Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit, said that the inception of Nvidia Corp. at Denny’s, which led to a trillion-dollar company, surpasses his own billion-dollar Reddit launch at Waffle House.
What Happened: On Friday, Ohanian took to X, formerly Twitter, to express his thoughts on the matter. He was responding to a tweet by Jon Erlichman, who highlighted the humble beginnings of Nvidia at Denny’s.
Erlichman’s post read, “Nvidia was founded during a breakfast meeting at Denny's. Today, Nvidia makes more money in four hours than Denny's makes in a year.”
In response, Ohanian said, “OK, that’s better than my @WaffleHouse + @reddit story.”
Ohanian attributes part of his inspiration for creating Reddit to a visit he made to the Waffle House restaurant chain. “If you know my story, you know that if I hadn’t walked out of the LSAT to get WH, I’d be a lawyer instead of starting Reddit," he said on Instagram in 2022.
In a 2018 interview with The New York Times, Ohanian said that he originally wanted to become a lawyer who helps immigrants become citizens. “I had this romantic idea of helping people get citizenship.”
However, he soon discovered he didn’t enjoy that job. So, one day, instead of continuing with law, he went to a Waffle House to eat. “It was at a Waffle House I realized I wanted to start something.”
Similarly, in 1993, three friends: Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem, got together at Denny’s to talk about developing a chip that could make lifelike 3D graphics possible on home computers.
"It had all the coffee you could drink and no one could chase you out," Huang said last year.
Why It Matters: The acknowledgment from Ohanian comes at a time when both Reddit and Jensen Huang-led Nvidia are making significant strides in their respective industries.
Earlier this week, Reddit submitted its IPO prospectus to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, with its IPO set to take place on the New York Stock Exchange in March. This is a highly anticipated event and is expected to be the year’s first significant tech IPO.
In a funding round in 2021, Reddit was valued at $10 billion. It remains uncertain what valuation the company will target for its upcoming share sale in the following weeks.
On the other hand, Nvidia, a leading AI company, reported fourth-quarter results that exceeded optimistic forecasts. The company’s fourth-quarter revenue of $22.10 billion was up 22% from the third quarter and up 265% year-over-year.
At the time of writing, Nvidia had a market capitalization of $1.97 trillion.
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
Photo courtesy: Nvidia
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