Alexis‍‍‍ Oha‍‍‍n‍‍‍ian

In his presentations, Alexis Ohanian outlines the opportunities that emerging media offers to budding startups as well as individuals. While traditional media is almost always a top-down affair, social media allows regular, everyday people and small startups to leverage their brand or venture through the crowd.

‍‍‍As the co-founder of the news website reddit.com, Ohanian is well versed in new forms of media. What makes this website more dynamic than traditional news outlets, is that news stories on reddit.com gain or lose prominence based on how many positive or negative votes they receive rather than the opinion of an editor.

In his presentations, Alexis Ohanian points to examples like this as evidence that social media provides opportunities to players that would traditionally be at a disadvantage.

He currently works as an angel investor, helping to fund and found organizations such as Hipmunk and Das Kapital Capital.

‍‍‍Founder‍‍‍ Vayner Media

Shark Tank, Business Mogul‍‍‍

Founder o‍‍‍f Snap, Inc

Fee: $$

Make the World Suck Less (And Still Make a Profit)

‍‍‍So many people talk about how to use social media to build community, but not many have actually done it on a massive scale. As co-founder of the social news site reddit, and founder of the social enterprise breadpig, Alexis speaks with authority on the power of building a passionate community and the opportunity to tap into that community to do good works. "Make the World Suck Less" is Alexis's motto and the mission he builds into all his entrepreneurial endeavors. With breadpig, he turned the publishing model on its head, giving the bulk of its profits to the artists while still raising over $200,000 in three years to donate to non-profit projects. Alexis tells stories from his own experiences, and from the companies he invests in, and shows how individuals and organizations of every size and type can put these values into action.‍‍‍

Think Like a Startup

‍‍‍America is losing its competitive edge as a nation. With fewer products being produced in the US, it is innovation coming from dorm-rooms and garages that will continue generating wealth (and jobs) for the next generation. Today, Google (started in a garage) has over 20,000 employees. Skype was developed by programmers in Estonia, and when it was sold, the price was equal to more than 1/10th of Estonia's GDP that year. A 17-year-old high school student in Moscow started ChatRoulette.com, which quickly became one of the most popular websites in the world. Alexis was in the first round of Y Combinator startups, funded in a model that has quickly become replicated worldwide as the standard means of investing in early stage web startups. He'll share what he learned from having gone through the experience, as well as what it's like now working for Y Combinator as their "Ambassador to the East." With over 60 companies in his portfolio today, Alexis will also share his insights as an investor and show companies of all sizes the most valuable lessons they can learn from startup culture.