Alexis Ohanian says being “relentless” with his time has been a boon for his career, even if he was slightly uncomfortable leaning into it earlier on.
In an episode of the 20VC podcast released Wednesday, the Reddit cofounder says he’s relentless “for better or for worse when it comes to thing sthat I believe are right, when it comes to things that I think aren’t good enough, when it comes to just doing things.”
“I always had a strong sense of mortality, I feel like even as a kid, I had no lives remaining because it was like a video game thing,” he said. “I noticed that was when I played the best in the video game because I didn’t have any more lives left. You always play best when you have no lives remaining.”
The Seven Seven Six venture capital firm founder said his mother’s death from terminal cancer taught him “how crucial it was to maximize the time that I have and do it in the right way.”
But having this mindset has presented some challenges when working with others, Ohanian noted.
“I have a lot of trouble interfacing with folks who aren’t oriented similarly,” he said. “And then it sometimes makes you a hard person to be around because I really don’t want to squander time, even in my leisure time.”
Reflecting on his early career, Ohanian offered the advice to “spend that time working on yourself, understanding what really is important, and then not compromising on those things that really matter to you.”
“I think for probably the first 15, 20 years of my career, I was less comfortable in that, and so I tolerated more,” he said. “It has been a wind at my back since, and I feel so grateful for that. And at the same time, I’m like, ‘Damn, why didn’t I do that sooner?’ And I think it’s because some part of me wasn’t comfortable being that comfortable with this part of my personality.”
Ohanian and Steve Huffman, now Reddit’s CEO, cofounded the online community website in 2005 and sold it to Condé Nast the following year. He remained on Reddit’s board until 2020 and in 2021 announced his VC firm, Seven Seven Six.
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