Talk about a full-circle moment!
Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian has officially received a plaque of honor at the Waffle House where he had the epiphany to start his company.
Located on Route 29 near the University of Virginia where he was a student, Ohanian visited the establishment in the middle of taking the LSATs nearly 20 years ago in an effort to refuel. Instead, he ended up with a complete life redirection.
“Thank you, Walt and the entire team — not just for the plaque, but also for changing my life; I’d never have started @reddit without ya,” Ohanian emotionally captioned the photo.
Ohanian, who is married to tennis superstar Serena Williams, took the couple’s daughter, Olympia, to the exact restaurant last year and documented it on social media.
Though she was more impressed by the waffles than the old story, Ohanian took the time to share with her and the world just how important the restaurant was to his career about 19 years ago.
“If not for Waffle House, I might be a lawyer. Which no one would want,” he joked on Instagram at the time. “But thankfully, in the middle of taking the LSAT, I got hungry and I got up and left and went to a Waffle House. And now I’m taking my daughter there, showing her the greatness that is Waffle House.”
Thankfully Ohanian took his talents to found Reddit, which has an estimated 55.8 million daily active users and 1.66 billion monthly active users, per most recent data. He stepped down from day-to-day responsibilities in 2018 before formally stepping down from the company’s board in 2020 to focus on other entrepreneurial efforts.
Ohanian’s net worth is an estimated $100 million.