YouSaid · the spoken record

Steve Huffman

lines on the record: 74
first: 2024-03-21
most recent: 2024-03-21
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“But Reddit's not a country. We live in a country where free speech is the law of the land. But on Reddit, we do have standards of decorum. And we do have rules. And there are lines. And look, we have to work very hard to define those lines. And we're constantly learning and evolving. In the early days, we didn't have a line. We just said we don't ban things. But we had to, I think, learn and grow and mature out of that and find, I think, a more realistic and practical equilibrium.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, look, I believe in free speech. It's the founding principle of this country. It's easy to take a position as we did in the early days of Reddit. We don't ban anything. If you don't have anything to ban. And we didn't have any hard decisions to wrestle with for the first few years. And then we did. And so we had to confront that principle. We felt like that was the right principle. But look, your values and principles don't mean anything unless you use them. And so look, we had to, I think, see that there's There's more complexity here and more nuance here. Look, we still go back to, I think, free expression, right? And again, the agency of people.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, what hasn't changed? Is our belief in the agency of people, our belief in communities. What has changed? Look, in 2005, Reddit was just links. We just linked to people. We didn't even have commenting. And one of the most fun and profound experiences I've had in life, but through my work on Reddit, is seeing how people in the context of a community, how supportive and helpful and kind they are to each other. I think it's really made me an optimist about people in humanity because when you strip away all the real world motivations and baggage or misincentives, I think people are amazing. And that's what Reddit, I think, reveals. Every day in big communities and small communities, I think it's truly special.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think. TikTok has the ability to at scale put ideas into people's heads. And so then I think you have to look at who runs TikTok and should anybody have that sort of power. My belief is no. And so I think I've long tried to point out the risks in that platform. Never mind the privacy violating activities at a scale. I think that we've never seen before. I know we love to pick on kind of big American social media companies. I think TikTok is. Far worse”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's the don't. Well, we're a community platform. It's a space where people, we want people to want to be. And so if you're working against our mission to create community and belonging, Not welcome on”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That was a great term. Yeah, look, look, we have our rules and the no hate, harassment, bullying, no spam, nothing illegal, no citing or glorifying violence, no voluntary sexualization, nothing involving kids. We enforce those things. There's one rule at the end that I think is very important. I think we say it kinder, but it's don't fuck with Reddit. Basically, don't ruin Reddit. That's your dopey evil.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, that's the idea. The only thing that scales with users is users. And so if users aren't empowered, then I think you're constantly on the wrong side of this scaling and growth problem. And so users have to have agency. I mean, that's our belief. Otherwise, you're trying to build either massive teams or smarter and smarter AIs. And look, big companies can do both of those things. But I think it's potentially a losing battle. And so I think empowering users is the only way to scale with users.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it hasn't changed. I mean, if anything, we've gotten much better at it. Because the tools keep getting more advanced. So one of our sayings at Reddit is the only thing that scales with users is users. And so I think the defining characteristic of Reddit is that our users create it, but our users also moderate it. At the core level, people in the context of communities want to create nice spaces. They want to create nice experiences for each other, not because I ask them to, but because they do. Far and away the most common user created rule on Reddit. So the number one most popular rule across subreddits is some form of be civil, be nice, be respectful. And they enforce this without me asking them to, without us doing anything. I think this is extremely powerful.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Look, there's again no, and there's no Reddit without moderation. Sure. And that's not an area that we're looking to cut back on.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't know where a claim that we're cutting content moderation has come from. Safety is super important to Reddit, right? We're a community platform. So Reddit doesn't work if our users don't want to be there or our potential users don't want to be there or don't feel safe. And so moderation at Reddit, more broadly, safety is critical for existence. And so whether it's users voting, right? In essence, every user is a moderator on Reddit. Or if it's our user moderators moderating, or if it's our own safety team enforcing our rules at scale, those are all super important. Yes, AI helps. And so we're building AI tools both for our teams and been giving our user moderators access to the same tools, which I think can actually help reduce their workload.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All conspiracy theories have unfortunately coincidental moments like that around them. But our goal is to keep it online, and we worked hard to do so.