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I think you hit the nail on the head here. There were reports that came out from several sources that Evan ignored all feedback from product and design includin

I think you hit the nail on the head here. There were reports that came out from several sources that Evan ignored all feedback from product and design including hard numbers from early tests. There were apparently several groups internally that tried to stop the massive changes from dropping without adequate testing and iteration. Those groups were overridden by Evan in favor of "vision" and that apparent lack of discipline led to the situation they're in today. If Evan can't show that he has the discipline to lead a company at this stage of it's life in the public market then the board should absolutely give him the boot in the next 24 months. I think the narrative of "product visionary" has been spun a bit too hard by the tech media and it likely has gotten to his head. He also took a $500mm bonus for successfully executing the IPO at a time when the company lost over $700mm in 2017. That's not a great look - but I digress.

ReverseCold 8y ago
> He also took a $500mm bonus for successfully executing the IPO at a time when the company lost over $700mm in 2017. So part of that $700mm loss was his bonus? Meaning if he hadn't taken a bonus the loss would "only" be $200mm?
- DSingularity 8y ago
  No, wrong way to interpret that. He just received a massive bonus in $ value. It was massive because it was lots of Snapchat stock back when it was expensive. Although it’s quite normal to sell such stock award as soon as they vest, in this case it looks bad.
- askafriend 8y ago
  I was a little off on the numbers. Snap posted a $2.2B loss in Q1 of 2017, it's first quarter as a public company. A lot of that was one-time stock payout to various employees, including a massive bonus to Spiegel which was 3% of Snap worth roughly ~$550mm at the time. If you take out all the one time stock compensation from that quarter, the loss comes out to $188mm. Here's a Recode article with some sources: https://www.recode.net/2017/5/10/15617740/snapchat-two-billion-loss-evan-spiegel-stock-compensation-q1-wall-street https://www.recode.net/2017/5/10/15617740/snapchat-two-billi... The $700mm loss figure I initially stated for 2017 is likely the loss figure with the one-time stock expenses deducted: https://investor.snap.com/news-releases/2018/02-06-2018-211639653 https://investor.snap.com/news-releases/2018/02-06-2018-2116... This stock award made Evan Spiegel the highest paid CEO in America in 2017, that's the kicker.
  - ReverseCold 8y ago
    Ah okay, that makes a bit more sense. Thanks!
paulie_a 8y ago
"product visionary" is hilarious for an app literally designed for college girls to send nude photos. Edit, it's true the co-founders were in a dorm room and came up with an idea for girls to securely send nudes. There is a reason it is commonly referred to as snachchat.
- dmitrygr 8y ago
  According to their s1, most users are tweens, so: s/college girls/preteen girls/g
andrepd 8y ago
>I think the narrative of "product visionary" has been spun a bit too hard by the tech media and it likely has gotten to his head. It has, and not only for this guy. Like the GP says, success in these things is more luck than anything else, like "vision".
asmithmd1 8y ago
> then the board should absolutely give him the boot in the next 24 months. Very funny, Snapchat has two classes of stock and he owns enough of the kind that matters that no one can oust him. I looked through the S-1 when they were going public and decided owning the shares they were selling to the public was the equivalent of a "board observer" seat. You are free to watch him run his company, but it is still his company https://www.recode.net/2017/2/21/14670314/snap-ipo-stock-voting-structure https://www.recode.net/2017/2/21/14670314/snap-ipo-stock-vot...
- sireat 8y ago
  The sad thing is that it applies to many other companies these days, most notably Facebook, Google et al. Why do people buy common shares which give them no voting rights as a shareholder? Sure while company is minting money (or debt and marketshare) you can find a greater fool to offload your shares. However when things turn the Zynga way, what recourse do you have with these no vote shares? At least Bond holders and Preferred Shareholders have certain rights. PS Then there are the Chinese stocks such as BABA where you do not even own the assets of the main company but I digress..
  - baby 8y ago
    You have rights if you own enough right? Also why are there two kind of shares?
    - philipov 8y ago
      Because the original investors don't want their shares to be diluted.
    - Latteland 8y ago
      Google stock is organized into different classes with different voting rights and amounts of shares (a few years ago a new class came out without voting shares but got dividends first, if I recall correctly), and the founders have control as long as they want it. At the time, I thought this was dangerous since the current king might be good (ie the founders) but what if the next king who has control was someone who has wants to control people through tyrannical means using their entire life histories (ie google tracking on everything).
bootloop 8y ago
Personal emotions and business don't work well together. They are great to sell an idea but the same person shouldn't be in charge of actually executing it because they will still do it even when everybody else tells them it's crap. I had to experience it and I think it's actually one of the greatest dangers in startups.
- Silhouette 8y ago
  There are two sides to that idea, though. You can make incremental improvements through data and metrics and objective thinking, but no amount of selective user testing of incremental improvements would have, say, created the iPhone and subsequently turned Apple from an almost fallen star into the biggest company in the world.
sleepybrett 8y ago
A real leader would resign.
- late2part 8y ago
  A real leader who resigns is no longer a leader; source _The Prince_. A real leader controls power and makes things better. Let's see if he is. (I know nothing about Snapchat but I know word meanings)
everdev 8y ago
There's multiple legends of CEOs famously shunning the rational advice of their team and charging down a path they believe in. You're a genius if it works out (ie. Steve Jobs) and second guessed if it doesn't.
- xraystyle 8y ago
  The problem here is that Evan isn't Steve Jobs so much as he's just cargo-culting Steve Jobs without really understanding why Jobs was successful. Steve was able to see untapped markets, holes that could be filled by new products, completely different ways of doing things. Most of Apple's biggest successes were had by coming up with something completely new and novel, not by ignoring user feedback when iterating on an existing product.
  - vkou 8y ago
    The iPhone was new and novel in what way, exactly? It was an iterative improvement on the Blackberry.
    - opportune 8y ago
      The UI experience was completely unparalleled at the time
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    > Steve was able to see untapped markets, holes that could be filled by new products, completely different ways of doing things. One could say the same about Snapchat's astronomical success in its early days...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

ReverseCold 8y ago

> He also took a $500mm bonus for successfully executing the IPO at a time when the company lost over $700mm in 2017. So part of that $700mm loss was his bonus? Meaning if he hadn't taken a bonus the loss would "only" be $200mm?

