CEOInterviews.AIHe Turned Down $3B at 23. How Evan Spiegel Thinks Now.

E

Evan Spiegel0:00

Content in and of itself is social. It is a point of connection. It's funny. I think back to the early days of Snapchat. Nobody thought Snapchat could work. I mean, our early investors we went to talk to were like, 'Yeah, good luck. Try competing with Facebook. They've got it locked down.'

J

Jean0:13

Your wife Miranda is so involved in fashion. You kind of like learn this new vantage point through her.

E

Evan Spiegel0:18

You know, I wear the same thing every day. So, I did give you... I hadn't noticed. Our first date, which was to a yoga class. Now, we're really going down memory lane here. Anyways,

S

Sheree0:27

Wait, that's so brave. Were you even... I called my sister and I was like, 'What do I do?'

J

Jean0:32

It's like not just like the sex talk, it's like the tech talk, too.

S

Sheree0:35

Oh, shoot. That was good.

J

Jean0:37

Was it? Did I eat?

S

Sheree0:38

Yeah, you ate with that. You ate with that. I'm Sheree. I'm Jean.

E

Evan Spiegel0:43

I'm Evan.

S

Sheree0:44

And we're the Tiger Sisters.

J

Jean0:46

We are your Wall Street and Silicon Valley big sisters. And we're a top 10 business podcast bringing late night sister talk meets boardroom strategy. So, we are here today with Evan Spiegel, the CEO and co-founder of Snapchat. Snap has shaped how people communicate around the world. Snap has 1 billion monthly active users and AR lenses in the Snapchat camera, which I helped develop with Evan aka filters while I was at Snap, is used more than 9 billion times a day. Evan famously turned down a $3 billion offer from Mark Zuckerberg when Evan was just 23 years old because he believed so deeply in the vision and future of Snapchat. There are many podcasts out there of Evan sharing Snap's origin story and his philosophy for scaling to a multi-billion dollar business. Those topics dive into the past. We are here today to discuss the future. Is Gen Z cooked? Evan Spiegel, welcome to the Tiger Sisters podcast.

E

Evan Spiegel1:52

Thanks so much for having me. I'm really, really been looking forward to this. So, lots to cover. It's fun.

J

Jean1:57

Okay, so the first topic that we really want to talk about is Gen Z because I feel like when I was working here at Snap with you, we were obsessed with Gen Z, right? Like we were obsessed with understanding them, empathizing with them, and building the best possible product for them. So, I think let's start with just a really open-ended question. What do you think about Gen Z?

E

Evan Spiegel2:23

Well, I think first of all, you know, young people in general have always been most receptive to Snapchat as a new technology. Young people are open to learning about new things. They're naturally curious. And so, starting Snapchat out of school, of course, you know, we kicked off the growth of Snapchat with our friends who just, you know, started using it to communicate with, you know, we all were using it to communicate with one another. And then over time obviously it grew across the world, across the nation as you know, now reaches nearly a billion monthly active users as you mentioned. So I think for us, so much of what we do here at Snap is actually not oriented around a specific generation or a demographic. It's more about inventing fundamentally new technology that empowers people to express themselves or live in the moment or use a new augmented reality tool or lens. But we find that new technology is just most readily adopted by young people in general. I think as I look at Gen Z specifically, and we've got a Gen Zer at home, Flynn is 15. You know, I think it's a generation of realists. I think they've grown up in a really challenging environment, you know, and you contrast that with millennials or my generation where growing up in the '90s, I think there was a very optimistic, peaceful period of time. There was a huge amount of economic growth and opportunity. And then obviously millennials, you know, hit a bunch of speed bumps along the way with 9/11 or the financial crisis, the pandemic, but you know, that means that millennials went from sort of this optimistic and peaceful frame to hitting these speed bumps, right? And I think millennials still retain that optimism, but it's been shaped by reality. I think Gen Z grew up in that reality and that's a very different frame especially when you look at how Gen Z is positioned relative to boomers and the environment that they grew up in where education was actually affordable, where you could afford to buy a home, where job prospects weren't necessarily shaped by AI as they are today. And so what I see when I talk to Gen Z or Flynn's friends for example is just a realistic perspective that they've got to do the best they can with a really complicated world today.