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the only part I can answer definitively is Wall Street bet's going dark. So, what happened is they Wall Street Bets has a bunch of fancy bots that the moderators of Wall Street Bets have created to run Wall Street bets. In that moment, one of the bots got overloaded and it effectively shut down the subreddit. So far from shutting down the subreddit, we worked with them to get it back online as quickly as possible. That was as soon as that story broke, my first message to the team was keep this subreddit online. So they had some technical difficulties in that moment that we worked through together. And you can verify that by asking the mods there. As for the other stuff, I truly...”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, look, some of our employees are and wear MOTs. And IMOD as well. But by and large, I think it's really important that mods not be employees. They don't work for me. They run their communities the way they want to, not the way that we.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, like whether they use it to pay mods or donate it or invest in something else. But we're trying to get that economy going.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Don't get captured by them. It's unaccounted for in the ledger of the economy. And so I would love them to capture that. And so this is the, if we can have user-to-community subscriptions, if communities can capture some of the value they're creating, I think that would be a great thing. And whether they use that money to subscribe.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Moderators, first off, they're not Reddit employees. They use Reddit to create communities. But this is the user economy. I think I don't know if anybody's talked to more moderators than I have over the years. And this, I've asked this question many, many times. And the answer I overwhelmingly get is I don't do this for money. Now I've seen the meme, right, of mods want like I see it on Red Up. Mods should be paid this or that. I always talk to them about this. But this is why I believe in the user economy. I think there's an incredible amount of value created by our users that doesn't get captured by Reddit Inc.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thought it was a fair term for some of the mods in that moment. So I'd say to the other 99% of mods, I wasn't thinking of you.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure. And like we make decisions that we believe always are in the long term best interest of the platform. And the business being sustainable and profitable is an important part of that. But Reddit is communities. There's no non-community part of Reddit. It is the essence of Reddit. And those communities are made of people and we believe in the agency of people.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But we work through these things. And look, I'd say in that moment we made a business decision about the API pricing. I felt we had no choice on. And so we're going to have to accept that anger. But some of the mods were anger about the mod tools, as you mentioned, or what we call accessibility, so like those Reddit work for the visually impaired. And those, I think, were, we have no excuse there”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We need to better empower the mods who are doing the actual work of running communities. And we had an issue that I think we've gone a long way towards solving, which is you could have a moderator who's not doing any work but who's in a position of power over the rest of the mod team. One of the things we did after that moment was empower the mods who are doing the work day to day. To be in control of the subreddit. They can't be fired by the top mods anymore. If the top MOTs aren't actually running the community. And so really closing that gap, I think, is very important to our communities. Now, more broadly, will our users be upset with us from time to time? Of course.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But broadly, in that moment, and today, the vast majority of our moderators just want to create communities and run communities. And they were wonderful then and they're wonderful now. In that moment, we had some moderators and other users who were really mad about the API pricing change. And with those words, I was responding to a question. The question was interesting. The question was effectively, have you taken democracy too far on Reddit? And my reply was no, I think we haven't taken it far enough. And so in that moment, well, this has been a longstanding issue, which is like we'll have”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Fancy forums. And so they don't have the tools on Reddit to do that. And so we're just trying to give them those tools. I hope it works because I think it can be really empowering for our users. And that's the word empowering in our mission. Our mission is community belonging and empowerment for everyone in the world. This is the empowerment part.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Agree. Okay. Long story short, our users in a portion of Reddit have been trying to create businesses on Reddit. The way I look at the world is there are a couple of big forces that motivate people. One of those is community. People create friendships. They create communities. They create cities. It's like a byproduct of human beings being together. And that's a tail when that power is Reddit. There's another big force, which is like the economic force or like the business force. People try to create businesses. We can see that in Reddit. Our users are trying to do that, but Reddit at its essence is a conversation platform.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's only a small dollars here at all. So, as with any product that eventually generates revenue for Reddit. The consumers have to use it and love it first. And so we are in the building phase. But big picture, the user economy is users making money from other users on Reddit. So whether that's gifting or user-to-user transactions, user-to-community subscriptions, paying for digital goods and services. For example, there's a subreddit on Reddit called Photoshop Request. Where users pay $5 or $10 to get somebody to crop their X out of a picture.