Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian on his “Relentless” personality trait.

“I’ve always had a strong sense of mortality, I feel like when I was a kid, I had no lives because it was like a video game thing,” he said. “I noticed that’s when I played the best in the video game because I was out of lives. You always play your best when you’re out of lives.”

The founder of venture capital firm Seven Seven Six said his mother’s death from terminal cancer taught him “how crucial it was to maximize the time I have and to do it the right way”.

But having that mindset presented some challenges when working with others, Ohanian noted.

“I have a lot of trouble interacting with people who are not similarly oriented,” he said. “And then sometimes it makes you a difficult person because I don’t want to waste time, even in my free time.”

Reflecting on his early career, Ohanian offered the advice to “spend time working on yourself, understanding what’s really important, and then not compromising on those things that really matter to you.”

“I think probably for the first 15, 20 years of my career, I was less comfortable with it and so I tolerated it more,” he said. “It’s been a wind at my back ever since and I’m so grateful for that. And at the same time, I’m like, “Damn, why didn’t I do this sooner?” And I think it’s because part of me wasn’t comfortable being that comfortable with that part of my personality.”

Ohanian and Steve Huffman, now CEO of Reddit, co-founded the online community site in 2005 and sold it to Condé Nast the following year. He remained on Reddit’s board until 2020 and in 2021 announced his venture capital firm, Seven Seven Six.