Reddit’s Steve Huffman: Online platforms ‘can’t just sit on their hands’

Masters of Scale

WaitWhat

Entrepreneurship, Business, Management, Reid Hoffman, Mindset, Diversity & Inclusion, Jeff Berman, Bob Safian, Startups

4.6 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 29 August 2024

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Steve Huffman, co-founder and CEO of Reddit, joins host Reid Hoffman to share scale lessons from building one of the internet’s most influential platforms. It took nearly two decades for Reddit to reach its IPO, persevering through ownership changes, swings in popular sentiment, and shifts in the site’s identity. Steve guides Reddit with a deep belief in the power of online communities, and he dives into how he tackles challenges – like AI and misinformation – while staying true to Reddit’s values.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi listeners, Jeff Berman here. I want to recommend another podcast for you.
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0:08.9	On weekdays, they cover the news that's moving your portfolio.
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0:25.5	podcasts.
0:26.3	There was things happening on Reddit that I thought were bad for business, bad for morale, and bad for the world.
0:39.0	And so that's when we had to start wrestling with hard decisions.
0:45.0	We couldn't say, hey, just everything goes.
0:48.0	I was watching it die.
0:50.0	Like we were there watching it eat itself.
0:55.0	This was 2015.
0:56.5	Steve Huffman, one of Reddit's co-founders,
0:58.9	had just returned as CEO after watching the site
1:02.1	he built from scratch scratch struggle to survive.
1:05.0	When I came back to the company, employees, they wouldn't wear our swag in public because
1:11.0	they didn't like what was going on and what was being written about
1:13.6	Reddit but then I would ask them. It's like okay if this is so difficult for
1:18.2	you, why are you here? Like why do you work here? And they'd say because I love Reddit because I love what it does for people because I know that 99% of Reddit is amazing and there's nothing else like it and
1:30.7	Reddit has changed my life and that's what I'm fighting to protect.
1:36.0	I was like great then let's protect that and so that's what we got to work on.
1:45.0	Steve Huffman co-founded Reddit with his college roommate when he was just 21 years old. In the nearly two decades
	...

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