Altman holds the third-largest stake in Reddit, owning 8.7% of the online discussion platform, as revealed in its IPO prospectus released on Thursday. While the filing did not specify the offering price, reports suggest Reddit aims for a valuation of at least $5 billion. This valuation would value Altman's stake, consisting of 789,456 Class A shares and 11.4 million super-voting Class B shares, at approximately $435 million.
It's unclear if Altman plans to sell shares in the IPO, but the value of his stake highlights his rise as one of Silicon Valley's most influential and well-positioned entrepreneurs. Altman currently leads OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, which sparked the current generative AI boom and is valued at about $86 billion.
Altman's involvement with Reddit dates back to at least 2014 when he invested in the company's Series B funding round. He also participated in Reddit's Series C round in July 2017 when the company was valued at $1.8 billion. Altman served as a director on Reddit's board for seven years, stepping down in 2022. During his tenure, Reddit underwent several internal changes with different CEOs, including Yishan Wong and Ellen Pao. Altman briefly served as Reddit's CEO in 2014 for just over a week following Wong's resignation.
Altman's brief tenure as CEO prompted him to comment, "Although my eight days as the CEO of Reddit have been sort of fun, I am happy they are coming to a close, and I am sure the new team will do a far better job and take Reddit to great heights." He concluded with a competitive remark, noting that "during my very brief tenure, Reddit added more users than Hacker News has in total."
Other major shareholders in Reddit include Steven Newhouse, co-president of Advance Publications, which holds a 30.1% stake, and Chinese tech firm Tencent, which owns 11%. Reddit's co-founder and CEO, Steve Huffman, holds a 3.3% stake, although the Advance stake is subject to his voting proxy, as per the filing.
Founded in 2005, Reddit boasts 76 million daily users and saw a revenue of $804 million last year, up 21% year over year.
