If the market for initial public offerings recovers in the new year, one company that aims to go public early on is Reddit. An IPO will put the spotlight on the prospects for Reddit’s advertising business, which has fallen short of ambitious growth targetsoutlined by executives two years ago. ...
They weren’t a corporation from the get-go though? They were a Y-Combinator project that became successful, and were eventually bought by Conde Nast (when the “sell-out” began, btw).
I think profit was always the end goal, except for Aaron Swartz. They might not have been incorporated but the intent always seemed like profit.