👾 “Reddit vs AI” — Our Interview with Reddit CEO Steve Huffman

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Best One Yet – Episode 👾 “Reddit vs AI” Featuring Steve Huffman

Overview In this engaging episode of The Best One Yet, hosts Jack Crivici-Kramer and Nick Martell delve deep into the intersection of social media and artificial intelligence with Steve Huffman, the CEO and co-founder of Reddit. Released on June 20, 2025, the discussion navigates through Reddit’s evolution, its unique community-driven model, and the challenges and opportunities presented by the rise of AI.

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1. Steve Huffman's Personal Journey and Lessons from Ballroom Dancing (00:00 - 09:44)

Steve Huffman opens up about his early days, drawing parallels between his experiences in ballroom dancing and leading a billion-dollar company.

• Teamwork and Conflict Resolution: Reflecting on his time dancing with his sister, Huffman highlights the importance of viewing teammates as part of the same team, emphasizing that conflicts stem from shared passion rather than personal differences.

  Steve Huffman (06:12): "The first thing I learned was that we're on the same team. We're fighting because we care about this thing... We could fight and just go back to practice the next day as though it never happened."

• Self-Improvement: He shares a pivotal lesson about personal responsibility, inspired by practicing dance steps with professionals.

  Steve Huffman (06:14): "The lesson was, if I could be as good as the pro, then I shouldn’t blame my sister. It's a lesson in personal growth and accountability."

2. The Founding Story of Reddit: From “My Mobile Menu” to the Front Page of the Internet (09:44 - 14:44)

Huffman recounts Reddit’s inception, initially conceived as a food delivery service before evolving into a social media powerhouse.

• Meeting Paul Graham: During a spring break trip, Huffman and his roommate Alexis met venture capitalist Paul Graham, pitching their original idea, "My Mobile Menu" (MMM), akin to a precursor to DoorDash.

  Steve Huffman (10:10): "We gave Paul a dog-eared copy of his programming book about Lisp, not a pitch deck. It was unconventional, but it worked."

• Pivoting to Reddit: Although MMM was rejected by Y Combinator, Graham encouraged them to explore other ideas, leading to the creation of Reddit by blending concepts from Delicious and Slashdot.

  Steve Huffman (12:28): "The first version of Reddit was the user-powered nature of Delicious combined with the community and conversation of Slashdot."

3. Reddit’s Unique Upvote and Downvote System: An Accidental Innovation (14:44 - 20:49)

The conversation delves into the genesis of Reddit’s voting system, its intended and unintended consequences, and its role in shaping community culture.

• Developing the Voting Mechanism: Initially experimenting with terms like "interesting" and "uninteresting" proved ineffective, leading to the adoption of the ambiguous upvote and downvote symbols.

  Steve Huffman (16:41): "We switched the symbols to up and down votes to maintain strategic ambiguity, allowing them to be intuitive and universally applicable."

• Cultural Boundaries: Huffman explains how downvotes serve as a mechanism for communities to establish and enforce their own boundaries and culture.

  Steve Huffman (18:08): "The downvote is where culture is created on Reddit. It signifies what doesn't belong, helping define the community's boundaries."

4. Moderation and Community Governance on Reddit (20:49 - 34:31)

Huffman outlines Reddit’s multi-tiered moderation system, emphasizing community autonomy and the challenges of enforcing platform-wide policies.

• Three Layers of Moderation:

  1. Upvotes and Downvotes: Serve as the first line of defense by determining content visibility.
  2. Subreddit Moderators: Users who create and manage their own communities, setting specific rules and enforcing them.
  3. Reddit’s Safety Team: Handles platform-wide issues, including banning users and removing subreddits.

  Steve Huffman (28:00): "Moderators have full control over their communities. They write the rules, enforce them, and ban users as needed."

• Empowering Users: Huffman expresses a vision for the future where communities have even more control, potentially implementing a jury-like system for governance.

  Steve Huffman (29:43): "I would love to empower our users and communities to make their own decisions, like banning a moderator or a subreddit through a community-driven process."

5. Navigating AI Integration and Content Scraping (34:31 - 47:39)

The discussion shifts to AI's impact on Reddit, including content scraping by AI companies and strategic partnerships to protect and monetize Reddit's valuable user-generated content.

• Content Scraping Concerns: Huffman addresses the unauthorized use of Reddit content by AI companies, comparing it to a farmer protecting his crops from wolves.

  Jack (41:40): "Reddit is a content farm with the best fruit on the market, and you're protecting your crop."

• Partnerships with AI Leaders: Reddit has secured deals with companies like OpenAI and Google, ensuring that content usage is regulated and compensated appropriately.

  Steve Huffman (44:16): "Commercial use requires commercial terms. We’re open for business with these companies to keep Reddit sustainable and open."

• AI’s Role in Moderation: Reddit is leveraging AI to enhance its moderation capabilities, aiming to make the process more efficient and less burdensome on human moderators.

  Steve Huffman (31:52): "We’re increasingly using AI to proactively find content that's going to be removed anyway, making moderation more pleasant."

6. Reddit's Position in the Social Media Landscape (47:39 - 58:37)

Huffman articulates Reddit’s distinct identity compared to mainstream social media platforms, focusing on authenticity and community-driven interactions.

• Human-Centric Approach: Unlike platforms dominated by algorithms and influencers, Reddit prioritizes genuine human interactions and diverse community voices.

  Steve Huffman (51:18): "Reddit is for people to talk about stuff with people. It’s conversation, it’s communities."

• Strategic Differentiation: By adhering to its unique values and resisting the urge to mimic other social platforms, Reddit maintains its niche and fosters a loyal user base.

  Steve Huffman (53:24): "We're differentiated. If you're not unique, you're just playing the same game as everybody else."

7. Future Outlook: Reddit and the Evolving Internet (58:37 - 66:43)

Looking ahead, Huffman shares his vision for Reddit’s role in an AI-driven internet and the broader implications for online communities.

• AI and Human Interaction: While acknowledging AI’s growing presence, Huffman asserts that Reddit will remain a hub for human dialogue, using AI to support rather than replace human interactions.

  Steve Huffman (58:37): "Reddit is humans. We use AI like every business will, but fundamentally, it’s about people talking to people."

• Search Ecosystem Evolution: With the advent of AI-powered search, Reddit is developing its own AI-driven search tools to remain a valuable destination for information and community insights.

  Steve Huffman (55:12): "We have our own search product called Reddit Answers. There’s an opportunity for Reddit to be a destination for search alongside other major companies."

8. Balancing Leadership and Parenthood (66:43 - 63:58)

Huffman discusses the personal challenges of balancing the responsibilities of running a major company with raising a family.

• Time Management: Emphasizing the importance of allocating time between work and family, Huffman shares how fatherhood has shifted his priorities.

  Steve Huffman (61:17): "I have time for work and family. My kids don't care about my work, and that's a relief."

• Personal Fulfillment: He reflects on the joy and simplicity that his children bring to his life, contrasting it with the complexities of corporate leadership.

  Steve Huffman (61:38): "Kids care about playing and simple things, which is distinctly nice compared to corporate responsibilities."

9. Key Takeaways and Rapid Fire Highlights (65:40 - 71:17)

In the concluding segment, Huffman shares personal insights and answers rapid-fire questions, providing a glimpse into his personality and interests.

• Takeaway on Reddit’s Impact:

  Steve Huffman (65:40): "Reddit reveals how people behave when nobody's watching, giving me a more positive view of humanity."

• Favorite Relaxation Song: Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky (66:53)

• Pump-Up Jam: "Bump Artist" by Sosa (67:00)

• Admired CEOs: Brian Chesky (Airbnb), Rich Barton (Expedia, Glassdoor, Zillow) (67:09)

• Best San Francisco Activities: Exploring Dolores Park, enjoying views from the Marin Headlands (67:33)

• Favorite Innovation Outside Reddit: Waymo’s self-driving cars (68:50)

Conclusion

Steve Huffman's candid conversation offers valuable insights into Reddit's foundational principles, its adaptive strategies in the face of AI advancements, and the delicate balance between maintaining community integrity and embracing technological progress. As Reddit continues to evolve, its commitment to authentic human interactions positions it uniquely within the sprawling landscape of social media.

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Notable Quotes

• Steve Huffman (06:12): "We could fight and not care, and that helped a lot in building a strong team."

• Steve Huffman (16:41): "The upvote means you want to see more like this, and the downvote means you don't want this here."

• Steve Huffman (20:49): "Reddit is a culture factory where a tiny conversation can become a massive movement."

• Steve Huffman (31:52): "AI can make moderating much more pleasant by handling repetitive tasks."

• Steve Huffman (58:37): "Reddit is for people to talk about stuff with people. That's what it is."

