Reddit Stock Nears All-Time Highs, Making Sam Altman a Billion (Doom Scrolling Finally Pays Off)

If you’ve spent half of 2024 doom scrolling through SuperStonks and convincing yourself that posting memes counts as “research,” guess what? It might actually be paying off. Not for you, of course. I mean, let’s be real—most of us are still holding GameStop bags like they’re Louis Vuitton.

But Reddit itself is up 25% this morning after absolutely annihilating its Q3 earnings. Finally, the company behind all those deep-dive conspiracy theories and niche communities is getting Wall Street to look twice. And if you’re a Reddit shareholder, maybe this is your moment.

Reddit’s Q3 numbers were the kind of big win you usually only see in r/HumansBeingBros. Revenues hit $348.4 million, comfortably passing the $312.8 million analyst prediction. Even crazier, Reddit turned a profit—a profit, people! First time since going public in March, and they did it in style with a net income of $29.9 million. The last time Reddit saw this much hype was probably when they unleashed the infamous ‘Button’ experiment. This quarter, though? It’s real money.

CEO Steve Huffman hinted that the company’s big investment in ad tech is finally bearing fruit. As he told interviewers that Reddit’s "hypothesis" (that every company’s customers are on Reddit somewhere) is finally playing out. Turns out, advertisers can’t resist the lure of a platform where you can find both DIY tattoo tips and stock advice from self-proclaimed financial wizards.

Reddit’s ad game is no longer the garage band—it’s stadium level. Gone are the days of simple ad slots. Now, Reddit’s rolling out slick video ads, shopping formats, and partnerships with major sports leagues. This strategy pushed Reddit right up there with the big boys—Meta, Google, you name it. Reddit’s Q4 forecast? $385 million to $400 million, beating the analyst expectation of $357.9 million.

Aside from ad money, the company has been cashing in on its trove of data, scoring licensing deals with AI monopolies like OpenAI and Google to feed the ever-hungry machine learning models of tomorrow. Back in January, Reddit bagged $203 million in deals for training AI models. Who knew all those “relationship advice” threads would someday help train the next generation of chatbots? (Thanks to reddit, even ChatGPT knows how to respond when someone’s cousin “borrowed” their Xbox.)

In what can only be described as poetic irony, Reddit (the very platform that birthed diamond-handed warriors and hedge fund headaches) is pulling in some serious gains. While some of us are still hoping for our $GME gains to resurrect, Reddit’s stock is living its best life, almost tripling since its IPO at $34 a share. Even Sam Altman (the self proclaimed do-gooder and not money hungry) is probably smiling ear to ear. Altman, who invested in Reddit back in its early days, now controls about 12.2 million shares. As of today, his Reddit stake has crossed the billion-dollar mark—around $1.2 billion, to be exact. Not bad for someone who saw potential in Reddit when “upvotes” were still niche internet points.

(Inc. Magazine)

With a 47% increase in daily active users (we’re talking 97.2 million people here), Reddit’s growth isn’t slowing down. And Huffman says they’re just getting started on drawing in more advertisers and making it even easier for new users to sign up. If the 25% pre-market surge holds, Reddit’s on track to hit a record high, marking one of the best runs in social media IPO history. So, for those of you still scrolling through Reddit’s finance threads, maybe today’s the day to close that tab and peek at the stock page.

P.S. Our SURPRISE ALERT still has plenty of room to run! Click here for the details…

Stock.News has positions in Meta and Google.