Alexis Ohanian, Co-Founder and Executive Chair of Reddit. Getty Images

But even if Reddit is able to ink deals with big-name advertisers, as the two say, another scandal on the level of the celebrity nude hack or Gamergate could easily send those advertisers running.

The core operations of Reddit are still run by unpaid moderators, who are responsible for maintaining the quality of Reddit's various subreddit forums. Last summer, many of these same moderators shut down the site in protest of how the company handled the firing a support staffer whom the mods adored. Though Reddit told Primack that the company keeps 70 percent of its advertisers from quarter to quarter (and mentioned high-profile brands like Google and Coca-Cola), how many of them would stick around if stolen nude photos of Hollywood celebrities began resurfacing in the community? Earlier this month, Reddit revealed that it was introducing a "block button," a basic anti-abuse and anti-harassment feature that critics of the company have long been calling for. When then-interim CEO Ellen Pao was replaced by co-founder Steve Huffman, engineering chief Bethanye Blount quit shortly thereafter, telling Re/code that she believed the new leadership was making promises it couldn't keep to the Reddit community about anti-harassment and moderation tools. Though things have been relatively quiet on Reddit — there haven't been any major scandals in the last few months — incremental changes to the platform don't really mean too much. Reddit is still at the mercy of thousands of moderators that it doesn't employ, and there are still plenty of people on Reddit who could create significant headaches for advertisers.