• Steve Huffman (65:40): "Reddit reveals something really profound about humanity—we just want to help each other and share laughs."

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Recommendations for Non-Listeners If you’re curious about how one of the most influential social platforms navigates the complexities of modern technology and community building, this episode is a must-listen. Steve Huffman's perspectives offer a rare glimpse into the strategic decisions shaping Reddit’s future and its role in an increasingly AI-driven internet landscape.

Transcript

[Nick]

Yetis, Nick and Jack, coming at you from the T Boy Studio. We're about to interview Steve Huffman, the CEO and co founder of Reddit.

[Jack]

This episode is packed with two huge topics, social media and artificial intelligence.

[Nick]

Social media rules the present, AI rules the future, and Reddit, uniquely positioned for both.

[Jack]

We also talk about Reddit's past. After all, it was founded in 2005, the year after Facebook.

[Nick]

And Jack, we're going to talk about classical ballroom dancing and what it teaches you about running a $20 billion company.

[Jack]

So sit, relax and enjoy this interview with the co founder of Reddit.

[Nick]

Yetis. Our guest today is the guy who created the front page of the Internet.

[Jack]

You read it, but he built it. Because we're talking to Steve Huffman, the CEO of Reddit.

[Nick]

And Jack, from what I can see, Steve is a boomerang CEO.

[Jack]

He left Reddit and eventually found his way back to Reddit.

[Nick]

Twice the drama, twice the karma. Because GameStop became a meme stock on Reddit.

[Jack]

And Reddit is where ask me anything became a thing.

[Nick]

Reddit is where Jack's brother learned how to use that fancy camera that his wife just bought.

[Jack]

I swear, R Canon is the reason every family photo I have looks professional. Nick.

[Nick]

But Jack, we should point out Reddit is not just a content site. Reddit is a culture factory.

[Jack]

It's a place where a tiny conversation in a tiny subreddit can become a massive national or global movement or a Netflix movie.

[Nick]

And right now, Reddit has become AI food, literally, in a good way, which.

[Jack]

Is probably both awesome for Reddit and maybe a little scary for Reddit too.

[Nick]

So, Yetis, today we are sitting down with the commander of comments, the dawn.

[Jack]

Of the down votes, the king of community, Steve Huffman is the co founder and CEO of Reddit.

[Nick]

And for the next 60 minutes of this. This ain't an AMA. This is a T boy, because this.

[Jack]

Interview is the best one yet.

[Nick]

No upvotes necessary. Steve, welcome to the show. Welcome to T Boy. How you doing over there?

[Steve Huffman]

I'm doing great. That was quite an intro. Do you guys practice that? I was not prepared for that.

[Jack]

That was our first take, but Nick and I edited a little bit. I can't believe back in 2005 usernames were already taken. Like it's 2025. I'm trying to get a Gmail for my son and I'm going with like, Wilder, Vermont. Nope, Wilder, Vermont. His name is Wilder and he lives in Vermont. Wilder, Vermont. Date of birth? Nope, nothing is available to like 11 digits of random Numbers and letters.

[Steve Huffman]

And how confident are you that he's going to be in Vermont? Like, are you going to be in Vermont?

[Jack]

I know. I'm really pinning his personal brand without his consent.

[Nick]

I feel like there may be some daddy issues arising there. Jack.

[Steve Huffman]

Yeah, most people would use a last.

[Nick]

Name, Steve, though as CEO of Reddit, you can't just commandeer the Steve username. Is that not in the policies?

[Steve Huffman]

I mean, I could. I don't know, maybe somebody's using it. I mean, now Spez is like a name that people know for good or for worse.

[Jack]

That would also be very unreddit if you took over that handle without someone's consent.

[Nick]

Yeah, it's terms and conditions in theory.

[Steve Huffman]

Like if somebody was using it, of course we would never take it, but a lot. Most of probably 99% of those early usernames, those accounts are long lost. And so I have helped people get their name on Reddit before, many times.

[Nick]

Well, maybe if this interview goes well, Steve, you can grant Jack and I the Nick username and the Jack username.

[Steve Huffman]

I'll look. I mean, I'll look at it.

[Nick]

You're on the record now.

[Steve Huffman]

I'll look at it. The chances are. Actually, I have Steve. Actually, I got the password. It's the most likely thing.

[Jack]

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[Jack]

What is that?

[Nick]

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[Jack]

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[Nick]

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[Jack]

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[Jack]

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[Nick]

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[Jack]

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[Nick]

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[Jack]

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[Nick]

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[Jack]

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[Nick]

Well, Steve, you were born in Michigan. You were raised in Virginia. Today you're a tech CEO, an AI thought leader, and a Silicon Valley all star. But as a kid, you were learning how to swing dance. And in college, you actually took ballroom dancing. So Jack and I were curious about.

[Jack]

Something to set this up as a LinkedIn post. What has ballroom dancing taught you about running a $20 billion company?

[Steve Huffman]

You know, I've spent so little time on LinkedIn to know that that's the framing of a typical LinkedIn post.

[Jack]

Yes, it is.

[Steve Huffman]

These days. Okay, so, yeah, danced a little bit in high school, danced a lot in college. And what did it teach me? So my sister, who's a year younger than me, so we both went to University of Virginia, and so I joined the ballroom club my first year. She joined her second year or her first year my second year. And then we competed all through college. We practiced every day. We'd meet between classes and practice for an hour or two.

[Jack]

You competed as teammates?

[Steve Huffman]

Yeah. So for the first, I don't know, year or so, or maybe, honestly, throughout our entire kind of career, dancing together, we get in a fight every day. And there was two things. There's two big lessons I learned from that. One is, look, we're on the same team. We're trying to do the same thing. We're fighting because we care about this thing. We're emotional, whatever it is, and you just have to let it go. And I think one of the advantages we had being siblings is we'd never felt the need to apologize. So you can have your fight and then you go back to not to work, but in this case, go back to practice the next day just as though it never happened. And I thought that was a real advantage because a lot of couples, they weren't siblings, they were friends, or maybe they had even some chemistry. And so a fight was actually really devastating. And so I thought a competitive advantage for us was we could fight and not care. And so that Helped a lot. The second one is a bigger lesson. We used to. We'd get lessons on the weekends from this professional couple. And so I would dance with this professional woman. My sister would dance with this professional guy who themselves, they competed together. And so my sister Amanda. My sister and I, we'd be working on some step or figure or this or that, and we couldn't do it. And then I go do it with the pro, and I'd be like, oh, man, if Amanda could dance as good as the pro, I'd have no trouble getting through because I can do it with the pro. I just can't do it with her, so she must be the issue. But then she would dance with her pro and she'd get through it just fine. And then the lesson, though, was to flip that around. If I could dance as good as the pro, she would have no trouble. And so until I'm as good as him, I should shut up. Wow. And so I think this, this translates to work and personal life. And the way I think about it is until I've exhausted everything I can do or every way I can be better, I shouldn't be complaining about somebody else, because even though it may not be obvious, I'm probably the problem. Wow.

[Nick]

I mean, it's so interesting hearing that whole breakdown of co foundership essentially through ballroom dancing. I mean, you were talking about doing it with your sibling, and that was like an advantage for you, your comfort level and your ability to kind of not take things personally. I mean, I basically see Jack as my brother because we go back to freshman year roommates. We were running this company together for so long. Similarly, we have something we call like our one and done rule. When one person wants to change something, we just kind of trust that the other one is right. As opposed to, like, worrying about there being a conflict or me being right. Because if Jack feels strong about something, I'm probably wrong on that. If he feels that strongly and it's way better to move on together 100%.

[Steve Huffman]

Yeah. Yeah. I think teammates, co founders, spouses, especially as parents, right? You just, you have to trust your partner and you have to support them and know, like, you're both going to be right more than you're wrong. You both care a lot. You want the same thing.

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Jack]

Maybe to sum this up, it's like, trust that the intentions are good. Don't take things personal and don't hold grudges.

[Steve Huffman]

All good advice.

[Jack]

And scroll down for more because this is the beginning of my LinkedIn thread.

[Nick]

Well, to get to Your founding story, Steve, you know, one of our favorite parts is how you started this at uva. And you're the first entrepreneur we covered from uva. You know, go, who's go?

[Steve Huffman]

Or wahoo wah, wahoo wah.

[Nick]

Well, one of our favorite parts of your entrepreneurial story was the beginning when you and a buddy drive from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia all the way up to Boston to meet with a legendary venture capitalist, Paul Graham, to see him speak.

[Jack]

After you saw him speak though, you came up to him and asked for five minutes of his time. And we understand you gave him a pitch deck. We'd love to know what came next and what was in that pitch deck.

[Steve Huffman]

Okay, so this was my, this was my roommate, future co founder Alexis and I, we took the train up over our spring break and yeah, Paul gave a talk called how to Start a Startup. It was an essay he had written. So the essay is online. It's called how to Start a Startup. And then he basically read the essay at Harvard and afterwards we ran up to say hello. But it wasn't a pitch deck, it was a, it was a dog eared copy of his programming book about Lisp. So Paul, alongside being famous for kind of inventing one of the first e commerce platforms, viaweb, which would turn into Yahoo Store later, he also evangelized the programming language Lisp. And I was just a fan of that and so got him to sign my book. And then we mentioned that we had this idea that we were working on. Do you want to talk about it? And he said, yeah, you can meet me. Like he said, I've got dinner plans. You can meet me after dinner and tell me about your idea.

[Jack]

Amazing. What was your idea?

[Steve Huffman]

So our idea was called my mobile menu. You could abbreviate it as mmm, and it's kind of like doordash. The idea was you could order food from your phone ahead of time, but it was the most generous way to describe it is as an idea ahead of its time because iPhones didn't exist. Restaurants weren't universally online then and we couldn't even conceive of the logistics required to deliver food. So this was really about basically ordering food from your phone for pickup. And that was the idea. And actually Paul in that first meeting liked the idea. We would eventually, shortly thereafter apply to Y Combinator, which he would announce a week later with that idea. And then we're ultimately rejected from Y Combinator with that idea. But that developed, you know, that got the conversation started and we would get later, like A later, like two days later or a day later, invited back to interview with YC for the idea that that would ultimately turn into Reddit.

[Nick]

Okay, and how did that idea turn into Reddit? An idea that got rejected and was involving food delivery turns into a future social media website.

[Steve Huffman]

Even today, 20 years later, I'm not sure, like, the idea of Reddit is. Is. Is fully formed. But what happened then was, okay, so we met Paul, we went back to Virginia. We came back a couple weeks later to apply to Y Combinator. We were rejected. We took the train back. So we're taking the train up and down the East Coast. So we're on the train ride home, Amtrak openers from the Boston area, and Paul calls and says, hey, sorry, we didn't like the food idea, but if you want to work on something else, you come back, we can talk about that. Something else. And so Paul was a fan of this website at the time that was popular at the time called Delicious. Delicious was a website for making bookmarks, which I don't know if people really don't make bookmarks anymore, like web bookmarks. Delicious was famous for, among other things, inventing the hashtag for organizing all of your bookmarks. And so Paul really liked Delicious. And Delicious had this page. The thing about bookmarks is you bookmark things that are too long to read in one sitting or you want to come back to later, like, as reference. And so Delicious was like this list of links that were like the most boring links on the Internet. You could go to Delicious, Popular, and see what people were bookmarking a lot of. And so it's like Paul was like, well, what if you could see what everybody's bookmarking, but instead of boring content, it was interesting content. So that was half the idea. And then the other half the idea was I was a big user of slashdot, slashdot.org, it's still online. Slashdot was huge at the time. I think they had recently in this era, sold for like a billion dollars, which was a lot of money at the time. And Flash, that was called News for Nerds or News for Nerds, stuff that matters. And it was like headlines. But really what Flashdot was was a community of people talking about the headlines.

[Nick]

Okay.

[Steve Huffman]

And so the first version of Reddit was really these two ideas, kind of the user powered nature of Delicious and the community and conversation of Slashdot. That was Reddit in 2005.

[Nick]

And Steve, you end up creating a feature that becomes arguably your most powerful asset. And we're going to get More into it later involving AI. But how did you invent the upvote and the down vote?

[Steve Huffman]

Ah, okay. So we, we toyed with in the very early days, like users are going to submit links, it was all links. So we needed some way of ranking them. And the way Delicious worked is a link would get posted over and over and over again. But in the early days of Reddit, we didn't have enough. There wasn't enough traffic, people weren't submitting enough links. And so we thought it would be. And then slash that had this whole ranking system for the comments. And so we decided to make it user powered. But we experimented with a couple of things. The first was actually words, but it took us a long time to figure out the right words. So we tried interesting, uninteresting. We tried cool and uncool. This is general product lesson that we've learned a couple of times or relearned, which is sometimes, oftentimes words are not great because they assume this kind of judgment or meaning. And so, for example, there could be a news story, let's say about like a natural disaster, that you'd want to be popular on Reddit, but you don't want to click that and say, like, cool. Right. A bunch of people just got, you know, killed in a hurricane. That's not cool. And so, and it's not always interesting. Maybe it's interesting, but you don't want it to be on Reddit, so it's not uninteresting. So anyway, so we switched the symbols. So the symbols were the up and the down, and the up and the down are still, you know, somewhat undefined on Reddit. And that is on purpose. People often ask, well, what does the upvote mean? Or what does the down vote mean? Like, well, the upvote means you want to see more like this, or maybe you want other people to see it or like, whatever. And the down vote means, like, you don't want this here because you don't like it, or you don't think it's good for the community or whatever. I've always honestly kind of resisted the urge for people to define these things, because the point is they're symbols whose meaning should be intuitive.

[Nick]

Yeah, it's almost like saying there's a power in the ambiguity here. They're unburdened by the strictness of a definition. They, you know, the fact that you can't put them in Merriam Webster's dictionary means that they have a more universal appeal.

[Steve Huffman]

Yeah. And in fact, there's this. There's this piece of lore, not even lore, documentation on Reddit of like, and it's called rediquette. And it says, don't downvote things just because you disagree with it. I'm like, no, I don't vote things because I disagree with it all the time. That's like the primary reason I downvote things. And I think that's fine. Like, that's kind of the point.

[Jack]

I think another part of the point is that you're letting the community kind of define the rules.

[Steve Huffman]

That's right.

[Jack]

And early on, you're not announcing that we're the referee. Here are the rules you have to play by. You're letting them figure it out themselves.

[Nick]

Which is a core reflection of Reddit's brand in the first place, is what you're saying.

[Steve Huffman]

That is one of the kind of founding principles of Reddit is that we are not the gatekeepers, we are not the deciders, we are not the editors. And so that ambiguity. What did you say? Strategic ambiguity.

[Jack]

That's the US Government on Taiwan. That's the US Government's official policy on Taiwan.

[Steve Huffman]

I think there's some wisdom to that policy. Yeah, yeah, you get a lot of. You get a lot of bang for your buck. But no, I think that's really important. And so there's lots of areas at Reddit where it's ambiguous or vague, like how to use a subreddit, what a subreddit can be.

[Nick]

For that, even the word Reddit is a little ambiguous. Right. Like, Facebook is very straightforward. You know what that is?

[Steve Huffman]

So Reddit was intended to be like a pun of I read it on Reddit. But again, in 2005, all the good usernames were taken and all the good domain names were taken. And so Reddit, it's a misspelling of I read it.

[Nick]

Right, right, right, right.

[Jack]

You know, really cool that the problem at the time was you weren't getting enough links posted like Delicious was. And that problem, not enough traffic, led to an amazing innovation, which is upvotes and downvotes. Yeah, just nice little inspiration that, like, if your business isn't doing as well as you hope, that could be the moment you come up with a foundational idea that differentiates you from the rest.

[Steve Huffman]

And there's so much. There's some other little gems about that, too. For example, I think the down vote is where culture is created on Reddit. It's where a community says, this doesn't belong here, and you can't have a culture and you can't have A community without boundaries. And so a boundary implies, you know, somebody's, you know, accepted or somebody's not accepted or something right? There has to, like that boundary. Things are on both sides of that boundary, otherwise there's no boundary. And the down vote is where you say, this is, this is on the wrong side of that boundary. I remember, you know, years ago I had some post on Reddit. I can't remember which one of my many, like, foibles this was, but I was in trouble for something and I was just getting down vote just crushed. And I'm like, I'm just trying to explain this or that. And the downvote is just a fundamentally negative action. Like, why do we even have this down? And I was just thinking really hard about, like, why do we have this thing? And I was just mad because I was getting like, downvoted to hell. And that's when I kind of like re remembered or relearned or maybe just articulated that the downvote is how the community creates its boundaries and creates culture. But that wasn't on our mind when we created the downvote. It was simpler than that. And so there's a lot of parts of Reddit that kind of make sense in hindsight that we've come to appreciate.

[Nick]

Some accidental innovations of yours.

[Steve Huffman]

So many, because almost all of the innovations on Reddit are actually because of, of people behaving naturally, creating like this, this whole idea of community and boundaries. People do that without thinking about boundaries in community and what makes a community a community and what's on the inside and what's not. And they don't think about what it takes to join a community and the process. People don't think about that, but they do do it. And so we see these things emerge on Reddit and then we try to understand them.

[Nick]

Well, Steve, this upvote down vote becomes years later, your most valuable asset right now, the way Jack and I see it. But to get to this founding story a little further, you create Reddit, you co found Reddit, and then you leave, you become a CEO elsewhere, but then you boomerang back and return to Reddit just a few years ago. So you're in this epic group of boomerang CEOs that Jack and I have been keeping track of, right?

