Reddit COO Jen Wong Talks Mission and the ‘Magic’ of Community

Mission is at the center of social platform Reddit, said Jen Wong, the company’s chief operating officer, when she spoke at the Yale School of Management on April 9.

“Reddit is really different,” Wong told an audience at Evans Hall. “Our mission is to provide users with community, belonging, and empowerment in a safe, productive space, and it resonates.”

Reddit is an online platform comprised of user-generated content and feeds that let users build communities. Launched in 2005, the company recently went public. “We wanted to do an IPO, because our employees need equity in the company, and we wanted our users to be shareholders,” Wong said.

Wong spoke at Yale SOM as part of the Colloquium on Entrepreneurship, a lecture series that connects founders, innovators, and entrepreneurs with students and faculty for candid discussions and advice. Associate Dean Kyle Jensen, the Shanna and Eric Bass ’05 Director of Entrepreneurial Programs; and Jen McFadden ’08, associate director of entrepreneurship and lecturer in the practice of management, moderated the discussion.

A 1996 graduate of Yale College, Wong has helped lead Reddit since 2018. Recently listed at number one on Fast Company’s Queer 50, Wong was also included in the Gold House’s A100 List, which that honors the most impactful Asians and Asian American & Pacific Islanders in culture every May for API Heritage Month.

Citing Reddit’s mission-oriented approach and its longstanding commitment to the community it serves, Jensen called Wong “the embodiment of a leader for business and society.” Jensen also noted that Reddit occupies a unique niche on the Internet. “There is no site quite like Reddit,” he said.

Wong attributed Reddit’s lasting success to its users. Reddit is composed of multiple smaller communities, organized around specific themes or topics. These communities are self-governed by moderators and sets of bylaws. “Our users are very invested in Reddit,” Wong said. “They are super passionate about their communities. It’s really about people trying to share their knowledge and help other people.”

Reddit currently has more than 100,000 communities overseen by about 50,000 moderators. “It’s amazing because it’s average people who have a passion about something, and they bring it to the community,” Wong said. “That’s what’s magical about Reddit—these are all volunteers.”

Wong also answered questions about how Reddit regulates free speech and misinformation, the role of archiving content, privacy protections for users, and how to build global communities. 

Looking to the future, Wong said that Reddit would like to expand globally, possibly using speedy artificial intelligence technologies to translate content into different languages. The platform is also studying how to develop the functionality that would enable users to buy and sell products and services to each other.

“Today Reddit is just a place for altruistic conversations,” Wong said, “but we want to let users go beyond that.”