Durgesh Kaushik, Vice President of Product at Reddit, has stepped down from his role after three and a half years, announcing plans to co-found a new venture focused on digital infrastructure for the future.
In a personal update shared on LinkedIn, Kaushik described his time at Reddit as a period of deep learning and impact. “Leading Product and International Growth at Reddit has been a masterclass in scale,” he wrote, adding that he is “especially grateful to Pali Bhat for the opportunity, and to Steve Huffman and Jen Wong for the trust and partnership.” Reflecting on his tenure, he noted, “Helping make Reddit relevant for millions globally is a chapter I’ll always be proud of.”
His departure signals a shift toward entrepreneurship, with Kaushik turning his attention to what he calls one of the most pressing challenges of the coming decade. “The internet is world-class at distribution, but the systems underneath it are still version 1.0. Identity is fragmented. Communication is noisy. Coordination is harder than it should be. Money movement is still far too broken in too many places,” he wrote.
Kaushik is now co-founding Modveon, a company he says aims to rethink the foundational layers of the internet. The startup is positioning itself as “a verified operating system for modern nation-states and citizens,” built to address gaps in identity, coordination, and financial systems. It has raised $10 million in funding from investors including Coinbase Ventures and Firebolt Ventures.
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Explaining the timing of the venture, Kaushik pointed to the convergence of emerging technologies. “AI is becoming a new interface layer for how people navigate the digital world, and stablecoins are creating new rails for how value moves,” he wrote, adding that both technologies become significantly more effective when built on trusted and verified systems rather than fragmented ones.
He is building the company alongside Nana Murugesan, CEO and co-founder of Modveon, with whom he shares a long professional history. “From our days scaling Snapchat to our time at Coinbase, we’ve built a decade of trust. There is no one I’d rather build with from the ground up,” Kaushik noted.
Murugesan echoed the sentiment in a public response to the announcement. “Grateful to be building this with you Durgesh! We have done a lot together over the last decade, now we build what the next decade will run on. Excited for what’s ahead at Modveon,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, Steve Huffman has indicated that Reddit is looking to ramp up hiring of recent college graduates, even as parts of the tech sector pull back on entry-level recruitment amid the growing use of AI tools. Speaking at the Sourcery with Molly O’Shea podcast, Huffman said, “The kids coming out of college right now learned how to program with AI. They’re really good at it, and so I think we will go heavy on new grads, because they’re so much more AI native.”