S

Sheree4:35

Yeah. Does that resonate with you? Sheree is on the opposite end of the spectrum of Gen Z.

J

Jean4:42

Yeah. Well, now that I'm kind of thinking about it, because Flynn is 15 and I'm 30, I'm like, can I even claim Gen Z at this point?

S

Sheree4:48

She's the cusp. I'm... Yeah. I think I'm trying to claim Gen Z because I am on the cusp. I'm Zelennial. So squarely like 1995 baby and so I'm like I get the best of both worlds. So I totally hear you. I think from the millennial side I was just like yeah I was there when MySpace was a huge thing and here on the Gen Z side I totally understand the new ways of internet adoption and being more fluid in how social media works.

J

Jean5:16

I put her on the spot. I don't usually ask her questions. I want to ask you, Evan, what does Gen Z want from technology that you feel that millennials don't want or didn't have?

E

Evan Spiegel5:29

I'm not sure there are major generational differences. Like I think at the end, you know, a lot of this stuff comes down to what we really want as humans, right? And that is connection with other people. Fundamentally, what makes us human is our desire for relationships. And I think people want to express that through technology because we can't always be in the same room together with our friends. Sometimes we're halfway around the world or we're at home when our friends, you know, are playing sports or something like that. And technology helps us stay in touch with the people that matter most to us. So I don't necessarily think there's a generational difference there. And I think, you know, we have a huge number of millennials who use our service and Gen Z or boomers, you know, even Gen Xers on Snapchat. So I think what I see cut across every generation is that real desire for human connection, human relationships.

S

Sheree6:17

Yeah, I totally feel that. But also in the same vein, when I'm somehow put into contact with Gen Alpha or I come across content that Gen Alpha is making, it feels like a completely different language. Does it feel that way to you or how do we break through and either speak to the youngest generation Gen Alpha and or create products for them or is it very similar to creating products for millennials?

E

Evan Spiegel6:42

Is Gen Alpha old enough to make content? What's Gen Alpha?

S

Sheree6:46

Yeah, they're 13 now.

E

Evan Spiegel6:47

Oh my goodness.

S

Sheree6:47

Like Skibidi Toilet, rizz, like you've heard that. I'm like what is that? You know, I need someone to... definitely heard that. I need someone to define that for me and also translate.

E

Evan Spiegel6:58

Well, it's interesting you mentioned that because I do think at its heart, right, at its core, content is social in nature, right? Whether it's, you know, older generations who grew up with television shows and talking about those shows together or now, you know, on the internet, I think, you know, different generations or friend groups are finding different pieces of content and sharing that content and it can go viral socially in different ways. But I think what really you're pointing out is that content in and of itself is social. It is a point of connection. And so I do think that's going to differ based on friend group or based on generation in some ways because you know when you're growing up a lot of your friends are also from school and they're similar ages to you. And so I do think we end up generationally being attracted to different types of content or different sorts of memes. But again I think the crosscutting undercurrent through all these generations is that desire for human connection and content is part of how we relate to one another. One thing when I think about Gen Alpha that's different is that similar to the way that we were the first generation to grow up with the internet, they're the first generation to grow up in an AI native world. So like how do you think that affects or changes Gen Alpha?

