Alexis Ohanian: Why Discipline Creates Freedom & How to Incorporate Routines in Your Schedule in Order to Succeed

25:15Well, look, early on, these really radical communities almost never exist. Certainly back then, because there were just fewer people online, you know, 2005 starting Reddit, I was just hoping it would work. There were so few people online actively creating content that, you know, for early years, it wasn't even a thing. It never even came up. And when it did, it was just an easy ban because it was a one-off post. I left, so sold the company in 2006 to kind of NAST, stuck around until 2010. Then I left, went, became a partner Y Combinator, started a venture fund. I came back in 2014 as executive chairman.

25:50And that was in the wake of a previous CEO infamously defending revenge porn. This was definitely read its nadir. And he'd written this infamous blog post defending keeping these horrible photos up. And that was not surprisingly, one of his last acts as CEO. And I was asked by the board to come back. I said, great. First thing we did, shocker, ban revenge porn. Pretty easy, very obvious thing to do. And then it was a task of one, rebuilding the business, rebuilding the faith, you know, with users, with brands, with everyone, and then starting to just modernize all the things. And then as this stuff started coming up, and once it got to the board levels, you know, I'll give the steel man version of the argument that I heard was, these are communities that are important because of free speech.

26:38And the one argument that I really didn't necessarily believe, I didn't believe, was around the therapeutic value of having communities like this for people who have PTSD, like soldiers or medical folks. And I pushed back pretty hard on that one because I just still didn't, I didn't believe that it was real. The probably the most elucidating takeaway for me was once a spotlight was shown on it, the thing I would have respected more, even though I disagreed with it, would have been taking that same argument and making it publicly and just saying, yeah, look, this is a free speech issue. We feel like this should be here.

27:16And even though I would disagree with it, I'd still respect that it was consistent, but we know that's not what happened. What happened was, okay, yeah, our bad. We're going to ban it now. And, and that for me was when I just, I realized, no, this isn't this. I can't, I can't spend, I don't know, however many decades I got left on this earth doing this and being a part of this. And I think the really telling thing in the era we're in now is we have the first generation of young people who are like in their early twenties who have grown up, like truly grown up on these social media platforms. And so it's exposed some of the most problematic parts.

27:54It's also exposed some of the most impressive parts, like the excellence of an 19 year old, 20 year old who's pitching me to start her company. She is orders of magnitude, smarter, farther along, just, just more impressive than I was at her age 20 years ago. And I think the internet has a huge role to play in that. At the same time, some of the stuff we talked about earlier, just trying to navigate an already really difficult time that is childhood, where your entire life is gamified, you know, based on how many followers you get, or how many hearts you get, or whatever else also brings out the worst.

28:28But for me, no, that was that was my breaking point. And I just realized, I, I, like I said, I can deal with, I understand you see this argument being made to this day. I respect that argument. And I at least appreciate when it's consistent. The inconsistency is the part that grinds my gears more than anything else. But we must also still accept the fact that, you know, the World Wide Web itself, the internet, is the totally open, free space. The difference is when we build any kind of social media platform, platform, whatever it is on it, we are ultimately deciding what belongs and what doesn't.

29:13We've all agreed that spam does not matter. Like we are all okay impinging on the free speech of a spammer. And that's a pretty easy argument that everyone agrees. So if we agree on that, then now we just need to agree on where we draw the line because there's no such thing as a totally free network because again, we've all agreed we draw a line on spam. So where else does it go? And like I said, for me, and I realize it's important for it to be a gray line, and I can go into all the, there's a myriad of reasons why it's actually really helpful to have it be a gray line. The short answer is if you make it a bright line, then toxic users will go right to exactly where that line is and say, great, okay, I'm just going to hang out here on this line and troll because that's how they get satisfaction.

29:57So it's actually beneficial to have the gray line. So I totally understand the gray line. And even our laws in the United States have a gray line that usually get interpreted by judges or juries or what have you. So that's helpful. But I think, and this is where the tech optimist to me comes in, when I look at the next generation of consumer social, these apps, and every app starts with teens, usually teen girls, college-age girls. They drive all online culture and adoption. You look at Instagram success. You look at Snap success. You look at TikTok success. It's the same story. then the apps that are starting to make traction and it's still early days but they're much less based even the ones that have blown up and fallen back down the b-reels of the world and some of these others they're all much less based on the sort of internet popularity contest and they're much more based on connecting with your actual friends um one that i recently seeded is called air buds and it's only about connecting over the music you're listening to and it's purely like Like this is the song I'm streaming right now on Spotify, react to it, vibe with it, share tastes.

31:01You know, it's, I think the culture has already now built up enough of an immune system that for this next generation, they're like, there's a pushback to the previous mold of social. And I think that alone will drive a much more healthy relationship to social media, but we'll see. But that is the lens through which we look at even making the investments. it's okay you know when my kids are old enough how good am i going to feel about this being a multi-billion dollar business that they're on yeah and and look admittedly you cannot predict that it is there are so many different paths a company can take any any idea can take from day one to 10 years out 15 years out 20 years out but we make the best assessment we can based on the founders based on their attention and have, like I said, the starting line that these founders are on today is much more sophisticated than I was as a first time CEO right out of college because they, like social media didn't exist.

32:00We had web forums, Facebook was still in colleges. There were a lot of blogs, like it was just a very different world. Today, any, any founder pitching us has lived on social media and they've seen the good and they've seen the bad. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I was going to ask you that actually is whether you, whether you decline investing in companies that you wouldn't let your kids use has it happened there okay there have been companies where we haven't even taken the pitch just because and again i don't want to i don't want to get too high horse about it no one's out here saying like okay i guess there were there was one company that i hard passed on whatever i can say it they were a telehealth business basically like handing out adderall and the business was growing very quickly, but there was no way they were doing it responsibly.

32:51And that was a hard, hard, hard pass. Like it was both from a, I wouldn't feel good about my kids using this also just from a risk standpoint. Like at some point the FDA is going to look at this and y 'all are going to have a bad time. Spoiler, the FDA did come down pretty hard on them, but we do, I guess I would take the, it's the more optimistic version of that, which is what I'd be excited to see this exist in the world that our kids are going to grow up in. And if it's a hundred percent reusable rocket company, which we did see called Stoke, hell yes, like a hundred percent reusable. So now you're talking about one, there's an environmental benefit to it.

33:23And two, the things we'll be able to do for all of us here on planet earth, when we have a much better, smoother relationship to low earth orbit will be very good for humanity. But there's a, there's a version for that, but it's, I think it's the, it's the more sort of positive lens. yeah the very interesting thing about founders today as well they are more sophisticated they also know just how big of a role technology plays in the world and and i know people would get on zuck for his like aw shucks behavior probably in the earlier days where he just it didn't it seemed implausible that he could not realize how much power facebook has and i will say to his credit, I think his tune changed on that.

34:07And also in his defense, none of us did the, the idea, if you had told me probably in, in most of the aughts throughout most of the aughts and probably even the early teens that these social media platforms would be among the most valuable businesses in the world, I would have been very, very, very, very surprised. And, you know, they made some smart M and a moves. They did the things, but like for all of us, or I can speak for myself, but I would wager Jack feels the same way with Twitter. In those early days, in those aughts, you know, it was about building something that you hoped people loved.

34:43It was about keeping the servers online. It was not about, well, what is going to happen if all of a sudden there is an election that could decide that there's an election whose fate could be decided based on whether or not a post goes up or not. Like it would be laughable to have that conversation in a boardroom 10 years earlier, because it's like, hey, we might die next month. The company may not be here next month, but credit to this generation of founders. Every one of them knows going into it, hey, technology is shaping far more than it. It's not just these are the most powerful companies in the world or in our economy, but there are repercussions to it.

