Snapchat's Evan Spiegel: Saying no to $3B, and feeling lucky | Hacker News Reader

Snapchat's Evan Spiegel: Saying no to $3B, and feeling lucky

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40 pointskjhughes47 comments

"So if life isn't fair -- it's not about working harder, it's about working the system." --Evan Spiegel, The son of successful lawyers, Spiegel grew up in a world of wealth, power, and privilege.

This is pretty much explains the behavior of "The One Percent" and mega-corps.

I hope all of snapchat's employees are equally as rich. Otherwise they just lost out on a huge, life-altering windfall due to some kind insane arrogance. Or I'm very wrong, FB comes back with a bigger offer and Spiegel takes it. I mean, it's just a screenshot/video sharing app with a little twist. A twist that can be undone by a software-update making it impossible to prevent the device from saving it. Did you know Android-KitKat comes with ScreenRecording? I wonder how snapchat deals with that.

EDIT: Ives's answer about SecureContent flag sounds good. Now I wonder about the future Custom ROMs...

Yep. Word just got around today that FB's feeling alienated and there aren't any other balls in the court. Evan's too arrogant to accept a lower offer.

Worst part is that everyone's feeling awkwardly trapped. I even feel bad complaining - damn golden handcuffs.

Apple creates an integrated snapchat. Removes snapchat from the apple store. It's not like they havent done that to other popular apps that they have the ability to replicate (google maps)

Except Google Maps is still on the App Store.

For example, Apple has banned comics from being sold through Comixology that they themselves sell in their store.

My point still stands that Apple initially removed it when they released Apple Maps. Since messaging is part of Apple's core experience, it's very likely that they'll eventually update their iMessage app.

Snapchat is not unique. In fact, there are far bigger and more popular messaging apps around the world. They just dont get the attention that SnapChat does because it happens to be in California and in the US. http://thenextweb.com/apps/2013/10/18/best-mobile-messaging-...

Your point is totally false. Apple never removed Google Maps from the App Store.

Apple changed an Apple app to use Apple data instead of Google Data, there was no removal of a Google app because there was no Google app to remove.

Sorry. I hope things work out somehow for you later.

(P.S. You might consider posting this kind of stuff anonymously, as it took me less than 5mins to figure out who you are in real life... if that's a concern for you.)

Yeah, delete your account @ now... just some friendly advice.

orleton what up

It is already impossible to prevent saving the image. Snapchat uesrs don't seem to care about that for the most part. What it does is create a whole new class of worthwhile photos. By sending via snapchat you are saying "this is just a throwaway image I wanted to send for a quick chuckle. No big deal." Whether the person takes the time/effort to save that throwaway image isn't really of any concern.

That's how I see it being used anyway. It's not being used with the expectation that there is literally no chance of the image being saved anywhere.

There's a simple SecureContent (or something like that) flag that can be set by developers; this disables the screen recording.

Snapchat has achieved the kind of user acceptance that only a handful of tech companies ever do. Kudos to them. However, it is a feature, not a product. The next great thing will come along and claim its notoriously fickle user base as fast or faster than Snapchat itself arrived on the scene. The barriers to entry are so low as to effectively be nonexistent.

Evan grew up rich and has family money to fall back on if he fails, so perhaps he can afford to gamble for a bigger payday. The problem is that he is gambling with the financial futures of his investors and employees as well. In my opinion, a bet that Snapchat will ever be valued at more than $3 billion is a long shot, and there is a greater-than-zero chance that the company will be worth nothing two years from now.

However, it is a feature, not a product.

Steve Jobs said that to Drew Huston about Dropbox. I think Steve believed it, too.

History will show whether Snapchat is a feature or a product, because they'll either fail or succeed. But if even Steve Jobs was bad at assessing early-stage tech companies, then we outsiders probably shouldn't make categorical judgments like "Snapchat isn't a product."

You beat me by a minute!

Well, if it's any consolation: You made Zapier, and I didn't! Zapier is awesome; thank you for creating it.

Well, myself and about 7 others so far! And thank you for using it! :-)

I think history will show Jobs right in regards to Dropbox. Dropbox created a company based on the inefficiency in the marketplace regarding cloud storage and file sharing. But this has all but evaporated. With Google, Apple and MS bundling cloud/hosting apps, how can dropbox possibly differentiate themselves? There is absolutely no network effects regarding cloud storage--web links do not have vendor lock-in. I believe its only a matter of time before dropbox tanks.

What efficiency evaporation are you referring to?

I use Dropbox because it works. I tried iCloud, and hit multiple points of frustration and failure. Whereas Dropbox let me transition seamlessly from Windows to OS X.

