Co-founder of Reddit, Initialized Capital
SpaceX IPO Feels Like Milestone Moment Says 766's Ohanian
Seven Seven Six founder and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian says the SpaceX IPO feels like a milestone moment and will fuel ...
About Alexis Ohanian
Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit and founder of Seven Seven Six, has been speaking about his investments in women's sports and space technology. He described the SpaceX IPO as "a milestone moment" and said he has been excited about space tech for five to seven years, calling it an investment thesis that was "unthinkable a decade ago." Ohanian also discussed the state of venture capital, noting that 65% of VC money has gone to just 0.05% of companies, and said he believes it is positive for retail investors to gain access to companies that previously stayed private longer. Ohanian has continued to promote his all-women track and field league, Athlos, which he founded after the Paris Olympics. He said the league is modeled on NCAA track and field with a team-based point system and that athletes are given equity as partners. Ohanian described women's sports as "the only pillar of entertainment that is durable" and an "anti-AI bet," arguing that live sports are fundamentally human and cannot be replaced by AI-generated content. He also said he has been investing in women's sports for five to six years and called it an "institutional great asset."
Transcript (26 segments)
✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
I
Interviewer0:00
The big news of the week, it's inescapable, is a SpaceX IPO listing tomorrow. You're obviously very intimately familiar with it, having owned xAI, which got sold to SpaceX. What does it just mean to have this behemoth coming to market tomorrow?
A
Alexis Ohanian0:13
Look, we are all excited. I think right now, most of us in venture and in tech have been waiting for some watershed moment IPO to hopefully get the markets back open. Looks like that is upon us. And generally speaking, I've been so excited about space tech for about five, six, seven years now. And to me, this feels like a milestone moment. This was an investment thesis that was unthinkable a decade ago for most investors. And I think now people are coming to grips with the fact that space technology is really here. What would have been science fiction to us maybe ten years ago is now science fact, and I think we're only going to see an acceleration of that.
I
Interviewer0:53
Okay, but is it all a fact? When we start talking about a $29 trillion TAM and 10 million people on Mars. I mean, you own space companies yourself. Is this the way you need to think, or is a little bit of it a fantasy?
A
Alexis Ohanian1:05
Oh, it's so... these numbers are big. The projections, the ambitions are big. I do think, though, when we think about what we are capable of as a species, space has been something that has mystified us, excited us for a very long time, especially in modern history and modern technology. This was a frontier we really believed for a long time, and I did growing up, it was only a place for governments to build and innovate. NASA, putting a man on the moon, all that stuff was never something the private sector could do. But what we're seeing now here is undeniable. The private sector's been able to accomplish a lot, and I think it's only going to accelerate. And I do think the overall market is potentially that big. When we're talking about human ambition, there is no limit to that. When we talk about the opportunities in space as low Earth orbit alone just becomes more accessible, we're unlocking pharmaceuticals, we're unlocking biotech. That's going to help us here back at home. And that's the stuff that gets me fired up as an investor. That's what gets me fired up as an American. I want to see that innovation come and help us live better lives here on planet Earth.
I
Interviewer2:10
So is having SpaceX as a public company a good thing for your space investments? Because it shows there's a pathway for public markets, or is it a bad thing because so much money is going to get funneled into this IPO that maybe it leaves less room for some of the other space companies?
A
Alexis Ohanian2:25
Well, the good news is where I like to invest is still so early. Very few of these companies, like Stoke or Astro Forger, are thinking about going public quite yet. They're still thinking about building and shipping and launching. I do think you're going to have undeniably a whole fleet of newly minted millionaires, multimillionaires, as well as investors. So not just the early employees, but also the investors who believed in space tech who are now going to have capital to put into the next wave. And I think we've seen that play out in tech before, and this will be no exception. And I do think that all continues to accelerate all of us in building the space economy that we're hoping for.
I
Interviewer3:02
Building a space economy, though, is something that certainly takes time. And I just wonder if there is room for disappointment. I mean, I don't mean to harp on the crazy numbers, but is there a fear that it gets too overhyped? A SpaceX IPO is just too large, and there's some disappointment, and it sets the project back to humanity what you're talking about. It sets it back in some time.
A
Alexis Ohanian3:23
I do think it is important to have this tempered expectation. On the one hand, folks have to balance one, what I think is a very important, almost unbridled ambition for human progress, which is a very important and noble and great quest. And at the same time, the realistic expectations. Everyone should obviously do their diligence, do their own underwriting, all that important stuff before making any kind of stock decision.
I
Interviewer3:47
Thank you for the legal disclaimer.
A
Alexis Ohanian3:48
Yep, compliance is happy with me. But at the end of the day, I do think what we're talking about here is creating very real value. I know even you think about anecdotally, the difference a person has once they've taken a United flight with Starlink. There's a very, very different feeling about how you interact with technology when you've experienced just a little fraction of what the space economy can do.
