Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed

by Alexis Ohanian

  I couldn’t be here without all the haters. I want to acknowledge you, too. To everyone who ever put me down, discounted me, or even fired me: thank you. I’ve since taken down the “wall of negative reinforcement,” but it’s still in my head, motivating me to improve. I’m not done yet.

  You really read this far, eh? That’s pretty damn impressive. Thus, I’d like to also acknowledge you, dear reader, for you’ve absolutely gone above and beyond. Anyone can publish a book, but without readers it’s just text. I hope you enjoyed it (go ahead and let me know, I’m @alexisohanian on Twitter).

  Most important:

  Dad, thanks for naming me “Alexis,” for demystifying entrepreneurship, and for showing me what it means to be a man. Mom, I miss you. I’ll never match your compassion, kindness, or courage, but I’m going to keep trying.

  Alexis Ohanian

  Spring 2013

  About the Author

  Alexis Ohanian became mayor of the Internet.

  Forbes magazine, June 25, 2012

  ALEXIS OHANIAN is a startup founder and investor born in Brooklyn and raised in suburban Maryland. After graduating from the University of Virginia in 2005, Alexis and his co-founder, Steve Huffman, started reddit, one of the hundred most popular websites in the world. Now a reddit board member, Alexis focuses on the social enterprise Breadpig, which publishes the world’s most popular webcomics, such as xkcd, Dinosaur Comics, and Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. All Breadpig’s profits are donated to worthy causes. Alexis helped launch the travel website hipmunk and ran its marketing, PR, and community operations before becoming an adviser and joining the fight against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act.

  Alexis invests in and advises more than sixty tech startups and continues to advocate for Internet freedom. He’s Y Combinator’s ambassador to the East and co-founder of the nonprofit Institute on Higher Awesome Studies. Along the way, Alexis has spoken at the TED Conference and at other conferences and universities worldwide. He spent three months volunteering in Armenia as a Kiva Fellow and was named twice to the Forbes 30 under 30 list. He lives on the Internet, but his tax documents still go to Brooklyn.

  Alexis wants to know what you thought of his book and how you’ll use it to be awesome! Let him know via Twitter @alexisohanian.

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  1. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903480904576512250915629460.html

  2. http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/02/permissionless-innovation-and-patents.html

  3. Seriously. I’ve met architecture students who’ve told me that Columbia, Maryland, appears in their textbooks as a model planned community.

  4. I describe being a straight white middle-class male born in the USA as “life with cheat codes.” Even being tall is an advantage in business, apparently. http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/17/news/companies/tall_book_arianne_cohen_interview.fortune/index.htm

  5. http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/06/investing-in-the-cultural-revolution.html

  6. http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/06/29/airbnb-could-have-more-rooms-than-hilton-by-2012/

  7. I know. It’s a unit of distance, not time—blame George Lucas.

  1. https://plus.google.com/+AlexisOhanian/posts/RUdmybEmYSA

  2. In fact, I was named after a three-time title-winning boxer, Alexis Argüello.

  3. Nerd! It’s the meaning of life, of course. Confused? Read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. You’re welcome.

  4. In a brilliant illustration of my argument, the video was submitted to reddit with the following headline: “Nutjob mistakenly allowed to give TED Talk, he rambles for over four minutes before being carried off the stage.”

  5. This is a cultural reference from the early twenty-first century. Readers in the mid-twenty-first century and beyond will probably know her as President Snooki. I mean no disrespect.

  6. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/02/louis-ck-just-for-laughs-throw-out-jokes_n_916250.html

  7. Except for the sentient robots. They’re going to be fine. Don’t shed a tear for them, because they wouldn’t for you—and they can’t; that’d be a lot of needless engineering.

  1. In the early 2000s, keyboards often had a Bro Lock button that was even more pointless than Caps Lock—by then I’d learned how to turn it off.

  2. I hadn’t yet fallen victim to WoW because I’d gone through it all before with EverQuest. As a bard, no less.

  3. http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html

  4. You can tell we were in the first “class” of funding applicants. Because there are so many people seeking funding, Y Combinator partners offer little more than ten minutes during these interviews nowadays.

  5. This is a metaphor. Thankfully. I first encountered it in the book Liar’s Poker, by Michael Lewis.

  6. We would later learn that Jessica Livingston was the partner who saved us. She thought we, particularly Steve, were too endearing to reject. Most YC founding teams get a nickname among the partners; ours was “the muffins.” Thanks, Jessica.

  7. That’s not to say these two communities are mutually exclusive. In fact, I’m a proud member of both.

  8. I’d hoped people would say this to one another, but to date, I don’t think a single person has. So it goes.

  9. This is from a recorded interview with Steve Huffman.

  10. I found it thanks to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine! http://web.archive.org/web/20051026085633/http://changingway.net/archives/221

  11. http://www.chron.com/life/article/The-turkey-was-almost-our-national-bird-1732163.php

  12. http://www.paulgraham.com/relres.html

  13. Author’s note: If you’re reading this at a time when reddit.com has become even more popular, possibly even forming its own online city-state, think of the above as charmingly humble. If instead it’s fallen into obscurity, chuckle knowingly at how dated this book is. I wrote this original chapter in cuneiform, after all.

