Alexis Ohanian: I'm Leaving Reddit! I Want My Daughter To See A Black CEO One Day!

Alexis Ohanian resigns from Reddit because he wants Silicon Valley to hire people of color.

American internet entrepreneur and investor

Alexis Ohanian has stepped down from social media blog Reddit. He said that he wants his position filled by a person of color. He said that he wants his daughter to see progress in Silicon Valley.

Ohanian is married to American tennis star Serena Williams and the two have a child together.

Ohanian expressed regret that Silicon Valley lacks diversity. The country's top billionaires in technology are white.

The business mogul has told a story about a police encounter in 2005. He said he fell asleep in his car after a night of drinking. He said that he was under the influence and has a ounce of weed in his pocket.

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2005, just a few months before graduation and starting @reddit, a police officer on campus found me asleep in my car, keys on the seat next to me. I was drunk with an eighth of weed in my pocket. I'd had some fun with friends that evening and when I got back to my car, I knew there was no way I was driving anywhere, so I reclined the seat and passed out. The light of a police officer woke me up some time later, he asked me to step out of the car, so I did the best I could to stabilize my 6'5" frame as he asked how much I'd had to drink and then asked if I was capable of driving home. I was pretty drunk (and high), so I couldn't say anything terribly coherent other than "No dRIvE. nO DrIVe." and I just repeated that to answer every question until he got frustrated and asked me to call some friends to pick me up. While we were waiting, the cop said how lucky I was that I didn't have the keys in the ignition, even with the car off, because it would have been way worse for me. I thanked him (I think) and got home safe except for a bad hangover the next day. For years, those friends and I would tell that story + laugh about that night... It was just a stupid college story. #BecauseIWasWhite. I walked away + entered Y Combinator--not a jail cell...or worse. I became an entrepreneur, not a statistic. I'm grateful for that police officer's tolerance with me + disgusted that it's so obviously not afforded (and never been) to everyone just because of their race.

A post shared by Alexis Ohanian Sr. (@alexisohanian) on Jun 16, 2020 at 8:46am PDT

"I was drunk with an eighth of weed in my pocket. I'd had some fun with friends that evening and when I got back to my car, I knew there was no way I was driving anywhere, so I reclined the seat and passed out."

Ohanian added, "I saw the light of a police officer wake me up some time later, he asked me to step out of the car, then asked if I was capable of driving home. I was pretty drunk (and high), so I couldn't say anything terribly coherent other than 'No dRIve. nO DrIVe' and I just repeated that to answer every question until he got frustrated and asked me to call some friends to pick me up."

Remembering the exchange, he said the officer told him "how lucky I was that I didn't have the keys in the ignition, even with the car off, because it would have been way worse for me. I thank him (I think) and got home safe except for a bad hangover the next day."

One of @Reddit's founders is revealing how he plans to contribute to the fight against racism. @AlexisOhanian resigned from Reddit's board & urged them to replace him with a black candidate.

He told @GayleKing exclusively how his daughter influenced his decision. pic.twitter.com/qqNqTMkKdf

— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) June 11, 2020

"Reddit was my first child. I started it right out of college," Ohanian told CBS This Morning. "But looking inward, it was a hard decision until it was a really easy one … when I remembered that my greatest creation is not and never will be Reddit. It's my daughter, and I want her to be proud of her father."

Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian named their daughter, Alexis Ohanian, Jr.

Ohanian announced his resignation from the Reddit board on June 5, urging the company to fill his seat with a black candidate. His resignation followed criticism of Reddit on June 2 from former CEO Ellen Pao for "amplifying" racism and hate. In a blog post Friday, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said the platform will also change its content policy to "explicitly address hate."

"I think if we follow this drumbeat of support, both offline and online, I think we're going to see more and more tech businesses in particular taking more responsibility over not just the content on their platforms, but also the diversity of their workforces," Ohanian told CBS This Morning.

The changes come as Black Lives Matter protests continue across the US and the globe, with people demonstrating against the recent deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, and against systemic racism.

Rupert Murdoch's New York Post and Fox News are problematic. For years they've promote white nationalism and ridiculed Black athletes, entertainers and politicians.

You got to remember the Australian cartoonist who worked for The New York Post. He drew up that offensive comic portraying Serena Williams as a big fat crybaby while the white tennis star was being egged on to lose the match. The cartoonist was unaware he was insulting two women of color.

Williams and her opponent Naomi Osaka had the match at the 2018 U.S. Open. Osaka is a woman of Asian and Black decent. Her mother is Japanese and her father is Haitian American. Osaka lives in the United States but plays for Japan.