I
Interviewer4:12
Right.
A
Alexis Ohanian4:13
And I do think as we start to unlock pharmaceuticals and biotech that could really only be done in zero G, we're talking about saving lives, improving quality of life, things that I know provide a real economic value, but at the same time, live that Star Trek future I think a lot of us grew up wanting. So be exuberant, be excited, but at the same time, obviously, be thoughtful in how you're underwriting this stuff.
I
Interviewer4:34
I mean, it's not just obviously SpaceX. It's IPO. And we also have OpenAI filing. Anthropic does as well. And these are companies that have had a lot of VC backing. In fact, so much so we were talking about this on stage. 65% of VC money has gone to just 0.05% of companies. Is something broken that those are the statistics we're faced with right now?
A
Alexis Ohanian4:54
It is a unique time. I think, clearly, as an early stage investor, I am insulated from this a bit because the multistages are often marking up my early investments. So I think where you start to see the challenge is a lot of these companies in a previous decade would have already been public. And because companies held off going public longer, the private markets became a place that was effectively dealing like a public marketplace. So you're seeing these valuations, you're seeing this increase. I think it is a positive for America and for the world that retail, that regular folks get access to these opportunities. I frankly wish it would happen sooner, because I think historically, people draw up the market cap of Amazon or revenues of Amazon or Google when they went public. And we're in a different world now where privately held companies are able to generate tremendous revenues and market caps before going public. But I do think this has been a long time coming, and I do think generally venture should be a place to be contrarian and right. It should be a nonconsensus asset.
I
Interviewer6:00
Right.
A
Alexis Ohanian6:00
And especially on the growth side, it's looking more and more consensus. So, look, those companies are about to turn public. We'll see what the next wave of private looks like. I'm certainly trying to do my best to be on the nonconsensus and right side early, and I do think venture is healthier as an ecosystem when it's not looking like a couple of very, very concentrated bets.
I
Interviewer6:17
Well, usually, what you say when there's a consensus is that that's a dangerous thing, and it means that there can be correction. Do you think that that's possible for this industry if everyone is crowding around similar bets?
A
Alexis Ohanian6:27
Look, your instincts are right, and I know you always get in trouble saying why something is different this time. And with that caveat, I still think something is different this time. And I know, look, I lived through the social media wave. I naively thought the social media revolution that we were building with Reddit was like the revolution. It was not. I naively thought mobile was a revolution. It was not. I mean, it was, but in a much smaller way compared to what this is. We have seen in just a few years technology go from an interesting novelty that could help you write a press release to technology that could literally write code as well as or better than even some of the most senior experienced developers, and it really augments the output of folks. So there's a real technology here. It's a real shift, and I don't think it goes away. And I also think it has, as I said on stage, a national security importance.
I
Interviewer7:18
Right.
A
Alexis Ohanian7:19
Because so much of our lives are digital. You saw us with the way Anthropic thoughtfully rolled out Mythos. We used it first and foremost to shore up vulnerabilities that we had in our businesses here in America. And so even if AI never got any better than where it is today, that is already incredibly valuable, and there's so much wood to chop as we look across so many businesses that right now don't have any software in them. This hotel, I am sure...
I
Interviewer7:46
Don't tell me this hotel is going to be an AI company, Alexis. No.
A
Alexis Ohanian7:49
But I am sure that whatever systems they're using right now are very bad. And software as a layer of user experience should be able to level that up in a meaningful way.
I
Interviewer8:03
By the way, I do want to ask quickly because we have 45 seconds left. There is this idea that the thing that survives in AI is just live entertainment, and you have a lot of bets around women's sports.
A
Alexis Ohanian8:12
Very much.
I
Interviewer8:13
Has this whole revolution, this thing we're experiencing, just made you double down on that?
A
Alexis Ohanian8:17
Yeah. I mean, look, I was a rare voice five, six years ago saying this was an institutional great asset, not just sports, but also specifically women's sports. I love seeing this. I am certain five, ten years from now, we will still watch, no matter how good the AI generated highlights get. Watching the AI version of that Knicks final last night would do nothing for the human soul, because even if it was pixel perfect, if it didn't actually happen, it is irrelevant and worthless. So live sports has to be fundamentally human. No one is going to line up to see a bunch of robots play 18 holes of golf against each other where everyone hits a hole in one. The end state of this technology is some version of this perfection that no one is going to want to watch because sport has to be human. So I've been saying this for five, six years now, I'm only more confident about it. And I think what this technology does is it makes these assets more valuable. It makes them more engaging for fans. It improves training. It improves so many elements, but it does not replace the human element.