Yahoo Finance is bringing you more elite

interviews from Cannes right at CEO and

co-founder Steve Huffman sat down with

executive editor Brian Sozzi.

>> Reddit is 21 years old this week.

>> Happy birthday.

>> Thank you.

>> Do you celebrate a milestone like that

or is it just like another day and you

just go about your business?

>> We actually we do celebrate it or we

acknowledge it.

Um but then the question people keep

asking me is

what's your perspective or how's it

feel? And

the answer is Reddit has been bigger

than I ever thought it would be since

August 2005. So it's just been

it's all just been a ride since then.

>> You've told this story before but it

bears repeating especially given your

big birthday.

What made you found Reddit in 2005? And

like oh yeah, there there was no AI back

in 2005.

>> So in 2005

it was just hard to find interesting

things to read. Like you kind of had to

know the websites you liked or maybe a

blog you liked. But there wasn't a feed

of interesting things.

And so that's what we wanted to make is

a feed of interesting things. And we

wanted to make a feed of interesting

things that instead of being controlled

by an editor

was controlled by users. And so that was

the simple idea. Users submit links,

users vote on them and our front page is

interesting content. And it's just all

kind of evolved from there.

>> You know, your birthday had me even

reflecting a bit too. I had a chat last

year with Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang.

Another

>> OG

>> of the internet.

What makes

you co-founders tick differently? I

mean, you're still here out on a pier at

Cannes Lions, a big event leading the

company.

>> I think

one

it it's the main thing I've done in my

life.

Two, our aspirations

are so big.

So where are we today? We're about 120

million daily users.

And so we think

how do we get to a billion users?

Which by the way isn't even the biggest

on the internet. It's just another nice

milestone.

And we just

every day I think chip away at it. Chip

away at it. We've been, you know, kind

of taking one step at a time with Reddit

for so long. I just I I trust the

process that if we just make a little

bit of improvement every day, we'll get

to where we want to go eventually.

>> What are the biggest improvements you're

bringing to the platform this year?

>> Well, so on the consumer side, um we're

doing a lot of work in the core app, in

the feeds.

Uh the story for us has been the same

for a while. Every time we make Reddit

more friendly, more easy to use, we

grow.

And so we drive growth through quality.

So a lot of work there. We'll start to

do some interesting things with video

later this year. I think that'll be fun.

Um our search product is getting better

and better.

And then on the ad side, we've, you

know, we're constantly, you know, taking

iterative steps there, making that

product better and better. Um recently

we announced some new tools for um

for creatives like to to create uh um

ads on Reddit. So that's under constant

evolution, as well.

>> What would you like to do on the video

front to the extent you can share?

>> So when we think about something like

video,

what we don't do is say, "What's our

short-form video strategy?"

What we do is we say video Reddit needs

to have amazing video capability.

So the horizontal capability, being able

to upload, have the player be great,

have the transition from the feed to the

player to the comments back to the feed,

all that be seamless.

And if we create the video capability

and integrate it naturally, then most

likely what will happen is our users

will invent ways of using video on

Reddit.

Um and they'll do things that we didn't

anticipate. And that's how we'll know

we've gotten it right.

>> What's the biggest inhibitor to getting

more

users onto the platform right now?

>> I think the biggest challenge is though

Reddit literally has a home for

everybody

that is when you open the app for the

first time, you may not be connected

with that home.

Reddit is a very broad place and so a

lot of our focus has been on that first

session. So when the user opens the app,

we don't know much about them yet. Maybe

they've answered a few questions. Maybe

they've run a search.

Connecting them to the subreddits that

we know they'll love. We know they exist

and so it's really making that

connection. Um

because Reddit

looks like social media at first. Right?

It's a it's it's a feed of posts, but

it's not social media and so it takes a

little time for the user to

kind of

figure that out. So helping them through

that journey.

>> How often are they using Reddit every

week?

>> Well, it depends. So our core users use

Reddit every single day.

Um but then we also have our second

largest cohort of users. Like if you did

a a histogram of days per week the two

biggest bars would be 7 days a week and

1 day a week.

So we've got a lot of people who visit

Reddit, who drive by, maybe they're

coming from search and then a lot of

users who are totally into it using it

every day.

There's not much space in the middle.

