CEOInterviews.AI
Start App
Try: AI strategy tariffs earnings guidance layoffs interest rates growth

Steve Huffman

CEO & Co-Founder, Reddit

Search every verified Steve Huffman interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Steve Huffman, co-founder and CEO of Reddit, discussed the platform’s positioning and business strategy in several appearances during the period. At the Tatari Forward 2025 conference in September 2026, he described Reddit as distinct from social media due to its organization around shared interests, layered moderation, anonymity, and public archiving. He also introduced Reddit Pro as a tool for brands to join conversations rather than interrupt them, and discussed an ad format that pairs professional advertising with organic user comments. Huffman addressed the role of AI, stating that human verification is an important part of Reddit’s future and that the company is exploring technologies like Face ID and Touch ID to maintain authenticity while accommodating bots and agents. In earnings calls and interviews following Reddit’s Q2 2026 results, Huffman acknowledged that US daily active users declined slightly quarter over quarter, but attributed this to a mix shift from lower-value search referrals to higher-value direct app traffic. He said investors were right to focus on US user growth, while emphasizing that the company’s business relies on direct, repeat users and that revenue growth had remained strong for eight consecutive quarters. Huffman also discussed Reddit’s data licensing deals, saying the goal is to maximize value returned to Reddit, and noted that the company has not yet found a mutually beneficial arrangement with Google regarding AI overviews, as he argued that a summarization of Reddit is not what users want. He reiterated Reddit’s long-term goals of reaching a billion daily users globally and 100 million in the US.

Recent appearances

Verified interview transcripts

Notable quotes

“We don't want one AI winner. We don't want one search winner. I think that that's bad for the internet. And that would just be not only like the reasoning you use for why any monopoly is bad, but I think in AI in particular, the technology is so powerful, but also so new and not yet understood, that we need more players, not less.”

“because the organic content is naturally commercial, the putting ads alongside it is also a natural thing to do. And so, our advertisers here are frankly rooting for us.”

“Reddit's data is essential at every step. Um I think our partners can see that, we can see that. I think the world at large has seen that. And so, um we're proud of our place in the in the AI ecosystem.”

“I actually really, really enjoy it. Um, it was funny. We tried to go public in 2022. Uh, and we thought at the time, uh, nobody was going public. And so we thought, okay, well, look, the market's a little chaotic, but Reddit's a little chaotic, so this is a perfect fit. maybe we can, you know, be one of the first ones out and help reopen things. Um, and then Russia invaded Ukraine. The economy took a a further nose d”

“Quite simply our our policy is commercial use of our data requires commercial terms and non-commercial ter use will you know try to be flexible to the extent that we can. Um but we also have to protect our our users. So our users privacy, our users identity, right? We don't want our data being taken and used to reverse engineer the identity of our users or to target ads on them or to you know replace or disintermedia”

“Reddit is one of the single largest sources of training data for the LLMs and Reddit continues to be one of the primary sources of both training data and we're also the most cited platform across all models per uh profound. And so what we found ourselves in this position is where the content on Reddit has effectively become like oil. It's like modern oil. It's this foundational resource for the for the modern interne”

Other executives at Reddit

The summary and quote tags on this profile are produced with AI assistance from verified, first-person interview transcripts, then checked by our team to confirm the speaker's identity and the accuracy of every quote. See how we verify →