-thon with the FCC and Congress on January 15,2015.
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In early 2017, Alexis Ohanian worked with teenager Rayouf Alhumedhi to campaign for a hijab emoji.
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On December 10,2012, Alexis Ohanian teamed up with Lester Chambers of The Chambers Brothers to launch a Kickstarter project, with the intent to make a new album entitled "Lester's Time Has Come".
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Two years later, Alexis Ohanian raised $12,244 for the non-profit Black Girls Code on Tilt.
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On December 29,2016, Alexis Ohanian became engaged to Olympian tennis player Serena Williams.
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Alexis Ohanian has said that "watching Williams compete has changed how he measures success in business".
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In June 2019, Alexis Ohanian announced his plans to bring the pledge to lawmakers on Capitol Hill in late 2019 to push for passage of federal paid family leave legislation.
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Alexis Ohanian stated that "I hope to be meeting with many senators, representatives, plenty of dads on both sides of the aisle, in both houses of the Legislature, who want this to be the law of the land".
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Since 2022, Alexis Ohanian has been funding climate-related projects started by young founders via the 776 Foundation Fellowship Program, modelled after the Thiel Fellowship.
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In 2011 and 2012, Alexis Ohanian was named to the Forbes "30 Under 30" list as an important figure in the technology industry.
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In 2015, Alexis Ohanian was named to the Crain's "40 Under 40" list for business.
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In 2016, Alexis Ohanian was named one of Fast Company's "Most Creative People in Business".
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On May 21,2020, Alexis Ohanian delivered the commencement address at Johns Hopkins University, the following year was a commencement speaker at his alma mater, the University of Virginia, and in December 2022, was named a 2023 Money Changemaker by Money magazine.
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Alexis Ohanian published a book titled Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed on October 1,2013, which ranked fourth on The Wall Street Journals best sellers list for Hardcover Business.
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Alexis Ohanian embarked on a five-month, 150-stop and 75-university tour to promote the book.
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On October 15,2014, Alexis Ohanian launched the NYRD Radio podcast.
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Alexis Ohanian was featured on a livestream broadcast on January 28,2021 on Twitch.