35:19And I think by and large, we want the good stuff to win. But these founders today are much smarter about it. Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster, ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. I'm Radhi Dvlukia and I'm the host of a Really Good Cry podcast and I have the opportunity to talk to Logan Uri. Logan is a dating expert, a behavioral scientist, a best-selling author and someone who is seriously changing the way we think about love and dating.

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36:35They don't need to keep searching for perfection. Listen to A Really Good Cry on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Did you and the other founders at that time ever come together? Because I imagine you're the only people in the world who understand each other and understand what you're building and going through. Did you ever get a chance to - I was not invited to those meetings if they were happening. admittedly reddit was this very solidly tier two company right like we you know selling the company 16 months in was ludicrous but it was life-changing money this was 10 million dollars for 16 months worth of work i thought i was getting away with something this is nuts and then part of con and asked you know the trajectory just sort of changed from when you're an independent startup and so reddit was really solidly a second tier social media platform for over a decade and then it wasn't until, you know, so 2014, I come back and then probably by the late teens, once it's like, Oh, here, it's a billion dollar company.

37:30Again, the business is back. Let's, you know, there's a path to an IPO one day. Um, and so if those meetings were happening, it was not invited, but rightly so. I wouldn't have been, I, I get it. Uh, we didn't have our shit together, but there's probably, I don't know. I'm, I, I've gotten to know Jack a little bit. I don't really know Zuck um a few of the other folks around these other platforms but like there isn't I don't know it's not a group chat yeah there's not a reddit no there's not a reddit no I love it Alexis I want to you know even just listen to you now the way you think is is mind-blowing it's fascinating everyone's listening right now good it's probably uh tuned in to just, you know, I think it's always brilliant to dive into that mind.

38:19But I also want to focus on your personal side today, because I feel that a lot of what's not seen in entrepreneurship is we get to see someone's brilliance, but we don't often get to see their, the personal sacrifices, the journeys, the choices, the challenges that come with that until many years after. And I actually want to go even before Reddit, I want to go back to your childhood and i wanted to ask you like what's a childhood memory that you have that you feel has played a role in defining who you are today is there something that stands out oh yeah it's my first one of my first and earliest memories so i was probably like six five or six years old and so if you can't tell from the last name i'm armenian and my great aunt vera pulled me aside So my birthday is April 24th, which is the, it's the Armenian genocide remembrance day.

39:15So it's a conflicted day for me. But this particular birthday, I learned that it was the genocide remembrance day. How did I learn? I remember my aunt Vera pulling me aside and basically sitting me down and walking me through our family's story of survival in detail, talking about the costs, the toll it took, the things that her parents endured and what they saw and all of that, and basically how we got to America. And probably not a conversation you should be having with a six or seven-year-old, but our meetings, we keep it real. She basically finishes up this conversation saying, listen, Like, it's not a coincidence.

40:01Your birthday is April 24th. You are the product of all of their sacrifice, of all of their hard work, of everything that they endured. You have a tremendous responsibility now to make the most out of this life that you have. When I was born in New York, here in the States, like couldn't have asked for a better outcome, right? Generations later. But what they endured is something that you will have to carry for the rest of your life. Happy birthday. and and so yeah no that has never left me and and she was an amazing woman she was a public school teacher in Brooklyn didn't have any kids herself she was my grandfather's sister so my great-aunt Vera she didn't have any kids herself but she saved up as much money as she could she's the reason I could go to college I went to University of Virginia without taking on any debt she paid for that all and so amazing woman she framed that for me at a very very young age and so I am very fortunate I had an amazing loving mom I have an amazing loving dad I had the ultimate cheat code uh having that foundation you know grown up as a as a white dude here in the states at a time when technology was starting to rip my parents put some money together to let me get a computer all that stuff lined up and then it was imbued with this responsibility that I probably will never escape for better or for worse.

41:28It's always going to weigh on me. I'm never going to feel like I've done enough and I'm not mad about it. I'm grateful for it. Cause I think that brokenness has, has made me who I am and it helps me do the things I do, but it instilled something in me that I just feel a tremendous responsibility for. And, and so I, I don't know. I think I've probably spent, you know, I'm 41 now. I've spent three decades trying to earn that. And I still haven't. And I will probably spend three more decades trying to earn that. And I still won't. And it'll be a part of me that's always feeling not that it's not good enough, but that I have not done enough.

42:08And I know this is a story shared by plenty of folks who are descendants from survivors of genocide and whatnot. But oh, man, it just, it always hits and it's like I feel and it's this juxtaposition right because I go through my life largely stress and anxiety free right and and I'm aware of that and I'm grateful for that and then there's moments where I sit with it and I'm just like I can still hear I can still see Aunt Vera telling me this and and I'm like like keep going like do better like you're not you do there there is you have a responsibility. Do more. Needless to say, I'm being very careful with explaining.

42:49I want Olympia and Adira, of course, to be proud as Armenians. They're only a quarter, but they're still Armenian. They got the last name, too. I want them to be aware of this stuff and be proud of their family. And obviously, their mom is going to have some big, big stories for them, too. But I'm also trying to be mindful of the fact that maybe I'll wait until after. They're a little older to really go into the details of it. but uh you know it's these things shape us man and i like i said i i am i mean she could have just got me a normal birthday gift but but i'm still i'm grateful for it is on very still with us she's not she's not she got to see me graduate from college which was awesome she was there in charlottesville for that and uh yeah no it's wild i've never um I don't know.

43:36I think, you know, one of the big things I did a few years back was I joined the board of Robin Hood, the nonprofit in New York, and made a big grant to childcare there in the city in part because it was there in Brooklyn when my mother and father were working at the Ashland Place apartments there in Fort Greene. Aunt Vera would pinch hit and just watch me and stuff. So my, one of my parents were at work and all that as a little kid. And so childcare makes a huge difference. And, and we were lucky enough to have a family member just across, almost across the hallway and, you know, another building.

44:12And, uh, and so I wanted to pay it forward and that was an honor her. That was a tribute to her. But, uh, like I said, I'll be paying that back, uh, for the rest of my life for sure. That's beautiful. I love hearing that. And, uh, it must've felt so meaningful to be able to go back and serve there and have an impact there. I took my pops back too. And we were walking around the four greens chains a lot since the eighties. Uh, but the, the block is still there. And, uh, and it was great taking my dad through there, just hearing stories from him. And, uh, yeah, it's wild. Then you become a parent and you start imagining, you see this little person and you're reminded that you were that little person once to your parent and it makes your relationship to them feel very different.

44:51It's, it was a trip, but it was great to be able to come back. And I'll, like I said, I'm, I'm paying off those debts the rest of my life. Yeah, you were saying that, you know, maybe now in your life you can go stress-free and, you know, there are days where you're not feeling that. But in the beginning days of Reddit, it wasn't like that in your personal life. Yeah. And you've mentioned to me and, you know, when we were talking before we started recording this, there were certain things happening in your personal life when you began that maybe if you've revisited, you'd look at them differently.

45:22Could you walk us through what was going on and how you dealt with it at the time, first of all? Yeah, well, I dealt with it very poorly. But so for the first 20 years of my life, like I said, I mean, awesome. Like no real strife. I was ready to take over the world. Like I felt so confident in our ability to build this business, so excited. and gosh, like two months in to starting Reddit, fresh out of school. My then girlfriend who was a year younger than me, she was studying abroad. She had a pretty serious accident, big fall. She was in a coma. Fled out to go see her. She survived. She made a nearly full recovery actually.

46:05But the, like the first month, two months of Y Combinator was this. And you get that phone call and you're like, and again, I was very lucky. I never had a phone call like that before in my life. And you get that phone call and it guts you and you're on the first plane to Germany and you're trying to just make sense of the world, right? This person you love, this person you care about. And another month or two later, and then I get the call that my mom has had a seizure and she's been diagnosed with a terminal brain cancer, a glioblastoma multiforma stage four. And those words you don't want to hear.

