Ohanian was born on April 24, 1983, in Brooklyn, New York. His mother was born in Germany and his father was of Armenian descent. Much like Bill Gates and Elon Musk, Ohanian excelled in school and graduated with ease from Howard High School in Maryland. He joined the University of Virginia, which is where he would meet his future business partner, Steve Huffman. Ohanian completed his degree in history in 2005 and worked briefly as a “waiter” at Pizza Hut. At one point, he was thinking about becoming a lawyer, but then everything changed when he visited Cambridge with Huffman to attend a lecture by Paul Graham on How to Start a Start-Up. Alexis Ohanian’s net worth wasn’t much, but that was about to change. Huffman and Ohanian first tried to sell the idea of “MyMobileMenu” to seed accelerating company ‘Y Combinator’ in 2005. The company liked the idea, but wanted Huffman and Ohanian to come up with a more original idea. They thought about it and came up with reddit.com, a social news and media aggregator where registered members could submit content. And if you say “reddit” out loud, then you understand how the name originated from the phrase “read it.” Y Combinator accepted the idea, and one year later in 2006, mass media company ‘Conde Nest’ purchased the site for $20 million. Ohanian remained involved in the site, sticking around on the board of directors while Huffman became the CEO. In 2015, Reddit became an independent company under Ohanian’s guidance. He ran the company until 2018 when he decided to turn his attention toward investing. And while Reddit blossomed and became the “front page of the internet,” Ohanian decided to confess his love for tennis star Serena Williams. Much to everyone’s surprise, the two started dating in 2015 and got engaged in December 2016. Their daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., was born in September 2017. Even though Reddit is valued at over $1 billion, Ohanian’s net worth sits at just $9 million because he sold his ownership stake in the company to Conde Nest back in 2006. We’re sure he’s fine with the $9 million though, especially since his wife Serena is worth around $180 million. They’re not struggling, that’s for sure.