[Jack]

Jack, Steve Jobs, Bob Iger, Howard Schultz, twice. Whitney Wolfhard just did it at Bumble and Steve Huffman.

[Nick]

So we were curious, you know, why come back? And what was the very first thing you did when you returned to Reddit just a few years ago?

[Steve Huffman]

Okay, so we crushed about 20 years of history into that. Let's see. So we started Red in 2005, we sold the company in 2006. We stayed for another three years. So me, my co founder, our first employee, we all left more or less end of 2009, 2010. So kind of five years in, I started a different company called Hipmunk in 2010 and then I came back to Reddit in 2015. So coming back, that'll be 10 years ago, about a month from now. So in 2015, Reddit was going through kind of a couple crises at the same time. There's a kind of a common thread which was the platform. Like the communities were fighting with each other about what should be allowed on Reddit or not. The communities are fighting with the platform about what should be allowed on Reddit or not. And kind of the platform and company didn't have a strong opinion on this. And so at this point, I had been not working at Reddit for five years, but still using Reddit every day. So I was, I was like a highly invested user, but I was on the kind of the user side of this journey and I was seeing a small group of people behaving badly ruin Reddit. They were highly coordinated and they would just, their, their aim was to ruin Reddit, right? As, as we used to say in 2010 or 2015 for the lulz, right? They were just trolling us. They thought it was funny for the lulz. And so I came back to Reddit with the mentality of we need a content policy. Like we need to make, we need to articulate what's allowed and not allowed on Reddit and we need to enforce it really strictly.

[Jack]

Okay.

[Steve Huffman]

Prior to that point, Reddit didn't have a, didn't really have a content policy.

[Jack]

It did have a bit of a self regulating community though, right?

[Steve Huffman]

Yes, there were rules and a lot of the rules were created by the communities. Some good, some not good, we can get into that. But by and large, look, I mean, the line of thinking was, what we talked about at the very beginning of the show was our kind of founding principle is like, we're not the gatekeepers, we're not the editors, we're not the deciders. It was meant to be a kind of a humble position of we don't control this, people control it. And so as a result, we didn't really ban things. We would here or there, but it was very infrequent and we didn't have the tools to do it. Like the literal tools like, it was just very difficult to ban things. You couldn't even ban a subreddit. And we didn't have the rules and we didn't have the ability to articulate our thinking on this. We didn't even know our thinking on this.

[Nick]

Yeah, right.

[Steve Huffman]

This was all kind of, it was all kind of new and it was so baked in because it was 10 years into Reddit of we don't ban things. So that's when I came back to Reddit. And I think that was one of the things that only a founder can do because the existing team at Reddit was so scared and they would say this, this is what they told me. They were so scared of changing anything because they thought they'd ruin Reddit and.

[Jack]

You had the credibility and authority as, as one of the co founders to maybe do something boldly that others didn't. But also these trolls who were trying to sabotage Reddit, they were both bad for the business because advertisers didn't want to have their message right next to some terrible comment, as well as for the users who didn't want to jump into a cesspool where they might get harassed.

[Steve Huffman]

And that, and that is the broad explanation that we've developed over the last decade. Back then it was more specific rules. And one of them, there's some specific things of like behaviors that you can't do on Reddit. But we also had, one of the rules was basically don't break Reddit, which was in this case was kind of the catch all rule. Just like, look, if you're spending your time trying to ruin Reddit, you are not welcome here. And that was actually the beginning of kind of the line of thinking that you just articulated, which is, look, we believe in free speech, we believe in free expression, but Reddit is a community, not a country. It's also a business. And so it has to be a place where advertisers want to be or are willing to be, first the latter than the former. And then where users want to be and are and feel safe enjoying and having fun on. And so, yeah, there are constraints. And so it's kind of the difference between free speech and decorum. We want every idea to be on Reddit, broadly. But there is a, we do have standards for how you behave and whether or not you can, you know, try to ruin Reddit or mess with other communities or mess with our customers or harass other users. You know, there's a, there's a very specific list of things you can't do, but it Took us some time, I think, to honestly to understand that, to articulate that, and then to develop the courage to kind of say it and enforce it. Because there's a big change for us and big change for our communities. Although I think our gut was pointing us in the right direction. And this is another thing I told the company a lot in that era, which is we know the right thing to do here. We may not be able to articulate it, but we know the right thing to do. And that's actually the genesis of almost every policy change at Reddit. It's like something feels off, something feels like morally not right.

[Jack]

Yeah, a gut feeling.

[Steve Huffman]

And so we're going to keep banging our heads on this issue until we can articulate it, but our instincts were always there, way ahead of the policy change.

[Jack]

I wanted to ask about this. Self regulating community policing platforms is a constant challenge in tech especially. It seems like every year we come, it's even harder challenge. Facebook started it with third party fact checkers. I think they had 40,000 contractors at one point. Then Twitter. Now X with Elon did Community Notes, which is kind of self regulating. But Reddit has a policy of moderators.

[Nick]

I was gonna say, like, unlike other social platforms, you don't use algorithms, you use humans. So we were curious, who are and what are Reddit moderators exactly? And why do you think that works?

[Steve Huffman]

Okay, so first we should separate moderation from moderators. And so moderators do moderate. But the most important aspect of moderation on Reddit is the upvote and the down vote. By far the most important, every post and comment on Reddit has to earn its visibility. It starts at zero points. Doesn't matter how many followers you have, doesn't matter how famous you are, doesn't matter if you're the CEO, you start at zero points. And you only get to be popular if a community of people, every post and comment happens in a community and that community has to vote on it up more than down to make it popular.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Steve Huffman]

And so that's the first line of defense. The second line of defense is the moderators. Okay, so if you're a user and you create a community on Reddit, we call them subreddits. Ta da. You are now a moderator. You have basically full control over that community. You can invite other moderators, you write the rules, you're the stewards of culture. You can ban users, you can ban posts, you've got, you're in charge. And so moderators, they'll remove content all the time, ton of content. Is removed by moderators. And then there's a third layer which is our centralized moderation team, so our safety team. And they can also remove content, they can remove subreddits, which the users can't do presently. And we can ban users kind of platform wide. And so big picture, we want users to be kind of the stewards of culture in a community. We want mods to write the rules and take actions that maybe the users can't. And then we want our team on a bigger set. We write the bigger platform, we write the platform wide rules, and we ban users that mods can't across subreddits. Or we'll actually remove subreddits.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Steve Huffman]

Now, if I could wave a magic wand, I would love to take those decisions that we make, similar to how I've been describing it. Like, we're not the gatekeepers. I would love to empower our users and communities to even make those decisions. Right. Give the users or a subset of users kind of like a jury system the ability to be amazing. Ban a moderator, ban a subreddit, update our rules, really empower the community to take care of themselves. But we haven't gotten there yet.

[Jack]

So the upvoting and down voting being the first line of defense, that's brilliant. And that's where, like, since Twitter got taken over by Elon, there's the free speech thing. But it's like the amplification via algorithm is more important in many ways than, you know. Is this banned or is this not banned? Visibility is like, sure, it can exist, but it doesn't matter if it exists if it's not seen.

[Steve Huffman]

That's right.

[Jack]

I'm just working this out of my own head right now.

[Steve Huffman]

That's right. Look, I think that the human powered nature of Reddit, I think it's an enduringly good idea because again, things don't become popular on Reddit unless a group of people make it popular. Now that doesn't mean they're not wrong, or it might be problematic in some way, but at least people were behind it. Which is very different than an algorithm that cherry picks content and puts it at the top of everybody's feed.

[Nick]

Yeah, I mean, Jack keeps getting these subreddits for made in America industrial thick sweaters that he was telling me about. He's in like three of them right now.

[Steve Huffman]

I mean, look, frugal men fashion, I'm in no position to judge.

[Jack]

Let's just put it this way, we're wearing the same navy blue sweatshirt.

[Steve Huffman]

Yeah. A little structure. It's Perfect.

[Nick]

Stephen G. Apparently I didn't get the memo that we're supposed to wear dark blue sweatshirts.

[Steve Huffman]

Yeah, and I need to get in that sweatshirt. Subreddit. But yeah. So we recommend communities like, we try to expand your interest on Reddit because a lot of people don't know, most people don't know how big Reddit is. And then on the, let's call it the negative side, we're increasingly using AI to proactively find content that's going to be removed anyway. And look, I can give you one example which is the worst job on the Internet used to be the, the person who looks at content and has to remove it because it's too violent or, you know, involves kids. Worst job on the Internet. AI can just do that. Now it's not perfect, but way better. And so I think one of the big picture stories about AI, specifically large language models, is it will make the.

