The Armenian American entrepreneur who co-founded Reddit — one of the internet's most influential platforms — and went on to build a venture capital legacy while championing Armenian heritage and internet freedom.
Alexis Kerry Ohanian was born on April 24, 1983, in Brooklyn, New York — a date that carries profound weight for the Armenian community. April 24 is Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, the anniversary of the 1915 Ottoman massacre of Armenians. Ohanian has spoken openly about the significance of his birthday and his Armenian roots throughout his career.
His father, Chris Ohanian, is of Armenian descent, and Ohanian has credited his Armenian heritage as a source of pride and identity. He grew up in Howard County, Maryland, and went on to attend the University of Virginia, where he graduated with degrees in commerce and history in 2005. It was during his final weeks as a student that he and his college roommate Steve Huffman pitched a food-ordering startup to Y Combinator — and were redirected by the program's founder Paul Graham to build something bigger: what became Reddit.
Alexis Ohanian was born on April 24, 1983 — the same date that Armenians worldwide commemorate the 1.5 million lives lost in the 1915 Genocide. Ohanian has called this a meaningful coincidence and has spoken about his connection to Armenian history and memory throughout his public life.
In June 2005, Ohanian and Steve Huffman launched Reddit from a small apartment, with seed funding from Y Combinator. Reddit was built on a deceptively simple idea: let users submit links and vote on them, letting the crowd determine what rises to the top. The result was a platform that became the self-described "front page of the internet" — a hub for news, discussion, humor, community, and culture unlike anything else online.
Condé Nast acquired Reddit in October 2006 for a reported $10 million — a modest sum at the time, though Reddit would eventually be valued at over $10 billion at its IPO. After the acquisition, Ohanian remained involved but eventually stepped back from day-to-day operations. He left Reddit in 2009 to pursue other ventures, returned to the company's board in 2015, and then made headlines in 2020 when he resigned from the board in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement — publicly asking the board to replace his seat with a Black candidate.
"I'm going to use future gains on my Reddit stock to serve the Black community, chiefly to curb racial hate, and I'm starting with a pledge of $1 million to Colin Kaepernick's Know Your Rights Camp."
— Alexis Ohanian, on resigning from Reddit's board, June 2020After leaving Reddit in 2009, Ohanian co-authored a travel blog, launched Breadpig (a creative projects company), and became deeply involved in internet advocacy — most notably fighting against SOPA and PIPA, the 2012 bills that would have dramatically curtailed online freedom. He is credited as one of the key organizers of the internet blackout protest that helped kill both bills.
In 2012, Ohanian co-founded Initialized Capital with Garry Tan, one of Silicon Valley's most successful early-stage venture funds. Initialized invested early in companies including Instacart, Coinbase, Flexport, and Cruise — making it one of the best-performing seed funds of its era. In 2020, Ohanian stepped back from Initialized and launched 776 (named after the year of the first Olympic Games), his own solo venture firm focused on the intersection of technology, community, and culture.
Alexis Ohanian has never shied away from his Armenian roots. His father is Armenian American, and Ohanian has spoken about what that heritage means to him — the resilience, the entrepreneurial spirit, and the weight of history that comes with being descended from a people who survived genocide. The fact that he was born on April 24 — Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day — is something he has publicly acknowledged as a meaningful part of his identity.
Ohanian's platform and public profile have given him the ability to amplify Armenian causes to an audience of millions. He has used social media to recognize Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, shared content about Armenian history, and spoken about Armenian American identity in interviews. In a community where representation in tech and venture capital is still rare, Ohanian stands as one of the most prominent Armenian American voices in Silicon Valley.
"My dad is Armenian. I was born on April 24th — Genocide Remembrance Day. That's not lost on me."
— Alexis OhanianIn November 2017, Ohanian married tennis legend Serena Williams in a fairy-tale ceremony in New Orleans. Their daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., was born in September 2017. Ohanian has been a vocal advocate for paternity leave and working fathers, taking the full paternity leave available to him after his daughter's birth and encouraging other fathers to do the same.
Serena Williams's near-fatal complications during childbirth — which she publicly discussed — also made Ohanian a passionate advocate for maternal health, particularly for Black women, who face disproportionately high rates of maternal mortality in the United States. He has used his platform and resources to support maternal health initiatives.
Ohanian is based in Miami, Florida and remains active across social media, venture investing, and sports entrepreneurship.
Beyond tech entrepreneurship, Ohanian is one of the most recognized advocates for an open internet. In 2012, he was a key organizer of the internet protest against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (PROTECT IP Act), coordinating with Wikipedia, Reddit, and thousands of other websites to go dark on January 18, 2012 — a protest that reached over 160 million people and led to both bills being shelved. It remains one of the most effective online political mobilizations in history.
He wrote about these themes in his 2013 book Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed, which argues that the open internet has democratized opportunity and that ordinary people — not gatekeepers — should determine the future of the web.
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