Reddit founder says building social media apps is not cool anymore

Reddit co‑founder Alexis Ohanian told WIRED senior correspondent Lauren Goode at the inaugural WIRED World Fair that building social media applications is “not cool anymore”. He added, “I’m expecting some better version of the group chat to be that new version of UGC.”

Ohanian left Reddit in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd, saying he stepped down to create space for a Black board member and to push for reforms to the site’s content moderation. The platform had previously been criticised for hosting violent and harmful rhetoric. He later recalled seeing a person with a Reddit tattoo – once a badge of the site’s success – who had covered it up, and said, “I don’t blame him.”

He now heads venture‑capital firm Seven Seven Six, which manages over $1.3 billion in assets and concentrates on sports, describing real‑world communities as “in the age of AI slop” and a “manipulated” internet. Ohanian is a supporter of the “Dead Internet Theory”, arguing that much online activity is now generated by bots and that large language models are accelerating this shift. He warned, “the internet that I grew up on … that was really built for humans first; user interfaces and experiences are going to go away,” because more of the web will be created for agents rather than people.

He noted that generative AI has made Reddit’s archive valuable to companies such as Google and OpenAI, saying, “Platforms like ours became very, very valuable to LLMs.” However, he said the technology has also hurt the business, with Reddit shares falling 29 percent after the company warned that Google’s AI‑powered search was reducing referral traffic. He added that the commercialisation of conversations has filled the internet with “bullshit”, and that “the internet has gotten so manipulated because it is so incredibly valuable to do so.”

Reddit has recently required users to sign in to curb third‑party scraping and boost engagement. Ohanian declined to reveal whether he supports the policy, but said, “there has to be provable humanity on the internet without being creepy.” He remains optimistic about AI’s potential, especially in medicine, acknowledging that “There is still a very real chance that this technology can cause a lot of harm for sure,” and concluding, “I think we have to be sober about how we’re building and what we’re doing, but I still can’t help but see all of the things that can get so demonstrably better.”