Shares of Reddit (RDDT) are rising after the company’s third-quarter results exceeded analyst expectations and showed the company was profitable. Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi sits down with Reddit CEO Steve Huffman to discuss the results.

“The story with Reddit is quite simple. Yes, we’re very proud of the quarter we just delivered, but ultimately our strategy over the last few years has been to make Reddit better, faster, more secure, and easier to use, and that drives growth. And growth, in turn, means greater reach for advertisers,” Huffman told Yahoo Finance.

The CEO says: “One of the most important things to understand about Reddit is that it is a simple platform. Communities and conversations. It’s a simple business model… We connect companies with their customers in an environment where they are likely to talk about relevant products and decisions.”

“What’s unique about Reddit, aside from the consumer product, which I think is unique, really as the most human place on the internet, but what’s unique about the business is that it’s very simple with such high gross margins and our ability to drive revenue to grow. with modest cost growth.”

Huffman says that Reddit as a platform has entered “an era of mainstream” by making the product easier to use. He notes: “One of our focuses next year will be search, which is a great opportunity because it’s one of the few opportunities that can both improve the experience for new users and help them find their home on Reddit more efficiently, but it makes the core experience for core users even better… And in the long run it is also a monetization opportunity.”

Reddit has signed deals with ChatGPT maker OpenAI and Alphabet’s (GOOG, GOOGL) Google to license its content to train artificial intelligence (AI) models. Huffman says, “Ultimately what consumers on the internet want, and also what companies that train large foundation models want, is Reddit content.” He explains that Reddit’s willingness to make commercial deals reflects its belief in openness.

As AI technology evolves, so does the conversation around regulation. Huffman says, “The first thing I want to base this conversation on is that this technology is incredibly important to humanity, and it will create a tremendous amount of opportunity and ultimately wealth for everyone… Then the rules that we would advocate for are about transparency.”

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This post was written by Naomi Buchanan.