I mean inefficiency in terms of "an inefficiency in a market is a business opportunity". This inefficiency is in the process of being filled by the big players. Dropbox cannot survive as just a file sharing app in the face of bundled software from companies with deep pockets. Apparently they are fully aware of this as shown by their efforts to evolve into something more sustainable.

I really think Jobs could've been right at the time. But, Dropbox now is much more now than what it was once was.

In fact, this is how most successful software companies get their start - right? They begin with very narrow product - a single feature, even. If their hypothesis proves correct, they will grow pretty rapidly in usage and in offerings.

You're definitely right. Dropbox seems to be in the process of developing their business into something much more sustainable, the link from bryanh posted below was enlightening. I believe Jobs was right about filesharing being a feature. It's up to dropbox to use their momentum to evolve into something much more.

Whether they are still around in two years or not, Snapchat is still not a product in its current state. They may morph it into one, but it isn't right now. Being able to make your photos disappear is a feature that could be added to any photo sharing site (potential patent issues aside).

> Dropbox was a “feature, not a product,” Jobs said. In other words, they didn’t really have a business. [0]

Not that I disagree about Snapchat's possibly ephemeral value, but dismissing it is a bit premature. I doubt many would say Dropbox isn't a business anymore because interesting or compelling things have a tendency of creating their own destiny.

[0] http://www.wired.com/business/2013/09/dropbox-2/

What a horrible piece of "journalism." People need to get over the privilege bashing that seems to be so "in vogue" these days. This dude got into Stanford (despite what people here think, that requires more than just money), created an app sharing 400M+ photos per day after less than two years, and has big enough balls to turn down $3B from Mark Zuckerberg. Whether you agree with how he's handled the situation or not, you have to give him some respect. This article is a piece of trash. I hope Spiegel wipes his ass with it.

Reads like a hit piece. Also is anyone else somewhat disturbed by all personal details the articles goes into?

I think it's intended to be a hit-piece, it's incredibly blatant about it.

Think about it as the natural counterpart to Steve Jobs' biography and other such pieces making myths out of SV entrepreneurship.

Someone probably wants to acquire Snapchat and does not feel like paying 3B for it. Or Facebook is butthurt.

/takes-off 3D printed tin foil hat

Not sure what the point of that piece it. But it made me dislike Mr. Spiegel.

Yeah, I used to think they might have an ace up their sleeve after turning down the facebook offer. This article is making me think it's just because their CEO is spoiled and arrogant.

Why did it make you dislike him? Shouldn't you make the best of what you have?

I disliked him immediately after reading the line

The note, accompanied by a plea for a new BMW 535i

Has anyone been able to find out what he studied while at Stanford?

Same thing most other Stanford grads study: how to beg rich adults for money. They are very good at that.

I think this article has no point other than to make the reader dislike Evan Spiegel.

That said, understanding that he came from an extremely privileged background does make it slightly easier to understand how he could be sufficiently detached from the money to turn down the multi-billion-dollar offers he's received.

What if Snapchat adds a feature which is something like a transient social network with disappearing posts? I for one would jump ship from fb. I don't like the idea that the information I post on fb can be searched and possibly mined by my fb friends.

I don't understand why the press glamorizes this party lifestyle that apparently Mr. Spiegel engaged in. I want to hear about about the work that went into building SnapChat.

The answer to your question is in your question. While you are interested in the technical details, most of the general public is interested in his personality, his girlfriend, his house etcetc

They aren't glamorizing anything. The piece was written to make people dislike the guy. The work? Well, they made it over a weekend, and then somehow got money to hire engineers to scale it up. That's the work, aside from the marketing (which is witchcraft as far as I can tell).

This was hardly a glamor piece. A detailed history of Spiegel's personal life was presented to paint his $3bn decision as hubris.

The main reason I'd prefer they didn't get bought by Facebook or even Google, is because I know those 2 would pretty much eliminate any privacy features Snapchat may have left. However, I fear they will intend to do that, too, in the future in an effort to monetize, especially if they IPO. If anything, I hope they find a very scalable monetization solution before they IPO.

A poster child for our time.

A poster child for our 1%.

How did they get letters written to his dad? Someone was mad ...

Even though the article paints him as a thoroughly detestable character, I like the fact that Facebook - which started as an equally trivial app - is scared of his company. It's not like Zuckerberg wasn't privileged too.

What is Snapchat its future anyway? I doubt any sane tech company will raise its bid and I also doubt snapchat has some secret formula to justify saying no to those bids.

Are they hitting at an IPO? Bluffing? Do they have billion dollar revenue stream lining up? What is their deal?

In particular, I don't see Mark Zuckerberg making a second offer, because the two of them now seem to have a sort of feud going on.

Mark <> Facebook

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