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Thanks, Nice! Congrats & Hey I’ve Set Up Some LO Buys Go Redditors $RDDT
Condé Nast’s Parent Made A $2 Billion Windfall From Reddit’s IPO. Now Come The Uncomfortable Questions
Story by Analysis by Oliver Darcy, CNN • 7 HOURS AGO
LINK
Executives at Advance Publications are likely popping champagne bottles. But as they sip on their celebratory bubbly they are now being confronted with some uncomfortable questions.
The S.I. Newhouse-founded media company, which owns the Condé Nast suite of prestigious magazines and local news outlets across the country, netted approximately $2.1 billion on Thursday when Reddit went public on the New York Stock Exchange in a long-awaited blockbuster IPO.
The social media company, which priced its offering at $34 a share, rocketed 48% on its first day, closing above $50 in an impressive public debut for the 20-year-old message board platform.
It’s quite a return on an investment for Advance, which acquired the “front page of the internet” for a mere $10 million in 2006, before spinning it off in 2011 and allowing others to invest in the digital forum.
The windfall, however, comes at a notable time for the company. Like other media giants facing existential headwinds, Advance’s publications have endured a sustained downturn in digital advertising and seen traffic from social media platforms decline, prompting uncomfortable belt-tightening and scaled-back ambitions.
Condé Nast has for months been engaged in a standoff with its union. The company announced in November that it planned to lay off 94 staffers, or roughly 5% of its workforce. (It has said it will keep operating costs consistent with the last three years, but that it wants to invest in different areas, necessitating the layoffs.)
Tensions have only escalated since then. Condé Nast boss Roger Lynch told Axios’ Sara Fischer earlier this month that, while it missed its revenue target, there were no plans for further layoffs. But the Condé Union said this week that management had effectively gone back on its word and added another five staffers to its layoff list, inflaming already high emotions and prompting renewed protests Wednesday outside Lynch’s office.
While Advance cannot sell its shares for six months, laying off staffers as it reaps billions of dollars from Reddit’s IPO would present, at minimum, an optics problem for Condé Nast, which has been bruised in recent months during union negotiations. The earnings also offer a few uncomfortable questions for the company. Will Advance go through with such cuts while it rains cash over at company headquarters? How can Advance expect Condé Nast management to push through with painful layoffs while the parent company experiences a gold rush?
I asked representatives for Advance on Thursday if the $2 billion+ windfall it stood to reap had given it any second thoughts on allowing Condé Nast to move forward with the layoffs. As you might expect, representatives for the company were not too keen on answering such questions. My multiple emails went unreturned.
But the IPO bonanza has certainly secured the attention of employees at Condé Nast. And it is sure to be a factor as the union continues contract negotiations with management. While Advance is remaining mum about the massive sum it has made on its Reddit bet, the union is already speaking out.
“The fact that billions of dollars in wealth poured into Advance as we continue to fight for jobs illustrates where Condé Nast’s priorities are,” Susan DeCarava, president of The NewsGuild of New York, told me. “Management needs to stop investing in threats and start investing in the concerns of the workers who power the company’s success.”
AI LLM 'brains' are built using vast amounts of input data. AI has a problem: GIGO .... Garbage in Garbage out.
Reddit is holding vast amounts (19 years) of input data which has been researched, moderated and evaluated by humans.
THIS IS AI GOLD!
MoMo Bid BATS @49 with 49.85 Ask Atm Just Set a Limit Order Buy 100 @46.31 AH Let’s See If It Fills… $RDDT #RDDTcoin
REDDIT'S CO-FOUNDER IS BICKERING WITH INVESTORS ON THE COMPANY'S BIG IPO DAY
Story by sstokes@insider.com (Samantha Stokes)
LINK
* Reddit went public Thursday after raising $748 million in its initial IPO.
* IPOs are normally a day of celebration for companies.
* But Reddit's co-founder took to X to call out a perceived slight by investor Initialized Capital.
IPOs are typically a day reserved for celebration. But it's not all sunshine and roses for Reddit, whose co-founder and early investors are bickering on social media.
Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian Getty Image © Getty Images
Alexis Ohanian, who co-founded Reddit in 2005 alongside Steve Huffman, took to X, formerly known on Twitter, on Thursday afternoon to call out Initialized Capital — the VC firm that he co-founded with Y Combinator's Garry Tan — for not congratulating him by name in the firm's post about the company's IPO.
"Great to see our portfolio company @reddit debut on the NYSE! congrats to Steve Huffman, and the team," Initialized Capital posted on X Thursday afternoon.
In response, Ohanian quoted the posts and tagged the accounts for Tan and Initialized managing partners Brett Gibson and Jen Wolf.
Wow, this is petty, @GarryTan, @brettdg, @jenhwolf — even for y'all," he wrote.
Alexis Ohanian called out Initialized Capital investors on X after the firm's social media account failed to congratulate him by name on Reddit's IPO. X © X
Garry Tan tweeted a congrtulations to both Alexis Ohanian an Steve Huffman on Reddit's IPO. X © X
Ohanian responded to Tan's post, linking the post from Initialized Capital.
"Thanks Garry!" he wrote. "any idea what happened here?"
Ohanian, Tan, and representatives for Initialized Capital did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Ohanian and Tan created Initialized back in 2011 to focus on seed investing, and the firm has written early checks for startups including Instacart, Rippling, and Coinbase. It also invested in Reddit's 2012 Series A funding round.
He left Initialized in 2020 to launch the VC firm 776, which has primarily invested in early-stage crypto startups. The move came just weeks after Ohanian, who stepped away from Reddit's day-to-day operations in 2018, resigned as a board member in the wake of George Floyd's murder and implored the company to replace him with a Black person.
Michael Seibel, a colleague of Tan's at Y Combinator, took over his seat, becoming the first Black board member in Reddit's history.
Reddit first sparked rumors it planned to go public in early 2022, when it confidentially filed for an initial IPO and stated plans to potentially go public by March of that year. The market, however, has been shaky during the past two years, making it less desirable to go public and causing several companies to put off pursuing an IPO.
Instacart broke open the IPO market in late 2023, but its public offering flopped and likely had a cooling effect on other late-stage startups weighing whether they should go public.
Reddit's first day on the New York Stock Exchange, however, has been a success: the company set its initial share price at $34 Wednesday night and opened Thursday morning at $47 apiece.
On Tan's personal X profile, he did tag both Ohanian and Huffman in a post congratulating Reddit on its stock market debut.
"Big congrats @alexisohanian @redditspez on building something people want," Tan wrote, sharing a link to Reddit's profile on Y Combinator — the startup was a member of the accelerator's inaugural class — and an old photo of the two.
Yuppo precisely
I'll have to agree with you in part -- this will be dropping hard.
Looks like the Insiders are dumping their shares, and it's getting hit by shorts.
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Reddit shares open 38% above IPO price in robust market debut $RDDT RDDTcoin https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/reddit-set-hotly-anticipated-debut-after-pricing-ipo-top-range-2024-03-21/
Thank You! GLTU2 GLTA $RDDT
Funny you should say this...because it looks like people are, shorting this.
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Short it into the ground $1 soon $RDDT
I'm hearing High Noon. Wait and see I guess.
https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditIPO/
Good luck to all you Redditors out there in Reddit land.
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