Atlassian Team '26 – why Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian thinks the more AI advances, the more human imperfection matters

Waffle House featured in the early part of the Team 26 closing keynote. For those of you who don’t know, this is an iconic restaurant chain in the American South. It was in a Waffle House that Alexis Ohanian, founder of Reddit and investment firm Seven Seven Six had his first epiphany, and thought there must be more to life than being a lawyer, and decided to become an entrepreneur.

He founded the internet social community Reddit in 2005 with his college roommate Steve Huffman, after catching the eye of startup investor Paul Graham.

The proof-of-humanity problem

Building what became known as the ‘Front page of the Internet’ Ohanian was always aware of human and social interaction through technology, and believes this is becoming even more important as AI advances.

Talking about the early days of Reddit he said:

We wanted to be about what was new and interesting ...