[Nick]

Internet safer because you can scale that.

[Steve Huffman]

Because you can do it. Because the AI doesn't get tired, but now it can understand context and nuance. And so the direction we're going on Reddit is the mods write the rules, but the rules will be enforced by an AI. And it'll just make, I think, moderating much more pleasant. And of course there'll be an appeals process and things like that. But I think that direction, which by the way, if you had asked me this three years ago, I'd say no way, AI will never.

[Nick]

That AI would be capable of doing that kind of thing.

[Steve Huffman]

No, because it misses all this context. But now actually it can pick up on the context it, and so it.

[Nick]

Can pick up on sarcasm or humor.

[Steve Huffman]

It can tell if you're talking about a bad word or, you know, using a bad word, you know, in, in malice. There, there's a difference there, right? We don't ban words on Reddit, by and large. So an AI can pick up on the, the context there. And so that's really, really powerful.

[Jack]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I, I'll just share with my listener. I had this one buddy who friggin loves Reddit and he jokes that only one other person in the world knows his, his username and it's his best friend from childhood and he like kind of boasts about that, which I find hilarious. But he's, he's not a mod, but he loves, loves, loves Reddit. And I bet you, you know, if he thought that you and your team did something that was like overly commercial, he'd get mad and he'd be like, this is ours. Like, you know, Reddit is ours. And I totally saw firsthand the ownership mentality that you talk about. It's amazing. And in so many ways, Reddit is like a country. You're going to call it a community, but you have the moderation panel, which is like the Supreme Court in some ways.

[Steve Huffman]

You're fully.

[Jack]

There's patriotism there. You know what I mean?

[Steve Huffman]

Yeah. And so I think the model is a lot like federalism. I mean, there's a lot we think about. Right. You mentioned the Supreme Court. I talked about a jury system before.

[Jack]

Nick mentioned strategic ambiguity.

[Steve Huffman]

Yeah, no, look, there's a lot. It's not a coincidence. And so I think about, in the US We've got the three branches of government. I think one of the things I'd love to evolve on Reddit is right now we are the executive, legislative, and judicial branches all in one. And so I'd love to get the, the legislative and judicial branches into the community in some form or fashion.

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Steve Huffman]

And we'll remain the executive branch. And so I think big picture and long term, that's how we think about it. And then we also, we have our platform rules, but the subreddits are kind of like states where like, they've got their own rules and they can do their own thing as long as they're not in conflict with us.

[Nick]

We had a fun story on, I think it was, we talked about massage chairs in Mercedes cars and that was how it was a new trend. So we dropped that story actually into a subreddit on luxury vehicles. And I think the model moderator thought Jack and I were being too promotional with it.

[Steve Huffman]

Oh, for sure.

[Nick]

And so we actually got total downvote and we're like, wait, oh, look. Yeah, moderator in Lux.

[Steve Huffman]

Moderators probably did the right thing there. But this is a real chestnut we've been wrestling with is there's been this long standing part of the reticut of like, no self promotion and no, like, kind of commercial promotion. And I think that's been a good rule overall. Except when a creator shows up on Reddit, like an artist or a writer and says, I made this thing, they're like, get out of here with that self promotion.

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Steve Huffman]

So Reddit broadly loves original content, but they hate self promotion. And so I'm like, you can't have. You can't. Those ideas are in conflict. And so this is another. If I had my magic wand, something I'd improve on Reddit is this. We need to be welcoming people who come to Reddit with their content with their art, with the things they've created.

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Steve Huffman]

And I think the way we do that is we. We just need to build better tooling and make it more transparent, what's going on.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Steve Huffman]

So, yeah, I kind of see where they're coming from in that instance. But, yeah, I think there needs to be an evolution here to make the ecosystem healthier.

[Nick]

Temporary workaround. Jack, we have your buddy drop our episode.

[Steve Huffman]

That's literally what people do. Reddit, like, you're joking, but it's literally what they do. It's like, okay, like, you're just shipping.

[Jack]

My buddy would never do that.

[Nick]

He would never do that through Reddit principle. He's got the Reddit principle.

[Jack]

You know, interestingly, this content creator, original content thing, he. He might scoff and say, those are influencers and we don't want influencers.

[Steve Huffman]

There's a line like this. This is an area like. I'm trying to articulate it. There's a line somewhere between creator and.

[Nick]

Influencer, but Reddit exists in that gray area. That's. That's what's so unique.

[Jack]

And I can see that Steve feels it in his gut. And you and your team are just going to have to articulate.

[Steve Huffman]

We're just going to have to figure it out.

[Jack]

So much of your work is just articulating.

[Steve Huffman]

It really is. Not just for the users, for us, it's like, how do we get creators and help creators be successful on Reddit without creating that insufferable influencer culture?

[Jack]

The big question is, if you're the executive branch, are you going to give the legislative branch impeachment powers like all good executives?

[Steve Huffman]

Yeah, we'll see. I mean, look, I serve at the pleasure of the board today. Look, let's. We'll have term limits at Reddit when Congress has term limits in the United States. How about that?

[Nick]

All right, Yetis, now we got a quick word from our sponsors, and then we're going right back in with Steve.

[Jack]

Airbnb.

[Nick]

Now, Yetis, Jack mentioned his favorite skinny dipping spot. Where was that again?

[Jack]

I did a bunch of people ask me about that, but, Nick, there's nothing better than swimming in Mother Nature with the outfit Mother gave you.

[Nick]

I mean, you know what they say. It's not the summer unless you're outside naked at some point and nobody knows it.

[Jack]

Now, another way to do that is an outdoor shower. And I should mention my place has one of those, too.

[Nick]

And how is it possible you have an outdoor shower, Jack?

[Jack]

Because I'm an Airbnb host.

[Nick]

True.

[Jack]

Now, I usually spend My Airbnb hosting income on travel for the family. But this time we earmarked it for a home upgrade.

[Nick]

Now, Jack, I should point out, I'm no carpenter, but outdoor shower, it ain't cheap. You got the cedar wood install, you got the copper pipes, the French drains.

[Jack]

But with the money we're making on Airbnb, it was affordable. We put it in last year.

[Nick]

Well played, Yeti's.

[Jack]

I'm an Airbnb host with my current chalet and with two previous apartments. And I can tell you it's very.

[Nick]

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[Jack]

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[Nick]

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[Jack]

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[Nick]

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[Jack]

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[Nick]

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[Jack]

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[Jack]

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[Nick]

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Steve, Jack and I have been saying that there is no more interesting public company in artificial intelligence right now than Reddit. In fact, we just did a takeaway on a recent Reddit story where we said the more AI slop, the more valuable Reddit.

[Jack]

Because we've heard you say, Steve, that Reddit is for people to talk about stuff. There is no place with just purely real people without any kind of commercial incentive or ulterior motive. Real people sharing their real ideas and their real opinions about everything that is so not artificial. You know what I mean, Nick?

[Nick]

Yeah, exactly. And so for our question on the content side, we're curious, in 5 years, will Reddit be full of AI generated content slope, or will it be absent of it?

[Steve Huffman]

It's closer to the latter than the former, right? Reddit's for humans. Like you said. Like you said that I said Reddit is for people to talk about stuff. That's what it is. It's conversation, it's communities. Now, I do think there's more nuance there because we use AI to translate content on Reddit, humans will use AI to speak better. Kids today are learning how to write with AI tools. And there's a bot culture on Reddit of accounts that are bot accounts that do things, little services, little jokes, this or that. But the core of Reddit is for people to talk to other people. I think it's okay if there are bots present, but they need to be labeled like, this is a bot. This is a helpful bot. This is a funny bot. This maybe is a customer service bot, but it needs to be clear what's going on. And again, this kind of goes back to, like, we can't, like, we got to let things evolve. But we do want, if somebody's getting a piece of advice, to know they're getting it from another human, right? That it's not. And this is a challenge we've been facing long before this kind of AI revolution, right? It's like, you don't want to be talking to a marketing team or a political campaign or, you know, whatever. You want to be talking to a person who genuinely has the opinion that you're reading, and you want the votes to be reflective of the number of people who wanted that thing to be popular on Reddit. And so it's kind of a new version of the same challenge we faced for a long time.

[Jack]

We saw how annoyed you got last year when AI was scraping your content without permission. And Nick and I described you as like a farmer who was protecting his farm from wolves.

[Nick]

Like, Reddit is a content farm.

[Jack]

Reddit is a content farm with the best fruit in the market because it's created, by and large by humans with no ulterior motive. Like I said, real opinions, talking about stuff. That stuff is really valuable to AI, which needs to train and become smart and figure out what people want so that they can answer chatbot queries correctly. But when they come and try to take your fruit without permission or compensation, you get pissed. And so you negotiated a deal with OpenAI, you negotiated a deal with Google. You're like, you're not a scarecrow. You're like a shotgun Toting farmer, protecting his crop.

