Michael Seibel has been named to the Reddit board of directors after Alexis Ohanian, cofounder of the social media site, resigned and called for his seat to be filled by a Black person.
Seibel is the CEO at Silicon Valley-based Y Combinator, where Reddit got its start in 2005. YC has been described as one of the most powerful accelerators in the world.
He’ll be the first Black board member at Reddit, a news aggregation and content-rating social media site that was valued at $3 billion in its last funding round.
Seibel joined YC as its first African-American partner in October 2014. Prior to that, he cofounded Justin.tv, a streaming site that was later renamed Twitch and sold to Amazon for $1 billion+ in 2014. He also worked as CEO of video app SocialCam before it was sold to Autodesk for $60 million in 2012. Born in Brooklyn, Seibel graduated from Yale University with a degree in political science. In 2006, he worked as finance director for former NAACP president Kweisi Mfume’s Senate campaign in Maryland.
Siebel seemed excited about the Reddit opportunity. “I want to thank (Reddit CEO and co-founder) Steve (Huffman), Alexis, and the entire Reddit board,” he said in a statement. “I’ve watched Reddit become part of the core fabric of the internet and I’m excited to help provide advice and guidance as Reddit continues to grow and tackle the challenges of bringing community and belonging to a broader audience.”
Ohanian, who has a daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. with wife Serena Williams, said he believes his decision will bring positive change.
Ohanian announced on June 5 that he was resigning from Reddit and wanted the company to fill his seat with a Black candidate. “Fifteen years ago I co-founded Reddit as a place for people to find community and a sense of belonging,” he said. “It is long overdue to do the right thing.”
“Resignation can actually be an act of leadership from people in power right now,” Ohanian added.
He said he was “writing this as a father who needs to be able to answer his black daughter when she asks: ‘What did you do?'”
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Ohanian said he plans to use future gains on his Reddit stock to “serve the Black community, chiefly to curb racial hate, and I’m starting with a pledge of $1M to Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp.“
Reddit users had not shortage of responses, including these:
