Alexis Ohanian stepped down from the board of Reddit to "make a better world" for his daughter.
The platform’s co-founder and executive chairman announced his resignation on Friday (05.06.20) and encouraged the company to fill his seat with a black candidate, and admitted he made the move for his wife, Serena Williams, and their two-year-old daughter Olympia.
He said: "This was not an easy decision at all.
"I thought about what I could do beyond a social media post, beyond a donation.
"We need diversity at the highest levels of business now more than ever. Once I realised why I needed to do it, it became very easy."
Alexis also announced he would be donating future gains from his Reddit stock to help the black community, starting with a $1 million pledge to Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp, and admitted he was keen to do something "meaningful".
Sitting down with his wife for an Instagram discussion, he said: "I thought about what those dollars could do for a community that has clearly suffered for far too long, and that I with my power and my influence and my privilege want to do something meaningful to start to show a change. To make a better world for Olympia…
"I wanted to put as much weight behind the gesture as I could because I felt I owed it to you and I owed it to her."
The 37-year-old businessman expressed his anger at the fact Olympia, like her mother, will have to work harder to prove herself than a white woman if things don’t change.
He said: "At some point, Olympia is going to have to have a talk with you, a talk with us, but especially a talk with you, about how she’s going to have to work that much harder, how she’s going to have to deal with this much more, that pisses me off…. I’m sitting here like, if I’m this p***ed off just now, like how have you been able to endure your entire life? How have generations of Black Americans been able to endure your entire life?"
The tennis legend replied: "It’s hard. It is definitely not easy. It’s something that unfortunately has become normal for us."