Steve Huffman

Steve Huffman, who posts under the username 'spez', co-founded Reddit in 2005 with University of Virginia roommate Alexis Ohanian, and the site was sold to Condé Nast in 2006. He left in 2009 to start the travel company Hipmunk and returned as Reddit's CEO in July 2015, succeeding Ellen Pao. In November 2016 he admitted to secretly editing user comments in the pro-Trump subreddit r/The_Donald that insulted him, calling it a lapse in judgment. In 2023 he led Reddit's decision to begin charging for API access, which triggered a mass subreddit blackout; a leaked internal memo in which he told staff the protest 'will pass,' along with his characterization of moderators as 'landed gentry,' intensified the backlash.