Reddit is eyeing a $15 billion IPO. Here’s how it became the giant cultural force it is today.

https://www.businessofbusiness.com/articles/reddit-15-billion-ipo-cultural-force/

Reddit is many things: the people’s forum, a repository of the dankest memes, the not-so-secret weapon against Wall Street, and “the front page of the internet”. It might also soon be known as a publicly traded company valued at $15 billion. The famed social media platform plans to take itself public sometime this year (possibly as soon as this month). Reddit has already filed preliminary IPO registration statements with the SEC and has engaged Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to guide it. 

This potential IPO represents a big moment for a company that has undeniably earned itself a prominent place in the internet zeitgeist. Internet dwellers have long turned to Reddit’s online communities for loosely moderated bonding over shared passions ranging from tripping acid to admiring the CCP. Over years of playing host to strange worlds of bronies and NSFW video enthusiasts, the platform has contributed much slang to the pop culture lexicon. But the platform really showed its reach in 2021, when posters on r/WallStreetBets orchestrated a short squeeze of multiple stocks including GameStop and AMC. Until Reddit goes public, the term “Reddit stock” refers to securities hyped by retail investors on the platform. The successful effort to stick it to institutional investors sent shockwaves through Wall Street and may have inspired a DOJ inquiry into a number of prominent short sellers. 

A company with a big role in internet history, Reddit has quite a history of its own. Its story embodies the spirit of Web2 entrepreneurship, with its college-nerd beginnings, minor trickery, and a corporate acquisition that left its founders feeling short-changed.