Alexis Ohanian walked out of the LSAT 20 minutes in, went to a Waffle House, and decided he was ‘gonna invent a career.’ He founded Reddit
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Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian quit while a college student 20 minutes after taking the law school entrance exam, he made the life-changing decision to become an entrepreneur at Waffle House. Just months later, he and his co-founder received funding from Paul Graham, and the now $40 billion social platform was born. Reddit’s co-founders join the ranks of companies like Google, Facebook, and Databricks in putting their roots squarely in the college experience.
Many successful entrepreneurs have humble beginnings: Jeff Bezos started In the Amazon garage. Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook in dorm roomand Steve Jobs built At the Apple family home.
However, Alexis Ohanyanbeginning reddit It all started at his table 19 local pancake house.
The Millennial co-founder, a soon-to-be graduate of the University of Virginia in 2005, thought his graduate career was all planned out: Spend the next three years in law school and eventually land a high-paying, secure job. But just 20 minutes after taking the law school entrance exam (LSAT), he knew he had made a mistake.
“So I took the LSAT. I studied for it, I was preparing for it,” he said. ‘wired’S. Uncanny Valley podcast. “And 20 minutes later I walked out. I went to a Waffle House and decided to invent a career and become an entrepreneur.”
But waffles and hash browns weren’t enough to reassure Ohanian and his roommate. Steve Huffman— the current CEO of social platform Reddit — has been successful from the beginning.
The first business idea of two people in their twenties was to create a mobile food delivery business. They presented it to investors paul grahamwho then created Y CombinatorHarvard’s “How to Start a Startup” after skipping a spring break trip to Cancún to attend his class.
“We’re passing,” Ohanian recalled Graham saying over the phone. But the next day, Graham said he would pour money into the project on one condition: “Listen, we still don’t like your idea, but we love you, so if you’re willing to change your mind, we’ll fund you.”
Following Graham’s advice, they quickly set out to create a community-based social media forum, and Reddit was born. The company currently has more than 110 million daily active users and a market cap of over $40 billion.
“It all started with a Waffle House, and the rest is history,” Ohanian said. wired.
While it could be Generation Z questioning the benefits of going to university Altogether, without the college experience, Ohanian and Huffman would likely never have known or created Reddit; Moreover, this is an experience that is not unique to them. Many top tech geniuses met on college campuses and later went on to found world-famous businesses.