  1. http://www.businessweek.com/1998/21/b3579165.htm

  2. And now you know one of the big reasons why I invested in CraftCoffee.com (a subscription artisan coffee company).

  3. Based on number of destinations.

  4. http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/17/travel-search-engine-kayak-files-for-50-million-ipo/

  5. http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/06/05/how-reddits-alexis-ohanian-became-the-mayor-of-the-internet/

  6. http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/why-is-this-man-running-for-president-of-the-inter

  1. Turns out Steve was just ahead of his time. Now, thanks to the near ubiquity of smartphones, there are quite a few apps that address the problem My Mobile Menu was intended to solve. One I’ve invested in is called OrderAhead, which will, I hope, validate Steve’s idea, albeit a decade later.

  2. Do not actually marry your co-founder. You can, of course, but it’s not required.

  3. http://cdixon.org/2010/01/03/the-next-big-thing-will-start-out-looking-like-a-toy/

  4. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/darkpony/drawing-for-dollars

  5. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-watch-for-iphone-and-android

  6. And just to be clear, auditors, I love paying my taxes.

  7. To anyone reading this wi
th access to a time machine: first, congrats! Second, after you’re done killing Hitler, would you mind handing the twenty-two-year-old me this book? Also, you might as well include a sports almanac from your time, too. Thanks!

  8. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1_YoG7lqI4

  9. http://techcrunch.com/2008/06/18/reddit-tries-to-compete-the-open-source-way/

  10. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyqe7A5ombA

  11. Speaking of which, if you are reading this book and starting the company that will trump reddit, please let me know so I can at least find some solace in knowing that my book helped another founder.

  12. He didn’t yell it, but whenever one writes Yahoo!, one is obliged to include an exclamation point.

  13. http://articles.cnn.com/2011-02-21/world/egypt.child.facebook_1_facebook-page-wael-ghonim-social-media?_s=PM:WORLD

  14. And because she preferred Star Wars.

  15. http://alexisohanian.com/our-y-combinator-summer-05-application-what-w

  16. Steve’s joke.

  17. http://www.indiana.edu/~jobtalk/HRMWebsite/hrm/articles/develop/mbti.pdf

  18. I would not recommend bringing your cat into a public elevator to practice this part.

  19. A nod to one of my favorite subreddits: http://reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive

  1. http://paulgraham.com/growth.html

  2. From the song “Diamonds from Sierra Leone.”

  3. http://lifehacker.com/5954711/apartment-hunting-heres-the-best-time-of-year-month-and-day-to-search

  4. Actually, most investments are done via duffel bags full of cash—or via wire transfer.

  5. Okay, I have to confess. I didn’t eat any ramen during reddit. My low-cost staple was hummus. The Armenian way.

  6. Note to Mark: If you’re reading this, it’d better not count as billable time.

  7. That would be the aforementioned Kiko.com, undone by Gmail’s web calendar.

  8. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-watch-for-iphone-and-android

  9. http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/04/pebble-smartwatch-breaks-kickstarter-record-in-five-days/

  10. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1610300135/brooklyns-cool-colonie-restaurant-coming-soon-to-b?ref=search

  11. Yoda, in Star Wars: Episode V—The Empire Strikes Back (1980). There’s a good chance, based on my reader demographic, that you may not know this movie very well. If you do, you may not even think it’s the best one of the series. If that’s the case, I implore you to put down this book and go watch it, study it, admire it.

  1. A life-size doll that weighs as much as a human baby, cries at 2:00 a.m., and needs to be fed regularly. Imagine a Tamagotchi for high school students.

  2. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2000/01/24/2000_01_24_050_TNY_LIBRY_000020056

  3. http://www.donorschoose.org/about/impact.html

  4. Stroopwafel, no doubt.

  5. EF stands for the Enhanced Fujita Scale, an official rating of a tornado’s strength. EF5 is the highest rating on the scale—the same rating given to the tornado featured in the dramatic conclusion of the 1996 film Twister. The EF5 that hit Joplin had winds of more than two hundred miles per hour, and it was most definitely not filmed on a Hollywood studio lot using stunt doubles.

  6. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-05-23-joplin-tornado_n.htm

  7. This is from an e-mail Debby sent me after she arrived in Joplin.

  8. You can download it for free! Just for you. Or pay what you want. http://siliconprairiefilm.com

  9. Yup, I just did that.

  10. Thanks to all the time coaches save by not using archaic methods to edit and share video, they can spend more time with their spouses, and thus Hudl has purportedly even helped save some marriages—although we didn’t see that firsthand.

  11. His office was closed. I left a polite message.

  12. That’s an engineering term.

  13. For what it’s worth, I haven’t written a line of code since a month into reddit, when I quit learning Lisp to focus on all the nontechnical things running reddit required—like doodling custom daily logos.

