Humble Beginnings: Like NVIDIA, Reddit Was Founded Inside A Restaurant
Social media company Reddit Inc (NYSE:RDDT), currently trading as much as 70% above its initial public offering (IPO), has something in common with one of the hottest stocks of the last two years.
Like NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA), Reddit was founded thanks to a restaurant.
Reddit Epiphany: Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian put a career path in law on hold after having an epiphany at a Waffle House location.
Ohanian founded Reddit with his University of Virginia roommates Steve Huffman and Aaron Swartz with the idea of building community and having opinions shared online.
If it wasn't for that trip to a local Waffle House near the campus, Reddit may never have been born.
"Waffle House changed my life… I was going to be a lawyer, and then I walked out of the LSAT to go get breakfast there. I never looked back," a plaque at the Waffle House that was installed in 2023 reads.
The plaque, which is located at booth 19, says it's the "site of Alexis Ohanian's Waffle House Epiphany."
Ohanian thanked Waffle House in a 2023 Instagram post sharing news of the new plaque.
"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."
Recalling his meal at Waffle House, Ohanian told the University of Virginia that he walked out of his LSAT after looking around and seeing everyone miserable. Ohanian decided that he was hungry and took a trip to Waffle House where he had an epiphany that he didn't want to be a lawyer and wanted to start a company. Reddit was launched the year he graduated from Virginia in 2005.
Ohanian and Huffman sold Reddit to Condé Nast for $10 million in 2006.
Ohanian has visited the famous Waffle House location several times and in October 2023 shared a video of interacting with a waitress who asked if he knew the story of Serena Williams' husband founding Reddit thanks to Waffle House.
"Sounds like it changed his life, Waffle House will do that," Ohanian told the waitress.
The waitress showed off the plaque and told Ohanian that sometimes people come in not to eat, but simply to take pictures of the famous Waffle House booth and plaque connected to Reddit.
Ohanian has often credited Waffle House with changing his life and included the story in his commencement speech at the University of Virginia in 2021.
While he's no longer involved with Reddit and wasn't named as a large shareholder in the S1 filing, Ohanian said on X that he owns some shares of the company from when he came back to the company in 2014.
Related Link: Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Prints Mean Tweets And Screenshots: How He Uses Them As Motivation
NVIDIA Founded in Denny's: Now worth $2.3 trillion, Nvidia was founded by friends Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem.
The three founded the company during a breakfast meeting inside a Denny's (NASDAQ:DENN) location in California.
"It had all the coffee you could drink and no one could chase you out," Huang recalled of the Denny's meeting.
Similar to the Waffle House mentioned above, the famous Denny's location also paid tribute to its connections to a business launch with a plaque unveiled in September 2023.
Huang visited the Denny's location last year and recalled the famous meeting while speaking with Denny's CEO Kelli Valade.
"Denny's has taught me so many lessons," Huang said.
The Nvidia co-founder recalled having his first job at a Denny's in Portland when he was 15 years old.
"I was a dishwasher, I was a busboy, I waited tables. No one can carry more coffee cups than I can."
Huang encouraged people to get their first job in the restaurant business.
"It teaches you humility, it teaches you hard work, it teaches you hospitality."
The three co-founders dreamed up the idea of creating a chip that would help make 3D graphics realistic on personal computers.
The plaque reads "the booth that launched a $1 trillion company."
A post on X recently highlighted the connection between Nvidia and Denny's.
"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," Jon Ehrlichman tweeted.
Ohanian responded to the tweet saying, "OK, that's better than my WaffleHouse + Reddit story."