46:41And, you know, the, that, that was really the crippling blow where, you know here was someone who i mean i had a like i said great relationship with my parents but like definitely a mama's boy and i was an only child what can i say i was pretty cool uh but no she was she was amazing and and the first thing i did when i saw her so i flew down to baltimore first thing i did when i saw her uh was asking her how are you how's everything going how are you feeling and her first response first words out of her mouth where i am sorry and i was like what do you mean you don't need a voice sorry and she's like well i know you're starting this company you're supposed to be a ceo right now you got to focus on on reddit don't focus on me and i know how much of a distraction this is going to be for you and and you hear something like that from someone who you love so much who's already given you so much man and and i thought i was like i'm the last person you should be you should not be apologizing to me right now like focus on yourself please like i'm gonna be fine you owe me nothing you've already given me everything.

47:44And that's emblematic of who she was. What it did was it gave me a confidence. I knew I there was no way Reddit would fail. No way. No chance I was going to let it. No way it could possibly not succeed. Because she she blessed it with that. She she really even in those situations still still was looking out for her little boy above herself. And you know, she fought for another three, four years. She got to see me sell Reddit, it had a lot, not going to lie, right? You know, in the grand scheme of tech, a$10 million exit is, is minuscule for 16 months worth of work, pretty good ROI. Uh, but to be able to make that call to my mom to say, Hey, your faith in me paid off.

48:24Like, what can I buy you was, was worth everything. And then true to form, true to form. Like I knew I was going to get my dad some season tickets, uh, for our local NFL team there in DC, true to form though. My mom was like, I don't want anything. I'm like, no, no, I'm not gonna let you do this. Come on, what do you want? She was like, I don't want anything. And I ended up making a donation for her to her favorite nonprofit. She was like, all right, if you're gonna have to get me something, you can do that. And I was so mad. I was so mad because I'm like, lovingly, I was like, God, there's no way I'm ever gonna top this.

49:01Like you realize you have set the bar so high that if I ever have kids, I'm gonna be chasing that goal. but that like i said that's who she was that's all she cared about she was uh she was an undocumented immigrant she was an au pair from germany who overstayed her visa because she fell in love with my dad this uh armenian american here in the states yeah they eventually got married had me um but she you know she worked the job she needed to work to pay the bills and do the things and her number one i mean her i think anyone would have told you the most important thing to her was her family and you know I was an only child so I got all the I got all the shine from that but that was the foundation man and and when folks want to know how or why or all this stuff man I pointed to her sorry dad you get some credit too but having that confidence having that support having that unwavering when I told her I told this woman I wanted to be a professional waiter in high school because I was so good serving at Pizza Hut.

50:02So I worked Pizza Hut in high school and I was a dishwasher. Then I was a cook. And then those deep, the deep dish pizzas are a sleeper. I'll make them at home now with the cast iron. They're good. And eventually I made it a serving and I was, I was pretty good. And my boss, Tony, he was like, Hey, you know what? Instead of going to college, I think you could do this full time. Like you're really good. And I was like, really? And he was like, yeah. And I was like, I could move to New York. And he's like, you can move to New York. You can make a great career out of this. And, uh, and so I remember going home and tell my parents, I was like, I'm thinking about not going to college.

50:32And the last thing you would tell an Armenian dad is that you're not going to go to college just to be clear. And my dad, to his credit, didn't say anything. My mom though, so sweet. She was like, look, whatever you do, I know you're going to be the best at it. I know you're going to work your hardest. Why don't you start with a budget and figure out what it would cost to live there and then how much you'll get paid and see if that's something you want to accomplish. And thankfully, my ADD brain switched pretty soon thereafter. But like, this was a woman who, no matter what, was going to support whatever I was doing.

51:03And then when it just so happened to be a tech startup, she was like, great. Literally the first person to buy our merch, the first person to post on, God, there are comments from my mom on TechCrunch circa 2005 that no one else would notice, but I know because I can see her username. time and and it's the most like crazy german mom english you can imagine but uh it's the sweetest thing and like she was a ride or die and so that was the that was the bar i had and so even when those things came up i just knew i can't quit now here's where i up was i mean intense compartmentalization and it was what i felt i needed to do at that time which was let me just use work as therapy.

51:50Let me just work my ass off because I cannot work anyone. And if I've got her pulling for me, I will crush any competitors. I know my co-founder wasn't really equipped to have those conversations or really be a support at all. But I mean, we were kids, right? And so I just decided work is the therapy. And for the next 10 years, you know really did not think about explore delve into anything other than i'm just gonna do my work and i'm gonna obviously i took as many air tran trips home as i could to spend time with my mom and dad on weekends but like let me not go any deeper than yeah here's this shitty thing i'm gonna compartmentalize it and just focus on the tasks at hand and there were areas look i i think compartmentalization gets a bad rap i do think there are areas where it's actually tremendously helpful, but with some, now my, my, my take is a little bit more nuanced where I think with some work, it's good to go into the box to rearrange some stuff, to sort through some stuff, to organize it.

52:54But I, I actually think there is a value to having some stuff in boxes and to compartmentalize because I also don't want to spend my days like reliving and rehashing and re just analyzing those experiences, right? I'm not doing her any favors, right? Her greatest joy was seeing me be successful as a CEO, as a startup founder, and whether it was Reddit or anything else, that's what mattered. And so it's a shame, right? She hasn't gotten to see me get married. She hasn't gotten to see me have kids. She hasn't, she'd been an amazing grandmother. She hasn't gotten to see me build a lot of businesses I've built.

53:29She's saw me though, live my dream. And when I decided it was time to build my own venture firm, I took the lessons from those days of Y Combinator because Jay, I agonized over a$200 plane ticket on AirTran to Baltimore because we only had$72 ,000 in the bank. We didn't raise that much money. This was a very different era. But even if we had raised the normal round today, maybe a few million dollars. I still don't want a CEO deciding, God, this is going to hurt our burn. Do I really want to take that trip? And we built a program in 2776 specifically to say there are tens of thousands of dollars a founder can use that we are paying for.

54:10It's coming out of our fees for their wellness, their development, any caregiving needs. Like we've had founders use this to pay for a babysitter and a date night with their partner. Awesome. We've had founders use it for, you know, therapy, for executive coaching, for surfing lessons, right? If it helps them find their focus, find their balance, be better founders, for early stage companies, that's often the entire business is the founder. And if Y Combinator had had a program like that, I think it would have made all the difference. And it's not to slight them. They didn't know what they were doing.

54:43They were building the firm for the first time. But I want to do 776 differently. And not because it feels good, but because I actually think it will drive better outcomes. It will mean better leaders, better managers, better founders, which will lead to healthier organizations, which I think will lead to more returns. And these are the ways that we're trying to learn from those experiences. And I speak with founders to this all the time, especially at the early days, but it never goes away. But especially at the early days, so much of the company takes on your neuroses, your like you are setting so much of the culture and don't even realize it.

55:19even just the way you show up on a zoom call, right? Cause you're the founder, you're the CEO, like you are dictating so much of how other people are going to move. And once you repeat those behaviors over and over again, what you've done is created a culture intentionally or not. And so your baggage, your challenges, the things that you're not addressing and working through to be your best are going to be inherited by your team. And, and that's, again, none of this is, this isn't, this is the soulless capitalist talking here, right? I think there's a, there's a fantastic emotional argument for it and a health argument for it.

55:51But I always try to come first from just the business argument, because if it makes sense for business, then it's a no brainer. Then obviously if it's going to be for your health and wellness and development, then you should do it. But, but I do think it has a bottom line impact. I really do. Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut book ahead, save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster, ParkWiz. download the park whiz app today and save every time you park what was the behavior you saw in yourself that you had to readdress or check yourself that you felt was seeping into the culture in any of the companies you've oh i got that so here i'll give you an example that'll illustrate it so like two years into con and asked when there's the meme in uh the silicon valley show of resting investing so normally when a founder gets acquired they just hang out of the company and just, they don't do anything and they earn out and then they leave.