[Nick]

That's Steve right there.

[Jack]

The pitchfork there.

[Nick]

Yeah, we were kind of curious first, like OpenAI and Google, they're the first companies you did a content deal with because you have such valuable content. You did a deal with these AI companies. Why them? And do you see them as friend, foe, enemy, frenemy? Where do they fall?

[Steve Huffman]

Well, look, every large language model has trained on Reddit content. Look, those companies who are friends, who are very good friends for different reasons I think, understand that this information comes from somewhere, it's valuable, they're using it to create valuable products. And so we're receptive to kind of formalizing that. And our point of view broadly is Reddit is an open platform. It's the only platform at scale where you can basically freely browse all of the content without logging in. And we've been very permissive over the years about access to the content on Reddit. And look, I think if these, just as a hypothetical, if these AI companies were fully open source nonprofits like Research, we'd have much less issue with the using of Reddit content to create them. There's still some safety concerns there. And so we tried to enumerate that in our public content policy. Right. If a user deletes something off of Reddit, you should pull it from the model. You can't use the content to identify our users or target ads to them. And we do deals like this or give access to Reddit content to researchers all the time for free. And so, I mean, it's part of our kind of heritage on the open Internet. But commercial access and commercial use requires commercial terms. Those were the two companies that we were able to land. This is kind of at the training scale land deals with. First, there's about a dozen others that have access for, for other uses, but we think they've been very, I think they've been very important. But I do think it's a quickly evolving landscape. And look, not everybody has been so easy to work with.

[Jack]

Yeah, yeah.

[Steve Huffman]

So, you know, it's, we're working our way through it. It's not the path that I think that we would have designed, but we're trying to find a way to keep Reddit open. And I think the best way to do that is to be kind of open for business and continue to evolve with the ecosystem.

[Nick]

Well, this is kind of part of this theme that's emerging in the discussion with you, which is kind of these gray areas with Reddit that are so interesting on the one hand, totally makes sense You've got this incredibly valuable human content. Like Jack and I were saying. Jack was saying this is the best fruit out there, all the content of Reddit. So you're charging Google and OpenAI like $130 million a year for. For this. On the other hand, if it's, you know, like you're saying, for a particularly good nonprofit cause maybe that's an area where they shouldn't be paying. And then you got anthropic, which is coming in and scraping. So you've got to kind of like come to a decision on how you handle them. That's hard to do, given all the range of options out there.

[Steve Huffman]

You know, the thing is, I actually don't think it's that hard. Commercial use requires commercial terms. Right? When you use something content or data or some resource in business, you pay for it. And I think where Reddit is unique is that if you're doing something open source or non commercial, we'll actually try to return. We'll try to return the spirit or act in kind, which is we'll give you free access. And I think that's not just fair. I think that's actually more than fair, because I don't think other platforms give access the way that we do.

[Jack]

Yeah, it's like a library is free, but if somebody comes in and photocopies Harry Potter and then sells those photocopied copies, that's not exactly okay. But, Steve, you mentioned every AI company has trained on Reddit. Was that kind of before you realized what was happening?

[Steve Huffman]

Yeah, I think everybody did it indirectly because they used a data source called Common Crawl. So Common Crawl was a nonprofit that would just scrape the entire Internet and put it in a giant, basically just a giant tarball, a giant compressed file of basically all the content in the Internet. And so basically everybody uses that. We've seen everybody is the short version or we've seen people that we're pretty sure are everybody scraping us directly, you know, knowing it's against our terms, knowing we're going to have an issue with it.

[Nick]

And you can track this, like, you know, you know, kind of like CIA style. You can see who's been there.

[Steve Huffman]

It's not always that complicated. And sometimes it's a little more complicated. But yes. And you've got. There's a whole now industry of like, data launderers, hidden little companies that will steal data from us and others and sell it to others so they can say their hands are clean.

[Jack]

It's pretty brazen. I mean, you talk about, like, ask for Forgiveness, not permission. It seems these LLM companies are just doing neither. They're just taking it and banking on, I don't know, legislation in the future allowing them to do so. Or.

[Steve Huffman]

Yeah, or they've done it in secret enough that they won't think they won't get caught. Which is why I think I've got to get credit to the companies that Google and OpenAI, who, yeah, it came to the table, proactively, worked through this with us. Yeah, I think in a way that's ultimately, I think, been beneficial to everybody.

[Nick]

Farmer Steve, we will buy your fruit.

[Steve Huffman]

Thank you.

[Nick]

And we will pay the market price.

[Jack]

No, it's wonderful fruit, but look, if.

[Steve Huffman]

You want to do a research paper about fruit, we'll just give you the fruit.

[Jack]

Yeah, I know, I know. That's why I read. It's awesome. Steve, you know, Nick and I had an idea. We wanted to share with you what you think.

[Nick]

That is. Good. Yeah.

[Jack]

All of tech is embracing AI largely, in our opinion, to please investors and to get the investor community excited about their future.

[Nick]

Artificial is literally the most popular word in every earnings report we read.

[Jack]

And those earnings reports, Nick, are talking to the investor community. At the same time, there are consumers who see AI and are impressed and think that they're working with a tech savvy company and they must be cutting edge. On the other hand, there are consumers who are scared of AI and don't want it at all. I suspect that the Reddit community is like that a little bit. We're wondering, you know, there's no tech company positioning itself as opposed to AI, and we're wondering if there's an opportunity there for Reddit.

[Nick]

Yeah, an opportunity for Reddit maybe even to rename as Real.

[Jack]

Now Reddit has a ton of value. We don't expect it to do that, but we do think there's value in your realness. Even the bots you talk about, if they're explicitly labeled bots, I think that's real. I think something I write in English, that gets AI translated to German, I think that's real too. We really think there could be something there.

[Steve Huffman]

You're not off, you're actually right on the mark. So the way I think about it is this, and there's been kind of a couple of eras of Reddit. The first era, up until I'll call it 2008, 9, 10, Reddit was an alternative to like web surfing. It's like literally, where are you going to find interesting links? Prior to Reddit, it was like RSS or you Click around on blogs or this or that. And so Reddit just kind of aggregated all this interesting stuff in the one place. The next era was. Reddit is not social media. Social media is growing, it's doing its own thing. It's by and large younger than Reddit. And so at Reddit we watched social media growing and explode in popularity. And just as product people, we knew what they were doing and how they were growing, and we just decided that's not for us.

[Nick]

And so network effects, friends.

[Steve Huffman]

Exactly. All the stuff, influencers, algorithms. And so, you know, even now, though, it has the effect of social media kind of helps people understand Reddit because it's almost, it's like a foil to what Reddit is. And now we're entering this era, which is Reddit is not AI. Reddit is humans. We use AI like every business will. And where there is going to be a ton of products where AI writes the content, synthesizes and summarizes the content. And we even built some of that ourselves on Reddit search. But the community and conversation of Reddit, the core of Reddit is, as we said, for people to talk about stuff with people. And I think this is really important. And so even our search, Reddit search, like our AI powered search, all it does is it quotes Reddit comments. It just literally quotes them. And I think there's this idea, this misplaced idea that there's an answer or there's truth. Yeah, sometimes there is, but for a lot of things, especially the sort of things that Reddit's good at, like advice or recommendations, there is no answer. The conversation, the 10 different viewpoints, that is the answer. You want the mess you want, the comments are the content, you want the context. And so that's what Reddit is. And so even the AI version of Reddit is all about revealing all the different facets of people.

[Nick]

Jack, I don't want to go too far down our food analogy here because people are going to think we're just hungry. But you know, it's almost like if we're positioning the rest of tech as so artificial focused and Reddit is real, we've seen this before. Like the food industry was literally processed food for half a century. People got sick of it and then you had this surge in organic and people putting a premium on quality natural products and maybe the pendulum swings back that way toward Reddit and Reddit's the leader of it.

[Steve Huffman]

But I think there's room for both. Like, I mean, I love Google Search and ChatGPT. Like these AI products are really powerful. But I also want to talk to people again. It just comes back to intentionality. When I go to an AI company, I know what I'm getting. I'm getting AI. When you come to Reddit, you should know what you're getting. You're getting people. I can eat vegetables at night and cheez its for lunch. It's okay. You can have.

[Nick]

A well balanced Internet diet right there.

[Jack]

If you rename the company Real Nick and I just want the usernames, Nick and Jack.

[Steve Huffman]

I will look into the usernames for you. Unfortunately, I think Nick and Jack are.

[Jack]

Jack.

[Steve Huffman]

Jack Dorsey may have Jack. I think he made that Jack.

[Jack]

He beat me to it Again. To go back to the farm analogy, Nick, the mods, they weed the farm for free.