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Facebook. Yeah, you're right. So using our data without our permission. And for things that maybe were not aligned with. And so there's more complication here. So we do have to be more considered.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They need it. These data sour That's my first preference. I think this whole market's evolving kind of as we speak Reddit is unique here, and that we're the only platform. The other major sources of UGC are closed off. And so I'd like to preserve that about Reddit. But it is more work now than it was a year ago because people are using our data.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, so We announced the relationship with Google a couple weeks ago. And so that was very practically, I think, the first stop. Now, Google's done Think quite a number of deals for data over the years because I think they know to be the best search engine, you have to have real-time access to”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not doing exclusive deals. And I think every conversation is different because I think every use case is different. And so we consider the implications for what our data is being used for. I would say in general, I think search is really important for the internet ecosystem. And I think the AI-powered search, Search 2.0, as I call it, is also very important. I think I'd like Reddit to be a part of that. That would be my first desire. Google.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sam led our series B in 2014. It's interesting how our worlds collide. But Sam really was instrumental in me coming back to Reddit in 2015, and he was on our board for a long time. Look, I'm very thankful for that. He helped me get my dream job effectively.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, legally, it's against our terms, but I think protecting Reddit, the platform and our users, that's our ask here that I think is very important.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Data tool. But again, there's more teeth in the contract. Scraping us just unfettered. We have no control on where our data goes and what it's used for. And so, yes, as I said, I do think it's better than not for Reddit to be out there, better for the consumer, better for the internet. But we can't just let anybody take it and use it for their own means, whether it's to enrich themselves or to violate the privacy of our users”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you know, I'd say less change than you might think. We are getting more effective at preventing people from scraping us just to enrich themselves. And look at these deals. Yes, they come with dollars. It also come with costs, of course, because now we've got a firehouse product, we've got a kind of more robust.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As opposed to Reddit being closed off and unavailable. Because Reddit's, I think, has a unique perspective on all many manners or many topics. But the price now for Reddit being present in whether it's Search 1.0 or Search 2.0 is you have to do it on our own terms that are respectful of our content, of our users' privacy.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Again, I think of AI, the main products that we see today in the market. I think of them as Search 2.0. So Search 1.0 was the 10 Blue Links. I think I've searched 2.0 as an evolution of that. You still got a text box, consumers typing in the text box what they want, and they get an answer. I think if you ask me today, it is better for Reddit to be present in there as either links to Reddit Or authoritative answers on various topics than to not be in there. I think it's better for the consumer. I think it's better for the internet.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so now we have to be more considerate about if you're going to use our data. And I think on the whole, it's a good thing. Because again, it's good for consumers to find and discover Reddit, to find and discover information we believe in the open internet. But we do need to start putting guardrails on this.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, sure, let's look at the status quo Everybody crawls Reddit. Everybody crawls everybody. Our data is already out there being used for who knows what. Now historically the biggest user has been Google and they use us for search. And I think that's been, we've read it has been a major beneficiary of that, as have our users, right? They use Google to find and discover Reddit. So that's great. But the reason I think deals like this are important is because we're entering this world where we need to be much more considered about where our data ends up, what it's used for. And so any deal that we do includes now protections on here's what you can use our data for. You can't try to figure out the identity of our users, for example, here's how you can display our data. There was a simpler time when it was kind of basically just search engines. But now...”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, like we're in the happy customer business. We're also in the happy user business. And so we want advertisers and users to be in the places that they enjoy. And hopefully there's a lot of overlap. I think it's very simple, I think, from that point of view. Happy customers, happy users, that's how we grow our business.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, and then also it's just I, while I think the users like the adult content, and we have no plans to change it or get rid of it, it's not what we want to be known for. And so again, it's just easier to say no monetization. No monetization. Because the users who look at that content also look at the rest of Reddit. And so we'll...”