56:48But again, not me crazy. Uh, so like, I want to keep shipping. I want to keep building things. And instead of actually making the case for the engineering team to go and build, in this case, it was a mobile app. So if you can believe it in 2009, 2010, there was this new thing called the iPhone. And some people were talking about how it was going to be the future of computing. Now I was one of those people who hook, line and sinker was like, this is a big deal. And if we're building Reddit to be like the destination for what's new and interesting on the internet, we need a mobile app. Now, engineering team did not agree, because the way things had always worked, it was fine on the browser, it worked great on the browser, the company was growing, why change it if it ain't broken.

57:28And instead of doing what I should have done, which would have been better leadership, which is actually bring folks in, win them over, make the case, get the buy in and then change the product plan. I just hired a freelance team to go and build it because I made a half step of an effort to make the case and do the right thing as like a mature manager. And when I wasn't getting the progress I wanted, my impatience and my relentlessness was like, we're just going to, I can hire other people to build it. We'll just build it. And it worked. We shipped it. Reddit had a mobile app called I read it and it was doing well.

58:02I was really happy with that pun. I hope people would say I read it on Reddit. I don't know if anyone's ever said that, but that was the hope. But then a year later, I leave, you know, the handcuffs had come off and fully vested. And then what happened? The app died because there was no one left to support it and there was no institutional buy-in. And so imagine four years later, five years later, I come back and now it's 2014 and everyone knows you need a mobile app. You have to have a mobile app. And the culture of Reddit is still solidly desktop is only what matters. Why do we need a mobile app?

58:34And I'm like, I failed. Like I failed. We had this five years ago and yet here we are. And we actually need now need to do it right this time, actually get the buy-in, actually bring in the folks, actually blow it. We finally shipped an app probably a year later, but it's that. So it was a, an unwillingness to actually lead. And it was a relentless desire to just keep moving forward with or without an actual team. And that is a terrible way to be a CEO. Terrible. It's something, frankly, I think I still struggle with in a lot of ways. I will never be hanging out on beach. I will never retire. I love the work that I do.

59:20Yeah. If I do it well, I get very well rewarded for it and that helps, but it's not about that. I love the work that I do. It's very satisfying. It's, it's something I genuinely would want to do all the time. And my wife knows this and you know, she's someone who knows a thing or two about relentlessness and hard work, but even she would admit and has has said on numerous occasions at the dinner table that like there's sometimes i take a little too far no way swear to god and i actually had i had an lp so one of our investors so about 10 of the money we invest out of seven seven six is my money but then 90 of it is from institutions universities all values aligned good folks and i had one of our lps casually be like oh hey i heard you were uh or i saw you were at the olympics looked like it was a lot of fun.

1:00:09And I was like, are you implying that I was just hanging out at the Olympics for two weeks? And he's like, no, it's the summer. I totally get it. Like, it's fine. But, and I, as I was retelling the story to my wife and she's like, I will literally call him up because they know each other. It'd be casual. And I will assure him that I have countless times complained about the fact that you're working too much. And I'm like, baby, you have from any, any partner that would be powerful, but coming from you, right. It carries a lot more weight. But the reality is I love this. And, and unlike being a professional athlete, right?

1:00:40I get to do this forever. As long as my, my brain's working, right? I have compounding that I get out of age and experience. And it's the, the unfair advantage of all of us who are not professional athletes is that we actually continue to compound the expertise over time and get to keep doing the thing that we loved in our twenties, in our thirties, in our forties, in our fifties. And it's a great blessing. and so yeah I have this and and I think the downside has been historically making sure I was either I was building teams and building organizations that were aligned with this. and and that was a big part of the decision four years ago to say okay you know caitlin who i founded 776 with she joined me early in the reddit turnaround almost you know that time was like six years earlier i know she's got the same whatever brokenness uh that relentlessness that hunger and and having a partner like her and then lizzie who also came over now she runs my foundation those are the folks i just want to spend the rest of my years building with and working with And that's not a judgment.

1:01:42Like y 'all got to find whatever you need. And, and I think one of the things that always gets so twisted because I am look hashtag business, dad, I'm out here making pancakes every Sunday for my girls. I do crepes on Saturdays posted on social. Yes. I've gotten into smoking meats lately and I'm very proud of that. But like, like all things on social media, you're seeing a curated version of the things, but the promise that I made to my kids is the same promise I make to my team, which is like, and sorry to my childhood friends, but I'm like, when I'm on the clock for work, I'm going to show up here the best way that I can.

1:02:20When I'm on the clock for my family, I'm going to show up there the best way that I can. And that's frankly, all the bandwidth I have in my life. And I think one of the areas I should be investing more into, and maybe there'll be a time, but it's the relationships I have with other men. And these are the guys I've known them since I was five. These are my best friends. We're in the group chat daily. We see each other now maybe once a year, twice a year, but I, and you know, I got to organize it. I organize a really proper guy's trip at least once a year. Now we've added a second one, but those, that's the one area where I know I've made a sacrifice and I've just said, look, this isn't a part of the equation anymore.

1:02:57We used to play video games all the time after school. We get off the bus, we go to Mike's house, fire up golden eye on the N64. Wouldn't do my homework. And, but that's, that's chats in my life that's closed. And now I have to make these trade-offs. And so when I always get a little miffed when people twist it as like, oh, this guy's not that serious. And it's like, no, like there is nothing wrong with caring about being the absolute best at work and also for your family. Those things should not be mutually exclusive. And I don't know how we created this myth that it had like, yeah, it sucks.

1:03:29There's no such thing as balance. You've got to figure it out. You're always never doing enough, but hell, modern women have had to endure this for quite some time now. And I think only recently has it come up for dads. But I'm glad it's getting talked about more and I'm fine with the juxtaposition. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I feel like that lack of presence bleeds into the other area anyway. So if you're at work and you're not present, you can't suddenly be present at home. And if you're absent at home, you can't suddenly be present at work because our mind doesn't have an on and off button that just switches on and off as quickly as that.

1:04:05And so hearing that makes a lot of sense to me. Why, why are those male relationships so important to you at this stage? Like, why are they valuable? And why does it feel like there may be a time where they're needed? Like, what would they serve you with? Like, what, how would that help you now? Humility. I mean, these are the guys who still like, they'll give me shit all day long. And that's great because I need it sometimes. and it's, it's helpful. Also knowing these guys for as long as I have, it's a hundred percent genuine and you see it, right? Like you get, as you find success, as you find fame, as you find wealth, there's a difference in the relationships.

1:04:48There's always this, like, is a little bit of a raised eyebrow. Right. And I, I know how, or I've seen how isolating that can be for folks. and I've never wanted that for me. And one of the things I've always appreciated is that these guys have been my best friends, like I said, since I was a kid. And when we get together, the only thing that's changed is that we're older. We got some money now, but it's the same bullshit. And they treat me exactly the same way. And like I said, it's a good humbling thing to have your friends talk shit to you on the group chat. I think male companionship is underrated.

1:05:26and like I said, it's the one area where I know I could be doing more work. Um, the challenges, a lot of us have young kids right now. And that, again, that's the priority. I think, I think it'll shift again when I've got teenagers and they no longer want to hang out with me. Uh, but all, you know, almost all of us have kids that are young and we get it and we'll bring, we'll bring the gang together, but we live in different places and it is what it is. and then candidly uh one of our guys adam suddenly had a heart attack and he was training he was the most fit out of all of us he was at the gym his heart gave out and and he passed on the way to the hospital oh my god and and then again you get that fucking phone call and you're just like no this is a joke like there's no way no chance no chance and that was a wake-up call for me and you know he didn't have children but we're all looking around each other at the funeral and again a lot of us with kids just thinking like christ like we we have to show up in such a big way for these little humans and you can't help but take it to that selfish place right and be like i deeply miss this guy and i feel like i owe it to him like i said he was the most fit of all of us this dude crossfit and i mean uh and adam was to his credit too man the guy always was down it did not matter what it could have been.

1:06:45Let's just go see a dumb movie on a Tuesday night. He always, always was a strong yes. And that mindset, and this is something I always try to take. And I've tried to tell founders this too, like, it's not my quote, but it's the one about the average of your five closest friends. And, and I think a lot about this because like, you know, my, these guys, we've all had very different lives. There are, I don't know if I'd start a company with any of these guys, but there are attributes about each one of them that I find really remarkable. And those are the things that I keep in mind when I'm like, one of the reasons I love staying close to you guys is I care about you.

1:07:24I love you. Like we've known each other through so much. We've, I, we've, we've done a lot together. We've experienced so fucking much. And, and there are still parts of you that just make me want to get better. and for adam it was the relentless commitment to his health and fitness and and i just i i couldn't help but think god i really got to get my life right and i started with the whole battery of tests and like i'm getting blood work ct scan doing all the heart like everything i can now and really rigorously i'm not a not a hypochondriac but i'm like i need to get some baselines i need to be checking up on this i need to actually be like making like thoughtful visits to the doctor fairly regularly.

1:08:09Cause like, and as a dude, you're just like, whatever you're, the cultures put some dirt on it and you're fine. And like, that's how I lived for 40 years. And, and that was the wake-up call. And I feel like I owe it to him. And so when I get up in the morning and, you know, I'm like, okay, drag my ass to the gym. I'm like, come on, show up, keep going, man. Like do it for Adam. It's a thing where now it puts a framing on all the times we get together because we know at some point it'll be the last one that someone is going to be there could be us and and so again we're not i mean look we're still doing the same dumb shit like we were at a brewery in baltimore last time like it's not we're not that sophisticated about it but i'll tell you what though we've gotten a lot smarter as we've gotten older i think we have gotten a lot better telling one another actually how we feel which is again this is a nuts thing for you talk to my 20 year old self?

1:09:05Like, would you imagine yourself having like thoughtful conversations about like life with your, with your guys? And the answer would have been no, of course not. Like we're talking about football or video games or girls, but, but that's been a nice part of getting older is now there's more depth to this relationship. Like we have true, true trust and intimacy. And we have this feeling like I can, I can literally tell this person everything because he's seen me at my best and my worst. And like, this is my boy. Right. And that unlock gives me something that powers me up for however long it is until I see them again.

1:09:40And when I think about what is missing right now, I think about all of the young men who don't have great role models and can now access any role model they want, but they are going to default to the junk food. And that's not a judgment. It's the same reason I really want to pick up the Snickers, right? Instead of whatever the better choice is. There's an intellectual version of that junk food that exists, which is not nourishing. It's not actually helping you grow. And, and it's trying to fill a void. You have a hunger for this thing. And I think men in particular, the shadow of all of the emphasis being put on women is that so little attention has been put on our young men.

1:10:27And I would love to see not attention taken away, but more attention found to be placed on talking about young men, supporting young men, because, and there have been, I was a, so I was briefly a Kiva fellow. So I volunteered for Kiva when I left Reddit the first time. So I was in Armenia working with entrepreneurs and it was amazing. One of the lessons they take away from that is women entrepreneurs anywhere in the world are a far better investment than men because the money that you invest in them that they use to help build a business oftentimes gets reinvested more often than not in the family, in the community, versus if you do it for men, some of the money goes to the family community, some of the money goes to the local bar, local establishment, whatever.

1:11:12Basically, investing in women in emerging economies just has a bigger impact on society. And it kind of tracks. It's a generalization, but I think we're sitting here going, yeah, okay, that kind of tracks. But then you go a step further and it's like, okay, under duress, and this is closely related, women tend to endure a lot better than men. And this is one of the reasons why when you look at prisons, you look at terrorist organizations, you look at when people are pushed to extremes, disproportionately men that end up not turning out well. So I think we have an imperative here where if we have a generation of young men who are feeling disillusioned, who are feeling demoralized, who are feeling this insecurity, this deep, deep, deep pain, like we all have an incentive to make sure that they're getting that high protein diet of things that will actually help them be better and actually give them a path towards self-improvement and give them a path towards being successful, viable members of society because unlike women, they're not going to handle that well.

1:12:13And, and so I can make the case from a, like a value standpoint, like, Hey, I think it's important to support these young men, but I also would make the case just from a societal standpoint, like it is in our best interests for, for public safety, for all the things to make sure we get those sort of that generation back on track. And I think it starts with conversations like this between high profile men who've had success in their careers, who can talk about and normalize a lot of this stuff. Because at the end of the day, if we don't have those examples, what else fills the gaps? And I don't like the alternatives that fill the gaps.

1:12:50And what's wild is, you know, I didn't really have, I very much broke into tech and business and learned a ton. And every time I keep going up, and I tell the guys this all the time, I keep leveling up, right? And I keep meeting new people and sort of getting another peek behind the curtain of like how the world works or how business works and all that stuff. And it's been eyeopening because like there's shit. I would, if I just could tell my 15 year old self, be like, don't do that. That's stupid. Like, like there's actually a smarter way to do that. Um, and I hope to always keep feeling that to some extent, but as I keep doing that and keep meeting more and more folks, I have yet to meet one who doesn't have this level of introspection and depth.

1:13:32And it's, it's, I'll tell you, it's most telling among the billionaires who are now grandparents, men who have achieved everything you could hope for in business, doesn't matter the industry, who are looking at their grandkids as a second chance because they didn't get to or didn't want to or weren't interested in or whatever we want to call it, spending that time with their own kids. And they're so grateful for that second chance. But I keep looking at all these stories from men who I really, really, really respect. And the ones who feel like they've had the most fulfilling life all keep coming back to human experiences they have with loved ones, with family.

1:14:08And like I said, I got a much smaller scale version of that with my own mom who never wanted for anything. And when you get to spend time with folks who have a few years left to live, it becomes very telling, especially to do it in my 20s, full of all that youthful vigor and invulnerability, to get humbled and see someone who does not care for anything other than the experiences she had and the humans she loves, bro, I, that was probably one of the greatest gifts she could have given me was that perspective. So that when I did find wealth, when I did find notoriety, I'd be lying if I said, it doesn't affect me in some ways.

1:14:47Sure. It affects me, but I have never, never gotten it twisted about what actually mattered. And I've never wanted for notoriety or fame. I've never wanted for wealth. I've wanted for things that helped me get more time with the people I care about and make me feel like I'm living a fulfilled, like a fulfilled and purposeful life that's providing value to people. And that was a gift she gave. And so I don't know, the more that we can normalize this stuff, especially among folks. And I say men in particular, but all people, but especially men who have reached the highest levels. I want that 18 year old or that 16 year old, that 12 year old to be watching or looking going like, Hey, all right, these guys are talking about stuff that feels like it has substance it has meaning it has purpose and there's still the ass kickers in the day job whatever it is across the industry like these things are not mutually exclusive and uh i just i i want to see more of those voices like yours get amplified because it's i think it's very very important and i love that what you said that juxtaposition again the ability to be a killer in the workplace a brilliant leader a powerful individual and at the same time being able to be empathetic compassionate vulnerable that that's the that's the power is always in the juxtaposition right you look at it in anything whether it's a community a company an individual and i think a big part of that going back to what you've been talking about is also seeing men's relationship with their wives like i think that's a big part that for years when we're talking about the lack of role models or the lack of the ability to look at Yeah, and demoed a beautiful connection in front of you that you got to see with you and your wife having such busy lives, having priorities, both of you professionally, partnerships, places to be, travel, and then you've got kids.

