Reddit, where chaos thrives, tries to clean up to attract ads from big brands

Steve Huffman, chief executive of online chat platform Reddit, is now a self-confessed “Supreme Court nerd.”

After what the company acknowledges as its “wild” early days, the 35-year-old co-founder is now trying to clean up the edgy website known for provocative discussions and fringe groups, while revamping its advertising offering in a bid to woo big brands and move toward profitability.

To that end, Huffman has turned to the history books.

“How do we wrestle with the fact that there are ugly conversations happening in our country when the founding principle is on free expression?” he said. “These aren’t new issues. I look to what people smarter than us have thought about” them.

The strategy is not just ethical but commercial. Reddit has doubled its revenue growth year over year the last two years and is targeting that same pace for its core business this coming year, Huffman said. Staff headcount has doubled over the last year to about 500.

Meanwhile, the group has clinched several high-profile content and advertising deals recently, including with the National Football League and with Google ahead of the launch of its Stadia cloud gaming platform in November.

Reddit has also joined the ranks of Silicon Valley’s so-called unicorns, raising $300 million this year in an investment round led by China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd., giving it a valuation of about $3 billion…..[Read More]