OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stands to net millions as Reddit goes public

OpenAI
CEO
Sam
Altman
will
be
in
a
position
to
make
millions
after
Reddit
goes
public,
thanks
to
a
series
of
bets
on
the
online
discussion
board
company
that
go
back
to
2014.
Altman
holds
9.2%
of
voting
power
ahead
of
Reddit’s
initial
public
offering,
according
to
information
in

the
company’s
prospectus.

Altman,
who
is
now

reportedly
keen
to
raise
trillions
for
chip
development
that
could
help
meet


Microsoft-backed
OpenAI’s
artificial
intelligence
computing
demand,
has
invested
in
dozens
of
startups
over
the
years.
That
includes


Asana,
which

hit
the
New
York
Stock
Exchange
in
2020,
and


Instacart,
which

debuted
on
Nasdaq
in
September.
Before
OpenAI
launched
in
2015,
Altman
was
president
of
Silicon
Valley
accelerator
Y
Combinator,
giving
him
exposure
to
many
small
companies.

In
2014
Altman
led
Reddit’s
$50
million
Series
B
funding
round,
after
using
the
service
every
day
for
nine
years,
he
wrote
in
a

blog
post.

“reddit
is
an
example
of
something
that
started
out
looking
like
a
silly
toy
for
wasting
time
and
has
become
something
very
interesting,”
he
wrote.
“It’s
been
an
important
community
for
me
over
the
years—I
can
find
like-minded
people
that
I
can’t
always
find
in
the
real
world.”

In
the
first
half
of
2021,
Reddit
was
raising
a
Series
E
round,
and
Altman
invested
$50
million.

Then,
in
the
second
half
of
the
year,
Altman
sunk
another
$10
million
into
Reddit,
as
the
company
raised
some
$512
million
in
funding.
By
that
point,
Altman’s
$50
million
investment
from
earlier
in
the
year
was
up
45%
in
value.

The
shares
of
Reddit’s
Class
A
and
Class
B
stock
are
spread
across
five
different
entities,
and
they
will
give
Altman
more
shares
than
even
CEO
Steve
Huffman,
according
to
Thursday’s
filing.
Reddit
has
not
yet
told
investors
how
many
Class
A
shares
it
plans
to
sell
in
the
IPO.

Altman
sat
on
Reddit’s
board
as
recently
as
2021,
according
to
the
filing.
Reddit

said
in
January
2022
that
he
had
recently
stepped
down.

“Sam
was
an
incredible
board
member
and
provided
invaluable
support
and
counsel
to
Reddit
and
myself
over
the
years,”
Huffman
was
quoted
as
saying
at
the
time.
“We’re
deeply
grateful
for
the
impact
he
made
on
the
company.”

Now
Altman
trying
to
increase
adoption
of
OpenAI’s
services,
including
the
popular
ChatGPT
chatbot.
Reddit
said
in
its
filing
that
it
sees
competition
from
large
language
models
that
can
produce
human-like
text
in
response
to
a
few
words
of
written
input.
Among
the
LLMs
listed
are
Google’s
Gemini,
startup
Anthropic
and
ChatGPT.

As
part
of
the
IPO,
Reddit
will
offer
shares
to
some
of
its
users
and
moderators,
known
colloquially
as
Redditors.
For
Altman,
that’s
likely
to
be
a
positive.

“It’s
always
bothered
me
that
users
create
so
much
of
the
value
of
sites
like
reddit
but
don’t
own
any
of
it,”
he
wrote
in
his
2014
blog
post.

He
went
on
to
say
that
investors
in
the
Series
B
round
would
give
10%
of
shares
to
Reddit
users.

“I
hope
we
increase
community
ownership
over
time,”
he
wrote.

WATCH:

Reddit
is
a
litmus
test
for
investor
appetite
for
non-AI
things,
says
FirstMark’s
Heitzmann