DSingularity 8y ago
No, wrong way to interpret that. He just received a massive bonus in $ value. It was massive because it was lots of Snapchat stock back when it was expensive. Although it’s quite normal to sell such stock award as soon as they vest, in this case it looks bad.
askafriend 8y ago
I was a little off on the numbers. Snap posted a $2.2B loss in Q1 of 2017, it's first quarter as a public company. A lot of that was one-time stock payout to various employees, including a massive bonus to Spiegel which was 3% of Snap worth roughly ~$550mm at the time. If you take out all the one time stock compensation from that quarter, the loss comes out to $188mm. Here's a Recode article with some sources: https://www.recode.net/2017/5/10/15617740/snapchat-two-billion-loss-evan-spiegel-stock-compensation-q1-wall-street https://www.recode.net/2017/5/10/15617740/snapchat-two-billi... The $700mm loss figure I initially stated for 2017 is likely the loss figure with the one-time stock expenses deducted: https://investor.snap.com/news-releases/2018/02-06-2018-211639653 https://investor.snap.com/news-releases/2018/02-06-2018-2116... This stock award made Evan Spiegel the highest paid CEO in America in 2017, that's the kicker.
- ReverseCold 8y ago
  Ah okay, that makes a bit more sense. Thanks!

paulie_a 8y ago

"product visionary" is hilarious for an app literally designed for college girls to send nude photos. Edit, it's true the co-founders were in a dorm room and came up with an idea for girls to securely send nudes. There is a reason it is commonly referred to as snachchat.

dmitrygr 8y ago
According to their s1, most users are tweens, so: s/college girls/preteen girls/g

andrepd 8y ago

>I think the narrative of "product visionary" has been spun a bit too hard by the tech media and it likely has gotten to his head. It has, and not only for this guy. Like the GP says, success in these things is more luck than anything else, like "vision".

asmithmd1 8y ago

> then the board should absolutely give him the boot in the next 24 months. Very funny, Snapchat has two classes of stock and he owns enough of the kind that matters that no one can oust him. I looked through the S-1 when they were going public and decided owning the shares they were selling to the public was the equivalent of a "board observer" seat. You are free to watch him run his company, but it is still his company https://www.recode.net/2017/2/21/14670314/snap-ipo-stock-voting-structure https://www.recode.net/2017/2/21/14670314/snap-ipo-stock-vot...

sireat 8y ago
The sad thing is that it applies to many other companies these days, most notably Facebook, Google et al. Why do people buy common shares which give them no voting rights as a shareholder? Sure while company is minting money (or debt and marketshare) you can find a greater fool to offload your shares. However when things turn the Zynga way, what recourse do you have with these no vote shares? At least Bond holders and Preferred Shareholders have certain rights. PS Then there are the Chinese stocks such as BABA where you do not even own the assets of the main company but I digress..
- baby 8y ago
  You have rights if you own enough right? Also why are there two kind of shares?
  - philipov 8y ago
    Because the original investors don't want their shares to be diluted.
  - Latteland 8y ago
    Google stock is organized into different classes with different voting rights and amounts of shares (a few years ago a new class came out without voting shares but got dividends first, if I recall correctly), and the founders have control as long as they want it. At the time, I thought this was dangerous since the current king might be good (ie the founders) but what if the next king who has control was someone who has wants to control people through tyrannical means using their entire life histories (ie google tracking on everything).

bootloop 8y ago

Personal emotions and business don't work well together. They are great to sell an idea but the same person shouldn't be in charge of actually executing it because they will still do it even when everybody else tells them it's crap. I had to experience it and I think it's actually one of the greatest dangers in startups.

Silhouette 8y ago
There are two sides to that idea, though. You can make incremental improvements through data and metrics and objective thinking, but no amount of selective user testing of incremental improvements would have, say, created the iPhone and subsequently turned Apple from an almost fallen star into the biggest company in the world.

sleepybrett 8y ago

A real leader would resign.

late2part 8y ago
A real leader who resigns is no longer a leader; source _The Prince_. A real leader controls power and makes things better. Let's see if he is. (I know nothing about Snapchat but I know word meanings)

everdev 8y ago

There's multiple legends of CEOs famously shunning the rational advice of their team and charging down a path they believe in. You're a genius if it works out (ie. Steve Jobs) and second guessed if it doesn't.

xraystyle 8y ago
The problem here is that Evan isn't Steve Jobs so much as he's just cargo-culting Steve Jobs without really understanding why Jobs was successful. Steve was able to see untapped markets, holes that could be filled by new products, completely different ways of doing things. Most of Apple's biggest successes were had by coming up with something completely new and novel, not by ignoring user feedback when iterating on an existing product.
- vkou 8y ago
  The iPhone was new and novel in what way, exactly? It was an iterative improvement on the Blackberry.
  - opportune 8y ago
    The UI experience was completely unparalleled at the time
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  > Steve was able to see untapped markets, holes that could be filled by new products, completely different ways of doing things. One could say the same about Snapchat's astronomical success in its early days...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]