1:16:37How have you found a way to prioritize each other with the million things going on? That is at the crux of, of, I think every conversation we ultimately have as a couple, which is, it's funny. I'm very obviously high tech. She's very low tech. Um, sometimes it literally comes down to calendaring and making sure, like if I had my druthers, it would all be digital. Um, I finally got Serena to modernize a little bit. And now we have a giant, um, like a dry erase board calendar that sits at the dinner table where she'll put in her schedule. And then I have to go and usually I'll take a photo of it to send to my admins.

1:17:21And then we'll write in mail. But at least we have one shared space where we know like, okay, Papa's out of town for this business trip. Mama's going to do this thing. And it is the hardest thing. It is explicitly creating date nights. I mean, it's funny. It's the same tactics that you'd hear any couple talking about with a therapist about like, hey, what are the ways to keep the relationship going, the romance, all that stuff? And it is definitely amplified in all kinds of ways with a higher profile relationship. But the other reality is, so Serena's been working since she was a kid, right? Like tennis was not, I mean, it is a sport, but like it's a job, right?

1:18:00The amount of hours she was putting in, the responsibility, as soon as she started like playing, like playing, playing was tremendous responsibility. So, you know, I'm married to someone who has been working for 35, 36 years and who had a childhood. And I think Serena would say like, was a great childhood, not a normal childhood, but now she's evolved her word into, you know, she's still got businesses, just launched this beauty brand when shameless plug, great brand. And, and so she's still doing business things. She's investing, but she also loves, I mean, she's her class. She's the classroom mom for Olympia.

1:18:42She gets to spend so much of her time now being an active and super engaged mom for her kids. And I can't help, and I've told her this too, can't help, but feel like this is a chance for her to, she's on the other side of it now, but to live that life that she didn't really have, which was, you know, where your number one job as a kid is just to go to school, learn things, hang out with your friends. And who knows if Olympia keeps going with the tennis or the golf, we'll see, but, but she's relishing that opportunity. And so that helps me a ton because right. That's ironically, that's the thing that I grew up with the boring, typical suburban lifestyle that most people in my position, myself included, will spend a lot of their lives trying to maybe not get or run away from because they want something else.

1:19:32And yet here she is having gone to the top of the mountain, achieved everything. And that's actually the thing she loves most. And so how we make it work, it's all, it's the banal stuff. It's the like making sure we prioritize, it's trying to figure out and also decoding the differences. Obviously we're an interracial relationship. I don't think that'll surprise anyone. And as a white dude married to a black woman, you have a societal gulf, right? Between us in terms of the ways we've experienced our lives, right? In the American hierarchy of things, like, you know, we have very different lived experiences.

1:20:09You set aside, obviously, the fame, notoriety, career stuff. But like, even if we just operated this life as two random people with our makeups, we'd have very different points of view experiences, all that stuff. And it's probably the hardest and best element to the relationship where like the table stakes are, we love each other. We've made two incredible humans together. We will do anything. I mean, believe me, the two, she, I, she jokes that I'm like the psychopathic dad. Like there's an Armenian dad meme in here, by the way, like we're very protective of our kids, but she's super mama. So like we have things that we care so, so deeply about that we know we're on the same team for.

1:20:54And so it's probably the best way of all the ways to be checked on like a blind spot, let's say it's best to have it come from someone who, you know, cares so much. And that's where the growth happens. That's the tension. And so like, if I say something or do something, and nothing crazy here. But like, if I say something or do something, and she's able to shine a light on and be like, Hey, did you notice blah, blah, blah, or Hey, this is like, bringing up these things to help me have better awareness, because look, I got two black daughters, I want to make sure I'm showing up the best way I can for them.

1:21:32It helps because I still feel that pain, because I'm like, I'm not a racist, I'm not a bad person. But then you sit with it for a second, you're like, okay just hear hear this feedback right and and it reminds me it's just like going to the gym you're pushing some weight and you're trying to get to that next level and it's gonna hurt because that's where the muscles tear but that's where it grows back stronger and so i feel the same way when i take that i'm like okay fight the impulse don't be defensive and just listen and hear and try to understand and and i will say though it's and i've talked to other folks in interracial relationships, it is definitely, there's a dynamic there that creates new challenges, or even I think any cross-cultural relationship creates those challenges.

1:22:13I bet, I don't know if I was, I guess I'm a weird mid-Atlantic guy, but the difference between me and even a white person from Appalachia is going to have those cultural challenges, right? But across those lines, that's where you get, again, with a relationship built on love, you get this opportunity to say, okay, like, let me try to learn and try to be a little better that I think helps. But like I said, it's probably the worst part is the dynamic. There's a reason we live in the middle of nowhere, Florida. Like I love being here in LA, but like, I think we live in such a weird culture that, that, you know, the celebritization of things is just, it's different.

1:22:55And, And one of the things that we always wanted for our girls is for them to have, I mean, they're not going to have a normal life, but to not be living in it. And to have the ability to do that from, you know, sort of the middle of nowhere, Florida has been probably the biggest secret weapon. What did you, what I love though, is the awareness you have of the upbringing you had and how that's impacted you now with you wanting the opposite and how the upbringing she had. Yeah. And I, and I love that awareness because it's such a subtle point, but it's such a powerful one because it sounds like you both accept why you're wired the way you are, because I think it could be really tempting to project and hope that, well, you know, Alexis has achieved everything too.

1:23:43So shouldn't we both just let everything go and just be home with the kids or you to be like, well, you've achieved so much. We should just be going for the next mountain. Like, Which I think we do a lot with our partners where we reflect what stage of life we're on. Like I remember when my wife and I first met, I was ambitious and driven and she was definitely the homemaker and curator. And then as I've become more set in my world and have more time, my wife's career is like really taken off and she's really found her purpose. And it's amazing. But I just love watching her flourish. So even though I have more free time to be able to spend together now than I did eight years ago, I recognize that watching her grow and watching her thrive is actually the most inspiring thing.

1:24:33And now that just because I have more time doesn't mean she has to adapt and adjust around that. And so - I love that. Yeah, I find it's a really, but it's such a common thing I see where it's like, I wish you were at the stage of life that I'm at. And that seems to be the hardest, most impossible thing to demand. You know, the challenge I had in previous relationships, the general theme was, I knew I was super ambitious. I was very upfront about it. But it still doesn't really land until three months in, six months in, nine months in, and you realize, oh, this guy is not going to change. and and it seems like a fun thing for a little bit and then at a certain amount like eventually push comes to shove and and there's a gap because they didn't get it and and i again i i don't think it's a right or wrong here but it's a it's an incompatibility yes and part of what attracted me so much to serena was the fact that i knew we would never have this conversation about like well why do you have to do this thing or why is this so important or like why what do you mean you have to get this done tonight.

1:25:38Like that could never happen because of everything she had to do in order to achieve the heights that she had gotten to. And so that to me was already very appealing because I was like, okay, this is table stakes. I have found someone who has clearly even more ambition than me who has achieved so much. And in a way, so I don't know if I'd say the same thing if I were an athlete, I think that might've been harder, but to be with someone like Serena, right? That's like literally one word. Like you, you don't even need to say her full name. It is tremendously liberating because I know, and also because of who we are and where we come from, Jay, there is literally nothing I could do.

1:26:20I could one day, God willing, I will be a billionaire. I will never run for president, but let's say I could be a billionaire who runs for president and I'll still be Serena Williams' husband or Serena's husband, right? I could be, I could, I could be an astronaut. It doesn't matter. It literally does not matter. And, and part of that is a testament to like where she started, where she got, what she did, all those doors that she opened, all those things. And so in a way it's kind of liberating as a super ambitious person, especially in a society where like it's a meme just to literally say, oh, that guy is comfortable being called Serena Williams' husband.

