Steve Huffman

Huffman is the cofounder and CEO of Reddit, the self-proclaimed “front page of the Internet” and the sixth-most-visited website in the U.S. The Virginia-born entrepreneur and college roommate to Alexis Ohanian joined the first cohort of now-legendary incubator Y Combinator in 2005, but the pair’s initial idea—a food-ordering mobile app—was rejected. YC founder Paul Graham instead asked them to develop his idea for a news-sharing site, and poof—Reddit was born. In 2006, the site sold to Vogue publisher Condé Nast; Huffman left in 2009 before founding travel search site Hipmunk. Reddit meanwhile continued its march to digital dominance while preserving the web's founding spirit of subcultural experimentation. Success hasn’t been without difficult moments. Like much of the social web, Reddit has spent the past decade in various states of upheaval over how to manage content posted by users, particularly of the hateful or harassing sort. Related controversies led Huffman to return to Reddit as CEO in 2015. Though Huffman was initially criticized for taking a mild stance on hate speech, his line hardened over time, culminating in the 2020 ban of thousands of communities. That included one, The_Donald, that was both a major organizing hub for supporters of now-President Trump and, according to many critics, a cesspool of hate.