#400 Reddit Founder: “I Wish I Still Owned Reddit Now” – with Steve Huffman

#400 Reddit Founder: “I Wish I Still Owned Reddit Now” – with Steve Huffman

Author: Andrew Warner October 20, 2010 Duration: 0:00
Many founders I interviewed on Mixergy told me about how their companies virtually disappeared after they sold them. But 4 years after selling Reddit to Conde Nast, Steve Huffman is so proud of how much its grown that he’d be happy to still own it. I asked him to teach me how he grew his community, why some Y Combinator-backed founders, like him, succeed while others don’t get any traction and why he never resented his co-founder for getting so much attention. I also asked Steve about Hipmunk, the travel site he launched which replaces the spreadsheet-like search results that most travel sites use with a more useful design.

Steve Huffman graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in Computer Science in 2005. Immediately after leaving Virginia, he founded reddit.com with his college roommate, Alexis Ohanian.

 

Sponsored by

Shopify – Remember the interview I did about how the founder of DODOCase sold about $1 mil worth of iPad cases in a few months? He used Shopify. It’s dead simple and very effective.

Grasshopper – Don’t make the mistake of comparing Grasshopper with other phone services. Check out their features and you’ll see why Grasshopper isn’t just a phone number, it’s the virtual phone system that entrepreneurs (like me) love.

Walker Corporate Law – Scott Edward Walker is the lawyer entrepreneurs turn to when they want to raise money or sell their companies, but if you’re just getting started, his firm will help you launch properly. Watch this video to learn about him.

More interviews -> https://mixergy.com/moreint
Rate this interview -> https://mixergy.com/rateint


Behind every successful company is a founder with a story, and those stories are rarely simple or straightforward. Startup Stories-Mixergy digs into the complex reality of building a business, moving past polished success narratives to find the real decisions, failures, and pivotal moments that define a journey. Host Andrew Warner engages guests with a direct and curious interviewing style, asking the challenging questions that reveal how things actually happened. When you listen, you’ll hear entrepreneurs recount the specific struggles they faced in marketing, management, and company culture, providing practical lessons rather than abstract theory. This podcast operates on the belief that the most valuable education comes from honest, detailed case studies of what worked and what didn’t. It’s for anyone who wants to understand the human effort behind business headlines, offering insights across categories from technology and finance to societal impact. Each episode is a deep dive into the mechanics of growth, making this an essential resource for aspiring founders, seasoned executives, and simply the curious. The conversations are built on research and a genuine desire to unpack the truth, ensuring every story delivers substance you can apply to your own ambitions.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 43

Startup Stories - Mixergy
Podcast Episodes
#2294 He Claude Code: Build Me a YouTube Replacement [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 0:00
When YouTube kicked Pat Walls’ Starter Story channel off the platform, he spent a weekend getting Claude Code to build him a replacement. I wanted to see how it was done, so he walked me through it step-by-step. Turns ou…
#2293 $2 million / year AI engineering firm [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 0:00
My friend created an AI engineering firm and every time I see him, he tells me how much his business is growing. So I asked him to tell me all about it in this interview. This is the story of how Tarun Thummala created P…
#2292 AI Automation that makes cold calls [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 0:00
Yevgeniy Matsay was a real estate broker who hated making cold calls. So he built an AI automation to do it for him. It worked so well that he created an agency that created cold calling automations for other brokers. To…
#2291 He keeps launching AI businesses [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 0:00
Over a decade ago, Joe Apfelbaum was on the podcast, telling me how focusing on SEO helped him grow his agency. That was hard for the idea-a-minute founder. Now he’s back. And AI is enabling him to create more businesses…
#2290 He’s building an AI media empire [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 0:00
On the surface, it looks like Ricardo Vice Santos is selling AI-created books for your kids. But he’s aiming for something much bigger: a world where TV, movies, and every other media will be customized to you, using AI.…
#2289 Building companies using Zapier’s AI automations [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 0:00
Zapier used to be the software that connected all your other software. But it’s AI has become so powerful that people are using it to build software companies. Founder Wade Foster joined me to talk about and show how the…
#2288 She had people do AI’s work [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 0:00
Helen Hastings wanted to create better accounting software. To figure out what to build, she had humans do the work. This is the story of how she created Quanta, the accounting software that’s taking on QuickBooks with a…
#2287 AI made a “no code” founder into a coder [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 0:00
Ben Tossell used to listen to Mixergy interviews as he hunted for a big idea to launch. Then he nailed it. MakerPad, an educational company for people who wanted to build using no code. It did so well that he sold it for…
#2286 Pepper: AI + people = > $10 million [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 0:00
Pepper is creating content for clients like Shopify, Adobe and Instacart. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of posts & videos. And this is content that leads to sales. In this interview, founder Anirudh Singla tell us…
#2285 AEO: How to make ChatGPT promote you [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 0:00
Ethan Smith runs Graphite, the SEO & AEO company that helps brands like Webflow show up on Google’s page one and ChatGPT’s first answer. This is how he does it Ethan Smith is the founder and CEO of Graphite, a growth and…