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, no. Look, we have ads. No, it's just so it's very simple. We have communities for sex and sexuality. I think it's important part of the human experience, which is why it's allowed on Reddit. But it's just easier to not monetize it. And so when we talk to advertisers about brand safety or anything like that, we just say there's no ads there, you will never be there. There's no plans for ads there. And broadly, even outside of adult content, by default, when a user creates a community on Reddit, There are no ads. And then when it gets to a big enough scale that might be interesting, then a human at Reddit reviews it and says, okay, this community is appropriate for ads or not. So then when we're in the market, we can tell advertisers, like there's a portion of Reddit that's just very safe for ads. And that's where you'll be.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's true. Look, our ad load is relatively low, and we don't increase revenue by increasing ad load broadly. So AdLoad is kind of another word for inventory. So better ways of growing inventory. It's just, for example, more users, just growing the consumer platform. Another way down the road would be putting ads on surfaces where there aren't ads today. So, search result pages, for example. But as you point out, ads in the feed, that's what users kind of experience today. There is a trade-off there. And so we have to be considered. And so that's why I think growing users is a better way of growing inventory versus just jamming more ads in there, which would hurt the experience.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We do very well with people I meet as kids. Yeah, it's funny. A lot of sons and daughters and my spouse uses Reddit. I get a lot of that.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They're smaller. The pitch the advertiser should Well, first, the pie grows by a five to ten reddits a year. Just the digital ads market grows significantly. And so it's such a huge space. And call us a billion run rate company. We're still a small piece of that. But our pitch to advertisers is your customers are on Reddit. We have 30 to 70 percent of our users are not on those platforms you just mentioned. So from many advertisers, this is the only way to find a large portion of their potential customers. And so that's the core of the pitch, which is your customers are here and they may not be elsewhere.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we have 500, more than 500 users in a month. Million. More than 500. 500 million, excuse me. Yeah. Don't say 500 million. But what we really operate the company on is users in a day. And so we had 73 million users on average in Q4, 76 million in December alone. And so that's really where we hang our hat because that's a little more operational.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so it's just simpler, easier, easier to explain. And I think it can scale in a really nice way because again, what should I watch? What should I buy? What should I wear? What car should I buy? All of these decisions are kind of on Reddit somewhere.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because the audience, our audience is so broad. And because we do context, it's just simpler and easier to explain. We don't depend on third-party data or we don't track your behavior elsewhere on the internet, anything like that.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the ad business at Reddit is almost old school. We target Based on context and keywords. So on Reddit, our users explicitly choose where they spend time. So for example, if you're in the skiing subreddit, you will start to see outdoor ads. And so the math there is very simple for the advertiser. And it's not creepy for the user. Because every interest and passion and hobby and purchasing decision and what you're going through is on Reddit, that means every brand's customers are likely on Reddit somewhere. And so there's actually, I think one of the advantages of Reddit is there's no constraint”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So if we continue to grow revenue faster than costs, which is our kind of management's plan, then I think this business scales very nicely. And the reason for that is our margin is so high. Our gross margin in 2023 is 86%. It was 88% in Q4, which is the best in our space. And so that means small improvements in revenue all go straight to the bottom line.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So let's start with the profitability question. So, actually, we were on an adjusted EBITDA basis. We were profitable in 2021. And when we talk about profitability, you can basically talk about... Profitable on an adjusted EBITDA basis or GAAP basis. For us, the difference between those two is just the stock-based comp. Because Reddit, there's not much, we don't have any CapEx. So we actually more money in the checking account at the end of 2021 than at the beginning. And in 2023, we lost money in the first half, but actually made money in the second half. And so we're very close on an adjusted EBITDA basis. And then if we keep scaling, we grew revenue last year three times faster than costs.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure, and that's always going to be the case. The way I thought about it, honestly, I asked friends. Had us friends who've been through similar situations And the universal advice I received was Steve for your own mental sanity. You should sell a little bit. Got it. And so I followed their advice. Look, nobody believes in Reddit's future as much as I do. I think there's an aspect of that as well. I think every decision like this has trade-offs. I think our employees, a lot of our employees use the same reasoning as well, which is Let's take some stress out so we can focus on just for”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so the thing is the way the lockup works is the next time employees will have an opportunity to sell will be, I think, in August sometime. And so what we're trying to do for employees is basically say you don't have to stress all summer about what the stock is doing. If you want the certainty, you can do it today. If you want to wait, you can wait. And so I think it's a nice thing to do for our employees.”
2024-03-21 · On with Kara Swisher · Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on the IPO · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT