"One of the reasons I love the Internet so much, aside from all the cats, is if it works the way it should great ideas can spread and flourish in a way that they couldn't have before."
Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit and Breadpig, is a modern version of the American dream: a tech entrepreneur born to immigrant parents who sold his first company in his early 20s. But he isn't ashamed to admit that he had it easier than a lot of people in achieving success, and those advantages help inform his work in trying to make the Internet a place where everyone can succeed.
"It doesn't devalue the success that I've had, it doesn't make me any less proud of the success that I've had, it doesn't make me any less ambitious to concede that there were inherent advantages that I got and continue to have that I did not necessarily earn or deserve," Ohanian says. "But I'm totally cool with that."
Coming from a white, middle class, loving two-parent family, Ohanian says, gave him a basic advantage, a start on the diamond somewhere between first and second base, in the parlance of the classic "born on third base, thinks he hit a triple" quip.
Support HuffPost
Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages.