Alexis Ohanian, 27, isn't a billionaire (yet), but the Brooklyn resident is doing quite nicely for himself. He's one of the co-founders of reddit.com, a social-news Web site that was acquired by Condé Nast in 2006 for north of $10 million; the terms of the deal remain confidential.
Give him time, though. With a new start-up --Hipmunk.com, a site aiming to make flight searches more user-friendly -- and the return of easy money for dot-coms, Ohanian says it's the go-go days all over again.
Getting noticed -- and raising capital -- is far easier than it was just five years ago. "Hipmunk launched in mid-2010 and CNN started gushing about it almost right away," says Ohanian. "Compared to reddit, where after it launched, it was months before anyone paid attention. Today, it's gotten a lot easier to bubble up and get popular."
And if you look closely, you'll see breadpig, hipmunk, and grubwith.us stickers on my laptop.
Thanks for the great writeup! I do hope Color proves me wrong, though, but at least it'll just get more programmers excited about starting startups (just don't expect those kinds of pre-launch valuations, OK?).
Now I've got to get back to work...