It's pretty binary. So if we can convert

those 1 days to 7 days, then we're in

great shape.

>> Your advertising revenue has gone

through the roof. I think in the most

recent quarter was up 74% or somewhere

uh around there. When you talk to the

advertisers here, like why are they

giving you money as opposed to other

platforms?

>> Yeah, so we've been growing in that 60

plus percent range for seven quarters

now.

Um there's a couple of reasons why we're

finding success here. One is the ads

work.

Two, they can reach an audience on

Reddit that is simply not on other

platforms. Right? About a third of our

users just aren't on other platforms.

And then, what's interesting about

Reddit, and actually surprises me now

looking back on it given where we

started, is that because Reddit is so

naturally commercial,

like 40% of the conversations people are

having organically on Reddit are more or

less about what to buy.

But it's not They don't say, "What

should I buy?" They say, "What should I

wear? What should I watch tonight? Where

should I go? What's the best headphone?"

And so,

the 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. And Reddit has

an outsized influence on the world,

right? Things that are popular on Reddit

become popular elsewhere on the

internet, whether it's other social

platforms, search, LLMs. And so, having

a good reputation and showing up well on

Reddit is really important to brands.

>> Do AI summaries piss you off?

>> Do AI summaries piss me off?

I wouldn't

I can't say that with a

a broad brush. I think there's times

when you want them and there's times

when you don't. Um

you know, if I'm running an external

search and I get a summary, it depends

on the nature of my query.

But I'm If I'm asking one of those

questions that has no answer,

like what TV show would I love to watch

next,

I don't want a summary. Actually, I want

lots of perspectives. I want to see some

debate, you know, maybe a little mess,

some tension in the answer. And that's

what Reddit is great at.

So,

um I think there's a there's a time and

a place for AI.

And I think what's happening is AI

search products are actually creating an

environment where the way Reddit does

things is is more appreciated. Because

often-times you want to be with other

people.

Right? You you want to know that there's

a real human being behind the answer and

it's their experience you're hearing.

And you want that mess. You want a

little chaos. I think, you know, that is

what our product is and AI actually

helps it

stand out uniquely.

>> You are one of the

earliest companies to sign deals with

the the LLMs.

Um as these contracts come up for

renewal with OpenAI and Google,

do you expect significantly more money

given how fast they're growing and the

valuable information you have within

your platform, right?

>> Well, look, I'll say this. We've all

learned um the value of Reddit's data

throughout the entire AI process. So,

whether it's pre-training,

post-training, grounding, search,

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.

Um nothing to announce on any

partnerships at this moment, but they

are significant partnerships.

>> One more for you and I think uh Matthew

Prince over at Cloudflare was talking

about this a little bit here

uh on the board work that we are we're

about 10 years

over the next 10 years we're going to

see just a massive spike in internet

traffic uh in a major change in how

people interact with the internet.

Do you agree with that? And then

secondarily, how does that impact a

business like Reddit?

>> Well, the internet is consistently

growing.

Um I think

I I

if I were to take a take on the future,

I think what's going to change

uh potentially is the primary user

interface for computers.

Now that um

voice and audio are so powerful, right?

You can talk to your computer now, you

can listen to your computer now.

I think for many use cases that can free

the user from having to sit in front of

a computer or maybe be holding a phone.

So,

and I'm sure there are likely

changes beyond that in regards to what's

the relationship with computing.

And what that means for Reddit? Well,

we'll have to adapt. So, I think this

could mean

you know, audio Reddit, background

listening, being able to talk to it,

that sort of thing.

Um those are things we're not actively

working on right now, but they're on our

minds to see like

if if computers change, like how do we

evolve with it? The fundamental need

that people have is they want to be

connected to other people around their

common interests and passions. So, that

doesn't change. But we've been on the

internet now 21 years. Everything else

in our world has changed, and we expect

we'll continue to adapt with it.

>> away? I think you and I are around the

same age. Does the computer go away in

our lifetime?

Does the computer go away?

I think we start

I think it's more of an expansion.

This is the bad news. I think there's

more computers in our life.

>> No.

I got I got to get charged all this

stuff up, man.

>> I think the I think the mouse and the

keyboard and the screen are very

powerful and aren't likely going away.

You're just going to get more ears and

badges and watches. It's just We we will

never be able to escape it.