

The Emotional Story of Reddit's Start & Sale - mrkmcknz
http://www.inc.com/chris-beier-and-daniel-wolfman/alexis-ohanian-reddit-founder-emotional-back-story-start-and-sale.html

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rynop
Thanks for sharing this link. I'm also a entrepreneur and a software engineer,
in a some what similar situation.

As I sit on my couch across from my 30 yr old wife (who is pregnant) and my 3
yr old son I opened this link with an eerie feeling. When Alexis started
talking about his mother, first though in my mind was 'he is gonna say it is
cancer'. Then when I saw the screen of it being a brain tumor, it felt
surreal.

About a month ago, my wife had a grade IV glioblastoma removed, and is now
undergoing 6 weeks of daily chemo and radiation, followed by scheduled
delivery @ 34 weeks, followed by more radiation on her spine (her gleo has
PNET like attributes). We are extremely lucky that she is/was a nurse at one
of the best hospitals in the world (mayo clinic).

While my dreams of owning my own successful company have been put on hold to
focus on my family, this story has helped me put aside some of my own internal
guilt of still wanting to do that someday.

Thanks for sharing your story Alexis.

~~~
jayliew
sorry to hear that, my friend. Best of luck, may the force be with you and
your +1

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kjhughes
This appears to be the same story that Inc ran on May 30, 2012,

[http://www.inc.com/magazine/201206/christine-
lagorio/alexis-...](http://www.inc.com/magazine/201206/christine-
lagorio/alexis-ohanian-reddit-how-i-did-it.html)

And has been discussed here already:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4043092>

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kintamanimatt
This hits home. The thing my dad didn't live long enough to see are the good
things I'm creating.

~~~
Killswitch
My dad's pride in what I do is what helps me keep going. I remember before he
died being at a family reunion and him introducing me to family members that
I've never met as follows: "This is my son, he's gonna be big someday."

~~~
bherms
That's how I felt when my grandfather was still alive. He saw the world in me
and it felt awesome to prove him right so often growing up.

After he passed, things changed and now it's almost the complete opposite
fueling me now. I look at how close-minded, hateful, and worthless my parents
are and bust my ass to prove to everyone that I'm not going to turn out like
them.

~~~
njx
channel your feelings into positive outcomes and then thank your parents for
that.

~~~
kn0thing
What a great series of comments. I couldn't agree more with all of this.

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armstrong488
for those like me who were confused:

the provided link is a personal shortlink.

the canonical link is [http://www.inc.com/chris-beier-and-daniel-
wolfman/alexis-oha...](http://www.inc.com/chris-beier-and-daniel-
wolfman/alexis-ohanian-reddit-founder-emotional-back-story-start-and-
sale.html)

------
bsenftner
After the third presentation of a link to this story, I tried it. Something
caught my attention for a moment, and when I glanced back I was mid way into
the story. Never mind the content of the story: the production of the video is
pure emotional manipulation. I don't care what the content is, when I see such
blatant emotional manipulation, my alarms go off. I'm not crass, I know true
life pain - but using it like this for commercial gain really smells.

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sunwooz
I met alexis during a a meetup event in NYC and I had no idea that this was a
part of his story. I love both reddit and hipmunk and I hope he continues to
make cool products!

~~~
kn0thing
Surprise! Thanks so much.

------
spudlyo
A touching film. I'm not sure the effect when it suddenly went to black-and-
white and the camera got all jerky, out-of-focus really worked though. I
really found it distracting, although I still enjoyed it overall.

------
DanielOcean
I have a newfound respect for Reddit.

