Evan Spiegel, whose full name is Evan Thomas Spiegel, was born on June 4, 1990, in Los Angeles. He is a co-founder of Snapchat and the CEO of Snap Inc. He is one of the youngest billionaires in the world, having reached a net worth of $1.5 billion at just 24 years old.
Conquering the World with Crazy Ideas
Developing a Ridiculed App
While studying at Stanford University, he presented the idea for a messaging app with self-destructing messages. This idea was ridiculed by his classmates and considered absurd. Evan Spiegel had a different perspective; instead of wanting to save messages, he believed it was unnecessary, arguing that people should only share their feelings or issues in the moment.
Ignoring the negative opinions, Evan Spiegel and his friends Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown were determined to develop the app, originally named Picaboo, which later became Snapchat. To focus on Snapchat, he decided to forgo his studies. As of now, Snapchat is a successful app valued at around $16 billion in the market, and it garnered significant attention right from its launch.
Refusing Mark Zuckerberg
In 2012, when Snapchat was still relatively new, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg took notice of Evan Spiegel and his app. Mark wrote a letter to Spiegel expressing his admiration for Snapchat and wanting to meet to discuss future directions at Facebook’s headquarters. Spiegel’s response to the billionaire who owned a $20 billion app was, “Hello, I’m in Los Angeles; why don’t you come here?”
Eventually, Mark Zuckerberg personally visited Evan Spiegel, who was relatively unknown at the time. During that meeting, Mark mainly introduced his app Poke, which had similar functionalities to Snapchat, implying that Facebook would crush this fledgling app. This was seen as a declaration of war against Evan Spiegel, who decided to buy six copies of The Art of War to send to his six employees.
When Poke launched, Mark sent another invitation to Evan Spiegel to use his app. Shortly after, Spiegel, Murphy, and Brown deleted their Facebook accounts, and notably, within three days of making a splash, Poke was pushed out of the top spot on the App Store by Snapchat.
Zuckerberg did not give up and wanted to buy Snapchat for $3 billion in 2013. Many experts deemed this an outrageous price since Snapchat’s revenue at the time was zero. However, Evan Spiegel declined.
Spiegel’s decision ultimately helped him amass a billion-dollar fortune as Snapchat continued to grow. From six employees, Evan Spiegel expanded his company to over 300 employees.
A Different Mindset
When developing advertising on Snapchat, he required advertisers to accept vertical video ads instead of the popular horizontal format. Evan Spiegel argued that this would encourage viewers to watch the entire ad rather than rotating their screens. Initially, this request faced backlash, but he remained firm in his belief and eventually convinced many large companies to comply.
