Trevor Wiles is a 2014 Carthage College graduate

2014 May 28

Trevor Wiles of Antioch , IL graduated from Carthage College on Sunday, May 25.

Even though the website he co-founded has blossomed into one of the nation's biggest, Commencement speaker Alexis Ohanian confessed to graduating Carthage seniors that he still fumbles for answers in life.

He assured members of the Class of 2014 it's OK for them to wing it, too.

"There's not going to be a syllabus assigned to you," he said. "It's going to be using whatever knowledge you've gained, whatever resources you have, to just figure it out -- to just hack it."

A total of 602 students, participated in the ceremony Sunday, May 25, in the N. E. Tarble Athletic and Recreation Center Field House. Wearing red sneakers, Mr. Ohanian gave an upbeat talk drawing snippets from his own successes and struggles.

With his best friend from college, Steve Huffman, Mr. Ohanian started social news site reddit. It has grown exponentially since going live in 2005, drawing almost 110 million unique visitors last month. It's the site that turned "Ask Me Anything" into a household phrase.

Pointing to the still-untapped potential of the Internet, he imagines even greater advances coming from the next generation of entrepreneurs.

"What you all will be capable of doing in the next nine years will make what Steve and I did in the last nine look like nothing," he said. "That's the nature of innovation."

Mr. Ohanian told the graduates to expect failure. That's a lesson he learned firsthand.

"No one ever introduces me as the founder of My Mobile Menu," he said, jokingly referring to the first company the two friends tried -- and failed -- to launch.

Conde Nast acquired reddit.com several years ago, and Mr. Ohanian remains on the board at reddit inc. The 31-year-old entrepreneur and investor has more than 80 technology startups in his portfolio, and his book, "Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed," debuted as a national bestseller.

One of the most ardent defenders of "net neutrality," Mr. Ohanian has given numerous high-profile interviews surrounding the FCC's proposed changes to rules governing Internet service providers. He led a campaign to distribute posters across Washington protesting the changes.

Invoking the Internet meme "Haters gonna hate," he urged Carthage graduates to learn from constructive criticism but to shut out the rest. Mr. Ohanian recalled posting "You are a rounding error" on his wall after Yahoo! executives used that jab to ridicule his fledgling business.

Even the smallest experiences add up, he said. As an example, Mr. Ohanian described a job he held as a teenager in a computer store. Yes, the sales pitches he repeatedly gave over the loudspeaker bored him and annoyed customers, but over time they made him a comfortable public speaker.

"It doesn't look like the dots connect," he said, "but I promise you they do."