The man who invented reddit wants everybody to follow their dreams.
Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian gave a talk Tuesday at the Fuqua School of Business to promote his newly released book, ‘Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will be Made, Not Managed.’ He discussed his experience running a startup that now accumulates more than 81 million views per month and provided words of encouragement to potential entrepreneurs.
“If you wanted to change the world in the Industrial Revolution you had to open a factory,” Ohanian said. “If you want to change it during the Internet revolution all you have to do is open a laptop.”
Ohanian invited students on stage to pitch their current entrepeneurial projects. One student showcased a mobile cartoon creator app named “dubbit.”
“We’ve only had one effort to demonstrate a live demo on this whole own tour...and it was an epic failure,” Ohanian said. “That’s proving so much of what I want to show with this book.”
Ohanian detailed his own humble beginnings as a middle school student who had recently discovered how to create websites. He began building websites free of charge for non-profit organizations he encountered on message boards that were unaware he was only a student. He described the experience as world-changing.
“Once I got a taste for what it was like to actually make someone’s day with something I created and an idea I had, it was like a drug,” Ohanian said.
He went on to study computer science at the University of Virginia with reddit cofounder Steve Huffman and called the ability to code the most important skill of the century, adding that he had never seen a skill so valuable and so freely available to learn.
Ohanian and Huffman created the idea for reddit in the midst of an LSAT prep course. From then on, the pair worked long hours under the guidance of Y Combinator programmer Paul Graham to make their vision a reality, encountering multiple major failures along the way.
“You always hear about the overnight success, but none of that is true,” Ohanian said. “Sucking is the first step to be sort of good at something. Just look at the first Iron Man suit.”
In addition, Ohanian explained the advantages provided to the younger generation by growing up with the internet and understanding its language fundamentally, peppering his speech with constant references to pop culture and various memes.
“We understand it in a way that the incumbents don’t,” Ohanian said. “They merely adopted the internet—we were born in it, molded by it.”
He provided multiple examples of individuals who achieved what would have been impossible without the Internet, including an elementary school teacher who raised half a million dollars in just a few weeks of fundraising.
Ohanian even took the opportunity to start a live Google Hangout with Duke alumni Kathryn Minshew, Trinity ‘08, who became a consultant after graduating but felt unsatisfied. She then created The Muse, a popular career advice and job search website.
Minshew shared many of her personal opinions on entrepreneurship, including the belief that more individuals should allow themselves to take risks.
“Don’t push yourself to have it all figured out,” Minshew said. “When you’re young you have that chance to say, ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’”
Audience members accepted the advice, especially those with similar goals.
Maria Klushina, a student at the Nicholas School of the Environment, said she is interested in using technology to improve society and is currently developing an app that uses photography to track environmental changes.
“You will start off and you will not know anything,” Klushina said. “Everyone will think you’re crazy. That’s when you know it’s a good idea.”
Ohanian’s presentation literally ended with a bang—his final words were accompanied by the firing of a t-shirt gun into the audience.
“If we can live up to its fullest potential, the internet will allow every single person here to live up to their fullest potential to be awesome,” Ohanian said.
He concluded by extending an invitation for the students to join him at Shooters II, where he would be spending part of his night.
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