  1. http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/06/23/oprah-zach-anner-voting-controversy/

  2. http://myown.oprah.com/audition/index.html?request=video_details&response_id=5615

  3. http://myown.oprah.com/audition/index.html?request=finalists

  4. If you must know, the reason it’s called Breadpig is because when Steve and I were settling on a name for reddit, we searched for the word read within expired domain listings and found Breadpig.com. Floored by the absurdity of the name, we bought it immediately. Steve envisioned a breadpig as a pig with bread wings, and the rest is history.

  5. I hope you remember the opening scene of The Terminator, a film robbed by the Academy in 1985, when it was denied the nomination for best picture. In it, time travel is a magical journey one takes (naked) through time and space in an orb of energy.

  6. This came from a reddit commenter named DoubleElite. As far as I know, Zach does not in fact have a personal army, but I’ve also never crossed him…. http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/wrf7m/hey_reddit_its_me_zach_anner_remember_when_you/c5fsli1

  7. Inside the Actors Studio, season 6, episode 13 (August 20, 2000).

  8. Seriously. That famous line in Star Wars: Episode V—The Empire Strikes Back was total improvisation by Ford.

  9. http://www.salon.com/1999/12/21/larson_2/

  10. Born Zach Weiner, he merged names with his wife, the former Kelly Smith, to form the distinguished surname Weinersmith. They’re cute like that.

  11. The original’s under copyright.

  12. Imagine if that had been the Field of Dreams quote—much less compelling.

  13. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/us/us-incomes-dropped-last-year-census-bureau-says.html

  14. http://www.fastcompany.com/1834666/reddit-founder-alexis-ohanians-open-letter-about-music-industry-and-band

  15. http://www.fastcompany.com/1834866/bands-ex-tour-manager-blasts-reddit-founder-alexis-ohanian-kim-dotcom-kickstarter-begging-bo

  16. http://www.vice.com/read/downloading-some-bullshit-484-v17n8

  17. http://pcworld.about.net/news/Oct302003id113133.htm

  1. In retrospect, I think I owe someone an apology.

  2. As in $94 million in 2011 alone: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/68448_Page4.html

  3. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/us/politics/congress-nears-end-of-least-productive-session.html?_r=0

  4. http://www.scribd.com/doc/75153093/Tribe-Legis-Memo-on-SOPA-12-6-11-1

  5. https://plus.google.com/113164038788726940319/posts/ab9eFgmovJ1

  6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrrj9Wc2L84

  7. https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/US/521/521.US.844.96-511.html

  8. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media-network/video/2012/may/15/yochai-benkler-networked-public-sphere-sopa-pipa

  9. http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/119771-bipartisan-bill-would-ramp-up-anti-piracy-enforcement-online

  10. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/11/senator-web-censorship-bill-a-bunker-busting-cluster-bomb/

  11. http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-places-hold-on-protect-ip-act

  12. http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/nmnie/godaddy_supports_sopa_im_transferring_51_domains/

  13. http://support.godaddy.com/godaddy/go-daddys-position-on-sopa/

  14. http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/o7ch9/lets_discuss_sopa_askreddit/

  15. http://blog.reddit.com/2012/01/stopped-they-must-be-on-this-all.html

  16. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Action

  17. In their defense, Bloomberg TV invited me to talk about the bills on January 5. It may have been an audience of day traders and bankers, but it was an audience nonetheless (I don’t remember seeing Bloomberg TV listed among the supporters of the bill on the Judiciary Committee website, which might have had something to do with it). http://www.bloomberg.com/video/83688294-
reddit-com-opposition-to-stop-online-piracy-act.html

  18. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/business/media/the-danger-of-an-attack-on-piracy-online.html?_r=4&pagewanted=all

  19. A Media Matters study found that “while U.S. television news outlets have largely ignored the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act during their evening news and opinion programming, they have covered repeatedly and at-length Tim Tebow, Casey Anthony, Kim Kardashian’s divorce, the British Royal Family, and Alec Baldwin being kicked off an airplane.” http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/01/13/study-sopa-coverage-no-match-for-kim-kardashian/186175

  20. http://upwithchrishayes.msnbc.com/_news/2012/01/15/10161056-debating-sopa

  21. I won’t tell you what I was probably doing at that time, but I will say that I was enjoying my last night of vacation.

  22. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/combating-online-piracy-while-protecting-open-and-innovative-internet

  23. Sorry, Sabriya!!!

  24. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120116/01350817412/lies-nbcuniversals-rick-cotton-about-sopapipa.shtml

  25. http://ammori.org/2011/12/31/sopapipa-copyright-bills-also-target-domestic-sites/

  26. http://www.mediaite.com/tv/soledad-obrien-grills-reddit-founder-on-the-sites-sopa-inspired-shut-down/

  27. Not only did software engineer Joel Spolsky insist I wear a red tie for my day of interviews and protest, he also suggested this line, which became the sound bite of the day for an audience that may not have understood everything about the technology but could relate to dysfunctional politics funded by lobbying money.

  28. http://www.flickr.com/photos/photo_td/6746861781/

  29. I even got a nice nod from The New Yorker, which took a moment to point out my white-shirt-red-tie combo—brilliantly suggested by my friend and fellow tech CEO Joel Spolsky. I borrowed the tie from my dad.

  30. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LNP9f8geCWA