[Nick]

Yes, yes, yes, yes. That's exactly it, Jack. Well, also on that social media analogy, you know the other funny thing we noticed, Steve, is that right now you're a social media darling and you're the opposite of all other social media. You literally do the opposite of every other social media company. Jack and I put together a list on our whiteboard, like here, Jack, let's run through the list. LinkedIn, you know, you're verified through your name and your job. It's official. They're there. But on Reddit, you're anonymous meta wants.

[Jack]

To know everything about you. Reddit only asks for your username and password. That is it.

[Nick]

TikTok is 100% video, but Reddit is text first.

[Jack]

X won't let you use the platform unless you're logged in. Reddit will let you look at everything even if you're not logged in.

[Nick]

So by doing the opposite of everyone else, that strategy seems to be working for you. But how do you think that fits in with the rest of social media?

[Steve Huffman]

It's more strategy now than it has been in the past.

[Nick]

Okay.

[Steve Huffman]

In the past, we were just doing what felt right for us because we were stubborn, because we liked the way we did it and we were stubborn and didn't want to change our mind. It turns out that is also a decent business strategy, which is in business we would say we're differentiated. And so if you're not unique, you're just, you're, you're, you're playing the same game as everybody else.

[Jack]

Wow.

[Steve Huffman]

But look, we're not going to go toe to toe with Instagram or TikTok or Snap or Twitter. Like, those aren't fights that we want to be in, let alone we think we can win. And so we can only be the Best Red.

[Nick]

Different is better than better.

[Jack]

Nick. He actually made a strategic business case for stubbornness.

[Nick]

Yes, that's what I called Jack, but I did.

[Steve Huffman]

Your values don't mean anything unless you use them. And so sometimes that manifests as being stubborn. I think it's really important to have lines you won't cross. And so I think it's really important as a business to try to articulate those lines and find them now. It's also important Drink.

[Jack]

Every time Steve says articulate.

[Steve Huffman]

Yeah, yeah. One of my favorite Steve Jobs quotes, he said something like, I'm always right because I'm willing to change my mind until I'm right. And so I think there's a little bit of a balance there. Like you have to live your values, but you also have to be willing to evolve them from time to time. For what's worth. One of our values at Reddit is evolve. Ironically, it's the only value that I haven't tweaked over the last 10 years.

[Jack]

Steve, we know this is kind of an annoying question, but we think it's important to the business. Currently, lots of Reddit website traffic is the result of a Google search.

[Nick]

I believe Reddit's the sixth most popular website that pops up on Google.

[Jack]

And of course Reddit makes a bunch of advertising revenue from those visitors who come from Google. The world might be switching to chatbot based search in which Reddit may lose traffic. What are you doing to protect against that?

[Steve Huffman]

Okay, so there's a couple of ways, I think, to look at this. Yes, we do get a lot of traffic from Google. We get just as much traffic directly to Reddit. Just a couple of facts that I think are really important. We have basically two major sources of traffic. One is direct to Reddit, the other is Google. There's not really a number three, so that's a little peculiar on the Internet. So our direct traffic is very healthy and that's where most of our business is like our ads business. The search ecosystem is under very heavy construction right now. But I think it's wrong to think that Google's getting replaced by AI first of all, on any day of the week, they have the best models. Right? It's a real fight, but they're as good as anybody and they're developing their own search. I think what's really happening on the Internet though is the Internet's getting bigger. People are running more queries. There's queries that are great for blue links, there's queries that are great for AI summaries like Chatbot style. And then there's queries that we're finding that are actually uniquely valuable on Reddit. And so we have our own search product called Reddit Answers now. And so I think there's an opportunity, I think, for Reddit to be, I think alongside the other kind of major companies, a destination for search. And so, for example, a query you can run on Reddit that you don't get a great answer to anywhere else is like, what's the best seat at the sphere? Or any product recommendation, parent advice. I had another music themed one. I saw justice in San Francisco a couple weeks ago and I was like, how long is this set? And Reddit could tell me it's like it's 90 minutes because somebody had already asked that question on Reddit. And so I think it's a combination of the search ecosystem is changing, but the jury is far from back in session on where that's going. Two, Reddit is independent and resilient already because we have so much people come to Reddit specifically or search for it by name. And then three, I think we can actually be a player in search over the long term.

[Nick]

So you think. In summary, in this world in which there's so much change, Google has seen a sudden shift in its Google search control of the world. Reddit is protected because there's such a specific intention for going to Reddit as the destination for answers. But also, we just don't know if chatbots will fully replace Google in the way.

[Steve Huffman]

I actually think it's all of these things. Google's changing. The search ecosystem is changing and getting bigger and more, more varied. People will continue to discover Reddit directly and enjoy it and Reddit will have its own search product. I actually think it's a very exciting time and Reddit will probably likely continue to be present in all of these other search products.

[Jack]

It is a really exciting time.

[Steve Huffman]

Yeah, I think. I don't know where it's all going. But look, I think the way we think about it at Reddit is we have unique communities for every interest and passion and not just like unique, but like uniquely represented online. And that's what people want. Right? That product is not just not going away. I think we've barely scratched the surface.

[Jack]

I really think if the Internet gets flooded with AI, it's going to be so good for Reddit.

[Nick]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. AI slo as AI slob grains. So does Reddit's back.

[Steve Huffman]

Yeah, I'd hate to win because everything else goes to. But. But I see your point.

[Nick]

Yeah. What does that win look like?

[Jack]

It'll be a safe haven, Jack.

[Nick]

We should share the question. You know, as we were prepping for the show, Steve, Jack had this great way of framing a question. Jack. It had a little bit of a B alliteration in it. What was it exactly?

[Jack]

What keeps you up more at night, Steve? Bots or billionaires?

[Steve Huffman]

I don't think about bots or as billionaires. I don't think about bots or billionaires at night. I think about my old dog who's got a pee every two hours, and then me. I'm not spring chicken anymore. I gotta pee every night too. So literally, what's keeping me up at night? It's bladders. Is keeping me up at night another alliteration?

[Nick]

That's totally fair.

[Jack]

You're not worried about Zuckerberg copying your product or Elon buying the company?

[Steve Huffman]

No. They got their own products to worry about, their own businesses to worry about. I'm very confident we'll be doing our own thing another decade from now.

[Nick]

Well, Steve, you know, related to keeping up at night, you became a parent a couple years ago. You've got a daughter, I believe. Was she Cinderella for Halloween? When we spoke a few months ago, I forgot.

[Steve Huffman]

Sounds so plausible. But the thing is, like, every day is princess costume day at our household.

[Nick]

It may have been Alice in Wonderland as I faction myself in real time.

[Steve Huffman]

I think it's been Alice. I think she's been. She's been Alice. She's been Cinderella. I'm pretty sure she's been Peter Pan. What's Peter Pan? Mary Tinkerbell.

[Jack]

Tinkerbell.

[Steve Huffman]

She's been Tinkerbell.

[Nick]

You know, becoming a dad kind of timed up with your IPO for you. Jack just had his third child a few months ago, which is exciting. We both kind of recently entered parenthood. We were curious for the yetis out there, who are parents, how do you look at life running a big company as a parent? Like, massive responsibilities for a $20 billion business. Also massive responsibilities for being a dad.

[Steve Huffman]

Okay, two ways to answer this. One from a time point of view. Work, family. I got time for those two things. I don't have a lot of time for other things. So that works. And I think we found a kind of a nice balance and rhythm two. I think the fun thing about kids is they don't care like my kids. So they're four and one right now. They don't care about my work. Like, they don't care. They don't care what I do they don't care if I had a good day or a bad day. Actually, my daughter now will ask me, did I have a nice day?

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Steve Huffman]

So maybe we're getting into that. But I think there's something distinctly not work about kids is really, really nice. Right. They care about. Are you playing with me? Who's doing bath time tonight? Like, can I have dessert? Like, you know, are we going out on the scooter or what? Like, and I think that's dad, according.

[Nick]

To this subreddit, I can have.

[Steve Huffman]

So, like, I think that simplicity and purity is the part that I probably enjoy among the most right now.

[Nick]

Well, also there being a reality like you're describing, if you can't fit everything into your life at this stage right now.

[Steve Huffman]

Yeah, like, I lost a few hobbies.

[Nick]

Yeah, Jack, Actually, I just put my piano lessons on hold. I'm not.

[Jack]

I forgot to tell you, I think.

[Steve Huffman]

Before people have kids, they're like, they worry like, I'm gonna lose a hobby, I'm gonna lose all the stuff I like to do. It's totally true. You will. But I think what people don't factor in is that it's going to be worth it, that you're not gonna miss those things as much as you thought.

[Nick]

They only look at the cost.

[Jack]

I'd love to hear your advice for our entrepreneurial listeners. Can you describe product market fit for our entrepreneurial listeners? Oh, yeah.

[Nick]

Jack heard you give an incredible explanation of this.

[Steve Huffman]

If you have to ask.

[Nick]

Steve's famous product market fit, straight from the farm.

[Jack]

Here it is at the market. You don't have it.

[Nick]

This is your TED Talk look.

[Steve Huffman]

So Reddit was the first thing that I had really done. We didn't know what we were doing.

[Nick]

That's wild.

[Steve Huffman]

We didn't know why it was growing. It was just growing. That's product market fit. Is it just growing? Did you do everything wrong and it's still growing? That's product market fit.

[Nick]

There you go.

[Steve Huffman]

Like, we were at Hipmunk. Hipmunk was the company I did between my time at Reddit. We're selling plane tickets. We had a nice product. I still meet people today who are like, I loved the product.

[Jack]

It was the best way to search for flights.

[Steve Huffman]

Yeah, we didn't have product market fit. People loving the product is not product market fit. It was always unaffected to the grave. You know, we could buy users, we could do these little stunts to get users, but if we took our eye off it for one second, straight to zero, it can feel good, it can look good. Your customers can love it. And you still don't have product market fit.

[Nick]

You need to have this organic growth.

[Steve Huffman]

You're saying it's got to be growing, it's got to be growing. And you know, you can't growth hack your way to product market fit. Like the product has to be good and it has to, you know, the, what would you call it, Retention? Right, the retention's got to be good.

[Nick]

Jack and I like to say that great investors are living in the future. They're living five years ahead of us. So great thinkers are already living 20, 30 right now. So we were curious, where do you see the world in five years? The Internet, AI, what does that look like from Steve's brain?

[Steve Huffman]

I think it's hard. It does sometimes feel like there's this AI event horizon and it's very difficult to see past it. And so I do want to leave space for that. That is my answer. But there's been so many times in history where we think, especially I think in Western culture, especially in America, where we think that we're at the end, right? We're on the verge of greatness or we're on the verge of it's all over and we're not, I think, just kind of a part of our culture, the way we look at the world. And so more than likely five years from now will look a lot like today with a few nice things. So what am I confident in? I'm confident in like self driving cars. Like we're not going to be driving five years from now that is such.

[Nick]

Your daughter's not going to have a.

[Steve Huffman]

Driver that is product market fit. You know, has AI replaced all white collar work? I doubt it. Has it replaced humanity? I doubt it. But other big changes we can't see quite yet for sure. But you know, generally what I would, the advice I'd give is to myself, which is like, stay in your lane. And so I just, I spent all my time thinking about like Reddit. And you know, again, I think there will always be a need, a desire for people to talk to people about stuff and that like, that is where we are going to be focused.

[Nick]

Well, Steve, on that note, at the end of every story, Jack and I decide what the takeaway is to that story.

[Jack]

But since you're our guest, we want to hear it from you. So what is Steve Huffman's takeaway on Reddit?

[Steve Huffman]

I think the special thing about Reddit is you get to see how people behave when nobody's watching. Right. If you're nice on Reddit, if you're mean on Reddit, neither of those things affect your experience outside of Reddit. You don't get to take it with you. And so one of the things that I've just enjoyed so much getting a front row seat for is seeing that when you take away the real world incentives, people just want to help each other. They want to share a few laughs, they want to give some advice, they want to receive some advice. It's given me such a positive view of humanity, and I think a more positive view of humanity than people generally have, especially if you look at the world through social media and news. And I think there's something really profound there. And it's not a Reddit thing, it's a people thing. I just think Reddit reveals it.

[Nick]

Yeah. Well, Steve, to wrap up, we've got some rapid fire questions for you.

[Steve Huffman]

Okay, hit me.

[Nick]

Here's what we're thinking. Our show is the best one yet. We want to know what are your best ones yet.

[Jack]

So we're going to ask some rapid fire questions to close first, what is the best song you listen to? To relax?

[Steve Huffman]

Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky.

[Nick]

Since you're a dancing guy too, Steve, what's the best song you listen to? To pump yourself up?

[Steve Huffman]

There's a new artist I like called Sosa. They've got a song, I think it's called Bump Artist. It's a banger.

[Nick]

That sounds like a pump up jam.

[Jack]

And who's the best CEO you admire?

[Steve Huffman]

Oh, boy, there are lots. I really admire Brian Chesky at Airbnb. I really admire Rich Barton of Expedia, Glassdoor in Zillow. I got to meet Bill Gates for the first time the other other day, which was super special.

[Nick]

Cool.

[Steve Huffman]

I'm sure there's a ton of people I'm missing.

[Nick]

Well, if you're gonna hang out with that person, what is the best restaurant to go to in San Francisco?

[Steve Huffman]

Oh, best restaurant in San Francisco. Okay, well, if I'm gonna hang out with somebody I look up to, I'm gonna go to like a, like a three hour dinner. So I'll do like a.

[Nick]

That's strategic.

[Steve Huffman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll do like Lazy Bear or California or something like that. What's my favorite food in San Francisco? It's got to be like a burrito, but that's like a ten minute thing, right? So like I wouldn't take a guess there.

[Nick]

Yeah, that's not optimizing for that Bill Gates dinner, is it?

[Jack]

My life changed with taqueria, Cancun and what's the best thing to do, visiting the Bay Area.

[Steve Huffman]

Oh, gosh. So I think you could do probably a pretty killer. Okay, what would I put on the agenda? You gotta go to, like, Dolores park in San Francisco on the weekend. I think there's nothing else like it in America. It's like Woodstock every weekend. It's totally nuts. You also get this epic good view of San Francisco, kind of a sneaky good view because it doesn't feel elevated. And then I'd probably drive across San Francisco. So, like, do some epic hills and then go up, what do you call that? The Marin Headlands, and go up there and look at that bridge view, maybe hike in Marin. You can have a pretty killer, I think, Bay Area day if you start kind of at the bottom of San Francisco and drive all the way up to Marin.

[Nick]

And the best innovation that isn't Reddit that you're most excited about right now?

[Steve Huffman]

Oh, it's Waymo for sure.

[Nick]

We thought you might say, I wish.

[Jack]

So badly it was a separate and distinct publicly traded stock so I could get in.

[Steve Huffman]

Yeah, I mean, everybody's so skeptical until they ride in it and then you ride it and you're like, oh, I'll never drive again.

[Nick]

Yeah, it's life changing.

[Steve Huffman]

Oh, for sure.

[Nick]

It really is. What a tourist thing. Also, Steve, happy 20 year anniversary. We're dropping this episode on your 20th Reddit birthday. Congratulations.

[Steve Huffman]

Thank you. Thank you so much. This is advice I give to college kids. Yeah, like young engineers. Like every code you've written, every piece of code you've written so far has only lasted a semester. Starting next year when you graduate, you might have to live with what you've written for like 20 years. And so it's like a, it's a, it's a mind shift change because Reddit is still dealing with that I wrote when I was 21.

[Nick]

So Jack and I just whipped up a Reddit birthday cake for you. You're blown out the candle. What is your wish for the company?

[Steve Huffman]

20 more years.

[Jack]

All right, there we go. Steve, thank you so much. Congratulations on founding an epic company and going back to it to steer it to an IPO after already having steered it to a sale. Your entrepreneurial journey is wild. And thank you for sharing all most.

[Nick]

Exciting company in AI.

[Steve Huffman]

Thanks, guys. Thanks guys. This was a lot of fun.

[Nick]

Also, Wait, Jack, are you wearing your watch?

[Jack]

I'm not.

[Steve Huffman]

Oh.

[Nick]

Cause, Steve, you're a Detroit guy, right?

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Steve Huffman]

Oh, is that a shinola watch?

[Jack]

You're wearing the shinola watch.

[Nick]

Jack and I have matching shinoahs.

[Steve Huffman]

You do?

[Nick]

Oh, Jack and I did our first big business deal together. We treat each other's shinolas.

[Steve Huffman]

Our CFO wears one of those.

[Jack]

Nice.

[Nick]

Oh, nice. Not Nick, right? It's not the Nick who took money.

[Steve Huffman]

No, that's true.

[Jack]

No. But you know where we found Chanola in the first place, Nick?

[Nick]

Where?

[Jack]

The subreddit Made in usa.

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Jack]

You know they have a source circle. It's not men's frugal fashion though. Who didn't qualify for that one?

[Nick]

We were laying the seeds for this interview ten years ago, Jack. Right when Steve was restarting a Reddit.

[Jack]

If you like the best one yet, you can listen ad free right now by joining Wondery and the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

[Nick]

Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music.

[Jack]

And before you go, tell us a little bit about yourself by filling out a short [e-mail] survey we want to.

[Nick]

Get to know you.

[D]

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