1:27:02Now, candidly, if we live in ideal world, no one is anyone's anyone, right? But I do appreciate, I understand why the internet finds that really exciting and interesting. But the bigger story here is the fact that if you have this kind of partnership you're talking about, you're able to let one another flourish at those things at that time when they're ready and maybe I didn't see it maybe maybe I missed out on some great relationships earlier because it wasn't there at that time but at the end of the day one of the best parts you know dating Serena while she was winning grand slam after grand slams breaking every record doing all this stuff with Olympia in her belly I might add you know the pinnacle of sports excellence and then also seeing her now like making cinnamon rolls for the second grade class like both of those things bring me so much joy and frankly i love seeing the latter more because it doesn't come with all the baggage of being the public persona that you just have to endure doing that job and i know she doesn't miss it at all for those same reasons uh and i think that's i don't know that's been why it's just i don't know been been an easy transition for her uh and and frankly been a lot of fun to see this evolution for me.

1:28:16How did you meet? Six months into the Reddit turnaround, I was burnt out and my head of comms said I needed to go. She was like, go to Italy. And I was like, what? And she was like, there was a speaking gig that wanted me there. And I was like, sure. I was like, wait, no, but this is a boondoggle. Like there's no point. We're not ready to like win over marketers. She's like, just do it, please. Like you need a day or two, just go. I was like, all right, fine. I go, I flake out on the conference that first day, and I just find a cafe, and I started doodling, working on some sketches for product stuff.

1:28:49I meet up with a friend of a friend, very random. They just walked in, and they're like, hey, can we use the table? I'm like, sure. We'll get some drinks. We're out that night until like 3 in the morning. And I get home, hungover the next morning. I need coffee. Addicted. Go downstairs. They say, sir, breakfast is over, but if you want coffee, you can go sit by the pool. I go sit by the pool. I take out my laptop. And there's a table next to me. There's an Australian guy at the table who tells me to move. He says, there's a rat at the table. I say, I'm not afraid of rats. I'm from Brooklyn. I see rats all the time.

1:29:21He's like, I might. There's a rat. You better leave. And I was like, no, thank you. I'm good. And I was just working. And then the lady next to him turns around. It's Serena. And she's like, oh, you're not afraid of rats? I'm like, no, not. If you don't bother them, they won't bother you. And she's like, oh, you're here for the tech conference? And I was like, I am. And she's like, you here to see someone speak in particular? I said, no, I'm speaking. She was like, oh. She's like, what's your company? I was like, Reddit. And she lied. She was like, oh, yeah, Reddit. She'd never heard of it. And we started talking.

1:29:51And she said, listen, the rest of my team was going to use this table. So can you just move when they get here? And I said, no. But they can join me. And we'll all just have breakfast. And so exchange numbers. And I saw her play later that night in Rome. And that was the start of it all. So it's breakfast at a hotel, the Cavalieri in Rome. Great breakfast. Wonderful truffle omelet. If you want to get the Alexis special, it's the truffle omelet. It's a great, great omelet. Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead. Save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block.

1:30:29Park smarter. Park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. I love it. Alexis, thank you for sharing that. Of course. It's beautiful to, you know, just even how you're speaking about your wife. And again, going back to that point, we were talking about having positive conversations in that way of, you know, what a healthy relationship looks like. Challenges, ups and downs, difficulties, of course, with any relationship. But, you know, one of the things that I wanted to ask you about that before we get to the end of our conversation is this idea. I mean, you were very humble a few seconds ago and it's beautiful to see you have reached, you know, you've created something that in and of itself is a word, right?

1:31:13Like it's like Reddit is recognizable, used, it's in pop culture, like it's everywhere. Like you've built something that is fully recognizable, let alone recognizable, just everyone knows what it is. And then Serena has this incredible success, of course, no need to explain. How do you both think about defining success for your kids and the pressure that obviously will naturally sit on them with whatever they do? And then how do you think about defining success towards your futures as well, together and as individuals? because you've both had an experience so much success? With our kids, it's the cliche.

1:31:57You want them to be happy, productive members of society. I mean, I'd say the other wrinkle I'll put on there, and I tell Olympia this all the time, and I will tell Adira. Again, she's just one, but she's doing her best. She's an active kid. Yes, at six, I'll sit her down. But whatever they want to do, I have zero tolerance. I should say we have zero times for them not trying their absolute best. Again, I know that seems cliche. Like I don't even let Olympia say can't. We'll see how long that lasts, but I will not let her say can't. If she says can't, I'm like, what was that? We don't, we don't say that word.

1:32:33I like that. Because I don't, I don't even want her uttering that she can't do a thing. Like you can choose not to do it, but we don't say that. We don't say that word. And I try to reiterate to her. I want her to love the act of trying. We used to do, there's a, there's a YouTube channel. There's a few actually that'll do these drawing classes and I'm pretty good drawing. I made the Reddit logo snoo. I drawed pancakes and, and during COVID I was like, Hey, we're going to do drawing class. Papa can do art class. I can do math and English, but art's more fun. So we're going to do art classes together.

1:33:07And you know, early on, she'd be like, wow, Papa, you're really good at drawing. And I'm like, do you think I was born this way? And she was like, maybe. And I was like, no, it's like Papa practiced. Papa drew a lot. And I want, even for mundane things like, Hey, we're drawing princess peach. I, I desperately want her to take only one thing away, which is even the stuff you think your Papa is great at. He sucked at when he started, even the things your mama is great at. Maybe she didn't suck at when she started, but like she had to learn. She was bad. She, she had to get better. You might have some natural inclinations here and there for different stuff, but I want to see her get comfortable with failing and struggling and then improving getting her into golf has been open i had never played golf but uh uncle tiger gave me some clubs for her so i was like olympia you got to play golf now and uh and we go to lessons every sunday and that that actually has been a great sport for humbling and for getting her comfortable with the process because it's such a oh it's the most patient and you have to get comfortable with with failure and messing up and she'll still, it's funny, she'll whack it 100 yards.

1:34:13I'll be so proud of her. And then she'll totally whiff on a ball. And once she got so upset, she almost pulled the Serena. She pulled the club up and was about to smash it. I was like, Olympia, she just casually put the thing down. I was like, oh, you got that Serena in you. But you see that and you see she's got that tenacity and she is so hard on herself when she doesn't get it right. But I need her to sit in that and soak that up and get okay with it so that whatever she does, again, if she, it changes every week, veterinarian, fashion designer, right now she wants to be a singer. I'm like, I don't care what it is.

1:34:48You just need to know. I'll like you want, you love that Beyonce video. How many hours do you think Beyonce spent rehearsing the dance moves, rehearsing that song, singing over and over and over and over, like do not get seduced. And I, it's crazy. I, I don't know. I, I did not have anyone like sit me down and tell me that, that explicitly and maybe it just ruins, maybe just ruins life. We'll see. But I need her to know anytime she sees excellence, the only reason she's seeing is because of countless, countless hours of trying and failing and practicing that led up to it that no one saw, that no one cared about.

1:35:23And, you know, with her mom, as an example, she's got the goat of a role model and she does do tennis now twice a week. I think, I mean, she's got some good athletic genes, let's be honest. No, but she might, I don't know. If she plays sports, the goodness is her mom will be able to have a conversation with her early on about just what it's going to take. And if she wants to do it, God bless, we'll support her. You know, but I'm not worried. It's weird. This is not a thing. Okay, when I was a kid, I used to be pretty, I don't want to say anti-rich people, but like I distinctly remember going to UVA.

