The internet was founded on the notion of openness and universal access. That is now being rethought and redefined as startups increasingly focus on building a new wave of apps that will run on decentralized networks, giving users more control over their data and privacy.

Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of the venture-capital firm Initialized Capital and Reddit Inc., sat down with Steven Rosenbush, the editor of CIO Journal, to discuss what companies need to know about how the internet is changing. Edited excerpts follow.

MR. ROSENBUSH: You’ve been talking for a while about the new internet. What is wrong with the old internet?

MR. OHANIAN: Don’t get me wrong. I like the old internet. It has been very good for my career. But we’re learning the lessons of this one version of the internet that started before there was global connectivity, smartphones in everyone’s hand and high-speed bandwidth. We’re thinking about how to apply what we learned to a decentralized world, where individuals will have more control over their data, over their privacy, more security and potentially a more fluid transfer of things because they can be digitally encrypted.

MR. ROSENBUSH: Why didn’t we do this the first time around?