The Real Reason for Reddit’s IPO Plan Should Come As No Surprise

There are every kind of causes that fast-growth firms need to go public. For  Reddit, on the high of listing is the prospect to present again to its loyal staff.  

On December 15 the net message board firm introduced it had confidentially filed an S-1 type with the Securities and Trade Fee for assessment, with intent to go public via an preliminary providing of inventory. A weblog put up saying the IPO gave little element in regards to the San Francisco-based enterprise’s plans, citing regulatory causes.

Often called the web’s city corridor, Reddit is reliably one of many 10 most-visited web sites in the USA, averaging 52 million every day energetic customers in October 2021. The corporate, based in 2005 by College of Virginia graduates Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman–the latter of whom now serves as chief executive–was acquired in its early days by the father or mother enterprise of the Conde Nast media empire. It later regained autonomy and has raised a number of huge funding rounds lately, working extra like a typical fast-growing startup.

One of many web site’s founding tenets was “freedom from the press.” Reddit positioned a excessive worth on open dialogue, which led the corporate into numerous scandals, together with a consumer revolt, interim CEO Ellen Pao basically being harassed out of her place, a Russian hacking try, and, extra not too long ago, involvement within the GameStop-Robinhood meme-stock saga.

Huffman left the corporate for a interval, however returned as CEO in 2015, and set on a path to regain company stability and make Reddit welcoming to new customers and new content material varieties.

In the middle of reporting on my e book, We Are the Nerds: The Start and Tumultuous Lifetime of Reddit, the Web’s Tradition Laboratory, Huffman advised me an IPO was probably in Reddit’s future. This was 2017, and on the time he was hesitant to say these three letters publicly for concern of setting off a wave of headlines. However he hinted that he’d all the time imagined the corporate would go public, merely as a result of construction of its worker packages and investments. He stated:

There’s an implicit promise we make once we pay individuals in inventory choices, that someday these choices can be value one thing. One of many issues on my thoughts is sooner or later I want to pay our staff again and our traders again for believing in us. For taking the chance with us.

To make certain, Reddit’s rank-and-file staff aren’t the one ones in line for a windfall when the corporate’s shares start buying and selling. Huffman’s personal wage for years was (and should still be) tied to efficiency, and his compensation is probably going stock-heavy.

Extra not too long ago, in March, Huffman advised The New York Occasions: “We’re fascinated about it. We’re working towards that second.” He did not connect a timeline to these ideas, and in August they appeared to have been set apart when Reddit unexpectedly introduced in a whopping $700 million in investor funding, which valued it at greater than $10 billion.