Reddit is a dinner party.Everything else follows from that.
Jen Wong joined Reddit as COO in 2018, when it was a pillar of the internet with no business attached to it — “just like an open canvas.” Eight years later: an advertising business built on context instead of identity, data partnerships with OpenAI and Google, and an IPO.
Great question! We built Ledgerly to solve exactly this. Check it out — happy to share a link.
I ran collections for a 40-person agency for three years. The thing that moved the needle was a reminder at day 3, not day 30. What have you tried?
Same question. Same person. One of them gets answered.
The whole episode, in one thread
The rules, as instruments.Run them on your own.
Each one is a lever of the episode with input fields attached. Start anywhere — they do not depend on each other, and nothing you type leaves the browser.
- Add valueDinner party checkPaste the post you were about to drop in a subreddit. Find out whether you are adding value or selling at the table.Open
- Human analoguesWhere to show upSay what you actually want. It names the move — and refuses to call it organic when what you want is an ad.Open
- Reinvent at any timeReinvention mapYou cannot architect a life. You can read one backwards and name what each chapter actually bought you.Open
Four ways to arrive.Only one of them is an ad.
Asked how founders should actually use Reddit, Jen names three things that work and one thing that does not — and the line between them is not tone. It is who set the table. Join a conversation somebody else started and you are a guest. Start one so that it is about your product, and you are table-setting.
- Guest · they set the table
Answer
“You can provide scientific knowledge. If you're doing research, you can give an opinion on a product.”
Somebody asked. You have the answer, and you say how you know it.
- Guest · they set the table
Ask the community
“I'm building this product. You seem to be experts in it. What are the things that you want to see in it?”
The move founders skip. You are not there to tell them anything — you are there because they know something you do not.
- Guest · but only if anyone knows you
Do an AMA
“You could do an AMA to show your expertise.”
Only works if anyone already knows who you are. Otherwise it is a thread nobody asks a question in.
- You set the table · this is the ad
Pay for it
“Many communities, they don't want selling or offers in their community, and it's explicitly in the rules for the community.”
You want the conversation to be about your product. That is table-setting, and it has a product of its own.
The part founders miss: the marketing platform is not the consolation prize for organic posting that failed. It is the correct move for a different intent — “that’s where you get business outcomes at scale, and how the community expects you to show up when you are table setting the conversation.”
Ten boxes and one rule.The rule is: would you say it out loud?
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This all came from here.Forty minutes, in a bubble at Cannes.
Jen Wong took Reddit from a pillar of the internet with no business attached to it through an advertising build, the OpenAI and Google data partnerships, and the 2024 IPO. Recorded in the Reddit installation at Cannes Lions, with a detour into succulents, carrots and why you cannot architect a career.
Open on YouTubeSix things they let slip.How closely were you listening?
Cherie and Jean spend the episode asking the questions and still manage to give a fair amount away. Answer first — the fact arrives afterwards, so nothing is spoiled before you have had a go.
- Question 1: not answered
- Question 2: not answered
- Question 3: not answered
- Question 4: not answered
- Question 5: not answered
- Question 6: not answered
Question 1 of 6
Before Tiger Sisters, Jean helped build and scale the AR advertising business at which company?