1:36:02and I went to some good public schools in Howard County, Maryland. Like they were fine, they were solid. But I got to, I played football with kids who had free lunches and kids whose parents were lawyers. So I got exposed to a pretty decent range of kids, which was great. And then I got to UVA and I finally met like rich people. And I was so excited because I was like, these kids are so soft. I was like, this is going to be great. Like, this is my competition. like this is phenomenal and and it tracked but i now i'm like on the other end and i'm not trying to it's not for sympathy here but like i there is i am much more appreciative of the challenges that wealthier families have making sure their kids have have it have that grit have that whatever you want to call it and so that's something we're acutely aware of and mindful of and hoping for and Like I said, I want Olympia to work either.

1:36:56It's got to be either a retail job or food service, like some kind of service job for sure. Like high school, like it's good enough for Papa is good enough for you. Like I need you to experience these moments and feel some kind of connection. Like you're going to have, you're going to be fine. Right. But I need you to be a productive member of society. I need you to be a good person. I need you to know the value of a hard day's work. And, and like I said, it's a weird thing to navigate. obviously serena doesn't have any kind of uh equipment for that uh and and everything her parents put up with in order to give her that life like it's it's a wild perspective but that's it's something we actually think about and talk about quite a bit and the good news is you know at least olympia adira adira's fun too uh they're tracking to be good humans uh which i feel like is number one and that if they can be good humans who are also productive members of society like I feel like we're living the dream.

1:37:51But there is that part of me that just thinks you want to create just enough of that strife to create that resilience and that ability to thrive. And it's so ironic because if you look at so many of the stories of excellence, there's always some version, there's some part, there's some thing that happens that creates it. And it's usually strife. And so it's like, on the one hand, you don't want to, like part of the reason you did the thing was so that your kid wouldn't have to endure the thing. And yet you still find yourself saying, God, I just kind of wish they would have to endure some of that strife.

1:38:25Uh, but it's, I mean, like that's, to me, that's actually been one of the most satisfying parts of, um, fatherhood is, is seeing your kid fail and then seeing your kid get it right. I get so much, there's so much more of a high from that than seeing my kid get it right. the first time, I really enjoy, and I'm not sadistic. Like, it just feels so much more satisfying because you're like, okay, that actually feels like a moment where you, there's some part of you that just like a synapse fired and some line, some dot in your mind connected with this other dot where it's like, okay, I figured it out.

1:39:01I couldn't do it before. I can do it now. And it could be, right now it's like multiplication. And it's just being able to start to see those dots really connect that I just, I love. it's very satisfying it's like a pokemon uh evolving in front of your eyes i love it alexis it's been such a joy honestly this has been amazing just learnings from you from whether it's tech to ai to fatherhood to brotherhood to love this is great this is great you're very kind i appreciate that but uh alexis we end every on purpose episode with a fast five okay or a final five, which means every question has to be answered in one word or one sentence maximum.

1:39:44Okay. So Alexis, these are your fast five. The first question is what is the best life advice you've ever heard or received? Be useful. It's Arnold Schwarzenegger quote. Sorry, Arnold. I like it. Second question, what is the worst advice you've ever heard or received? Oh, I didn't take it. Do I have to have taken it? No. Paul Graham told me to get rid of the Reddit alien and change the name to Octopop. And I said, no, I'm keeping Snoo and I'm going to keep calling it Reddit. And that was a good decision. It worked out. Octopop, would you all be using Octopop right now? No, come on. And he wanted to change the alien to an octopus.

1:40:21I'm like, Paul, come on. We're not doing that. Brilliant guy. Just not great with the branding. No, that. Question number three, if there's any other business dads listening that are struggling with the business and being a dad and trying to manage it all, what would be your advice for them? Aside from listening to my podcast, the good news is there are more avenues than ever because there are more and more people talking about this than ever. What book are we reading tonight? Like, what are you most excited about? And then when I'm on the clock for weekends in particular, I really try to lock in.

1:40:54And so it can be whatever you need to do. Obviously, your family is going to have different prescriptions, but create those traditions, create those routines. and that's one thing I would give advice to myself at 20 about over again when I had more free time when I had more youthful vigor if I had more discipline I would have been 10 times more productive yeah and and it shows up in sneaky ways if if I had gone to bed at midnight because I knew like my I was diminishing marginal returns of my productivity were falling off a cliff and just gone to bed, slept for seven hours, eight hours, and then woken up and done the thing, I would have done it in 20 minutes instead of staying awake for another two and a half hours.

1:41:37Like, no, that's not actually the best use of your time. And, and discipline is freedom. And I never would have believed that in my twenties or even in my early thirties, but becoming a parent, that's the only way I'm able to do these things. And that's not to say I'm perfect, but if you can incorporate ritual routine, even before you have kids, you're going to be even better at what you're building. And then once you have kids, it's, it's kind of the only way to do it. Uh, frankly, I love it. Uh, question number four, how would you define your current purpose? My current purpose is enabling a whole nother generation of entrepreneurs to do even bigger and better things than I did.

1:42:17I love that. That's such a great answer. And I mean, it look, it's, it's also, you sleep a lot better at night cause it's not your ass on the line for every one of those companies too. So it's a, it's a blessed position to be in. I love it. And fifth and final question we ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show. The question is, if you had to create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be? Okay. I, this one I cheated and I wanted to have one prepared. That would have been a good idea. But I think the, the, the best thing I came back with was a joke, which was, you know, everyone should be able to experience the joy of making someone they truly love happy.

1:42:55You talked about this earlier. Again, it's not really a practical law. No, I like that. But I have never felt more satisfied or happy or richer or taller or what I've never felt more any positive feeling you could feel than when I get the unsolicited, I love you, Papa hug from my daughter. And, and again, it doesn't have to be your daughter. It could be anyone, but like those moments for me are like black tar heroin. I am addicted to it. And, and so when I think back, hopefully as an old man one day, and I think about like, what are the things that really, really made me so incredibly happy, it's going to come back to those moments.

1:43:39And so I wish that for everyone as often as humanly possible. And the irony is, right, it usually doesn't cost any money. It means time. It means intentionality. It means other humans. And we're going to keep getting really good at making artificial intelligence. And I don't want that to scare folks because I hope, I really, really hope and want to believe it gives us more time for the human communing that far few of us, or not enough of us have a chance to do often enough. So I don't know, whenever you're, if you're breaking bread with people you love, like I said, these are all the things, going to a sporting event, going to an Angel City match.

1:44:18You're enjoying these moments of humanity with people you care about and make an effort to tell those people, especially men out there, dudes, normalize telling the men in your life that you love them, whether that's your father, your brother, your best friend. You don't have to go buy a billboard. You can if you want, up to you. But like normalize having that conversation. You will not regret it. I love that. Alexis Ohani and everyone, Business Dad Podcast. Make sure you subscribe. And Alexis, I'm so grateful to your parents. Dude, I'll let them know. You carry them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You carry them and their energy so well.

1:44:58You can tell how deeply rooted their love is for you. and the love that they had for the world that seems to be oozing out of you. So it's really beautiful to experience that today. And I'm grateful that you came and spent these couple of hours with me. Thank you, Jay. This was awesome, man. Thank you, man. Thank you, brother. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to this conversation. If you enjoyed it, you'll love my chat with Adam Grant on why discomfort is the key to growth and the strategies for unlocking your hidden potential. If you know you want to be more and achieve more this year, go check it out right now.

1:45:33You set a goal today, you achieve it in six months, and then by the time it happens, it's almost a relief. There's no sense of meaning and purpose. You sort of expected it and you would have been disappointed if it didn't happen. Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. I'm Radhi Dvlukia and I'm the host of A Really Good Cry podcast. And I have the opportunity to talk to Logan Uri. If you're out there trying to date right now, being ghosted on Hinge, or want to create a dating profile that gives you a solid chance of matching with someone you actually want to go on a date with, then this episode with Hinge's Director of Relationship Science, Logan Uri, is definitely for you.

1:46:19Relationships do require work. The best relationships are people who really work on them together. Listen to A Really Good Cry on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.