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I want to be in an industry where the upstarts can grow and displace the incumbents, because that's why there's so much innovation.

Alexis Ohanian

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Alexis Ohanian
Age: 41
Born: 1983
Born: April 24
Entrepreneur
Internet Entrepreneur
Investor
Venture Capitalist
Brooklyn
New York
Kn0thing
Alexis Kerry Ohanian
Much
Upstart
Displace
Incumbents
Innovation
Industry
Grow
Grows

More quotes by Alexis Ohanian

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The Internet is such a tough marketplace because everyone is a click away from going back to a cat photo, or going back to whatever else they were doing. You have to win them over, and do it quickly, and do it by making something people actually want.
Alexis Ohanian
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I hate phone calls so I believe in a telephone armistice. To me, the idea of calling someone unprompted is basically saying, 'Hey, stop whatever you're doing and talk to me right now.
Alexis Ohanian
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Every founder has to delude themselves into thinking, Yes, it's going to be big. It's going to take over the world.
Alexis Ohanian
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The social-media landscape changes incredibly fast, so you have to be open-minded and nimble to keep up with it.
Alexis Ohanian
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At the end of the day, how many ads did it take to convince you to use Facebook or Twitter? It wasn't marketing or advertising that convinced you to use these services. It was their value.
Alexis Ohanian
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I think everyone should learn how to code.
Alexis Ohanian
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Let's say you're all worried about student-loan debt and you need to have steady income. That doesn't have to be your everything.
Alexis Ohanian
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If I didn't believe in rooting for founders and investing in founders, I'd be a bit of a hypocrite.
Alexis Ohanian
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The first step, and the thing that everyone has to do right on the Internet is make something people want.
Alexis Ohanian
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If you look now, more than ever new entrants, new upstarts, are able to grow so much faster than they could before.
Alexis Ohanian
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If you imagine Maslow's hierarchy of needs, if you can get all those requirements checked off and have all those amazing things that we need to just live lives, but actually get to do the thing that you're really passionate about.
Alexis Ohanian
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The best part of being an angel investor is seeing these kids coming up with companies that get way more traffic than Reddit had when we sold it. I think, 'Are you kidding me? They're just kids, and they've done so much.
Alexis Ohanian
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Being effective at social media, whether for business or personal use, means capturing people who have short attention spans. They're only a click away from a picture of a funny cat, so you have to make your thing more compelling than that cat. And that can be a high bar.
Alexis Ohanian
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Even if you have no interest in starting a company, having the experience of having ideas and doing them, that's muscle to exercise because that's what people are going to want to see. That's what makes you different.
Alexis Ohanian
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I guess if you include contractors that are six or seven people working on reddit, but when we got acquired there were basically three and then in the years since, we've added three more developer hires full time, and a community manger. But the site is still remarkably small.
Alexis Ohanian
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Because it's so empowering, I want people to think about being entrepreneurial regardless. They don't have to start companies, but that's what makes them great employees, that's what makes them great citizens.
Alexis Ohanian
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Raise $500 for a thing you care about because you actually get the experience of taking an idea and actually doing it. There are fewer and fewer excuses not to.
Alexis Ohanian
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No, everyone has great ideas, but what makes a difference, especially online, or just in life, is actually doing it getting that first version out there.
Alexis Ohanian
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The stage of investing that I do is seed stage, so it's really early. Here's a pair of founders who maybe have a prototype. They have a little bit of traction, maybe one employee, tops. At that stage, you really, really can only evaluate a company based on those founders and what they've been able to build. It's very, very team driven.
Alexis Ohanian
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I try to help founders as much as I can, but so many of us we won't even take meetings with people who still just have an idea, because everyone has an idea.
Alexis Ohanian