S

Sheree8:09

I've been thinking so much about this. So, you know it's really interesting because one of the biggest game changers as you mentioned for millennials was the internet. It actually allowed millennials to in many ways, in my opinion, leapfrog Gen X, right? And in fact, I've talked to a lot of people who said, you know, it's so crazy. I went to school to learn photography and while I was in school studying film photography, everything changed to digital and I felt like I was leaving school with a skill set that wasn't relevant anymore. And that was really frustrating for me. And I had to learn something totally new. And I think, millennials in the workplace, and certainly even in the home dynamic, young people became the folks who knew how to hook up the Wi-Fi router and could figure out how to help their parents log into the school email, right, to know what was going on. And so, I think, millennials through their use of the internet, were really able to just accelerate their growth and development as a generation. And I think it reinforces the optimism that millennials still have, right, which is that they really believe in the power of these technological tools. And I think, millennials are generally the parents of Gen Alpha. And so I actually think millennial parents and certainly the parents I talked to want young people to adopt AI tools, want to see how easy it is for them to build things and express themselves and create. And that to me makes me so optimistic about Gen Alpha because I think if they can grow up adopting these tools, use them to build things, to create businesses, to try new things, to learn way faster and in a personalized way, I think it'll be really, really meaningful and impactful. And I mean there's probably no better technology to accelerate learning than AI. And I think it's arriving at such an interesting and critical time for Gen Alpha when they're in that phase of just extraordinary learning and growth.

J

Jean9:54

Yeah. I feel like when I reflect upon my own childhood, like growing up on the internet, I just like think back on things that I was doing. I remember in the third grade I remember those AOL chat rooms that were... I stayed away from those... message board. Okay, there were these message board that I remember sometimes I'm like was this a fever dream? But they had this message board that was all about horses and I love horses and it was basically this everyone just owned horses and you would raise horses and sell them to each other and there was no set currency. You just invented the currency and you would like so there was a ton of inflation. So you would buy and sell horses and then you would train them and then you would also breed them with each other and then you would race them against each other. And now I think back on it I was like what was I doing in these messages...

S

Sheree10:47

Learning about inflation?

J

Jean10:48

Yeah. Yeah. I was like I was doing the most. So I'm just like what were you doing on the internet when you were young? Like do you have a memory that's similar to that where you were like wait was that real? Did that happen to me?

E

Evan Spiegel11:02

For me, it was less about the internet and more about all the graphic design tools. So, I was obsessed with graphic design really starting around middle school, you know, and I worked on my school yearbook and my school newspaper doing the layout and all that kind of thing. You know, and Adobe Flash, making my own little animations and little games and things like that. So, for me, computers in that period of time just represented like incredible tools for creativity. And that's what I loved the most growing up. Yeah,

S

Sheree11:32

That reminds me of you.

J

Jean11:34

Yeah, I was on... I don't know, it wasn't the internet, but I used a lot of creative tools as like a third or fourth grader, like remixing my own songs and designing like GarageBand clips and stuff that I'd share with Sheree and be like, 'Wait,'

S

Sheree11:47

She like burned these CDs for me of like 30 minute long songs and I would like listen to the whole thing.

J

Jean11:52

It was... Well, looking back on it now, it sounds horrible, but it was like a creative outlet for me.

S

Sheree11:56

Yeah. And it was like a precursor to all the creation that you do today.

J

Jean11:59

Oh yeah. The reason why like I can edit... Well, I think one of the reasons why I can edit our podcast and, you know, create the audio for it and like audio mix and all that stuff is because I've been doing it since like the third or fourth grade through those tools. Thank you, Apple.

E

Evan Spiegel12:12

That's awesome.

S

Sheree12:13

Yeah. Well, it's interesting that we're talking about I guess like our early days with technology because we had Rahm Emanuel on our podcast maybe around three weeks ago and we were talking to him about technology and obviously social media came up and there's a ton of people like Rahm that are saying that we should ban social media for young people, people under 16 years old. There was also a New Zealand article about this. What are your thoughts on that? I think there's like a huge I guess new wave and maybe new drum beat of people saying this.

E

Evan Spiegel12:46

Yeah. Well, I think first and foremost like the safety and security of young people in online services is paramount and I think folks are right to be concerned about that and right to prioritize that, right? So I think that's critical. At the same time, I and I've certainly experienced this myself as a parent. I think young people and their maturity depends less on their age than it does on who they are as an individual. And there are certainly some teenagers that might be ready to use Snapchat to communicate with their friends and their family. And there are others who may not be ready for that responsibility yet. I think for us in our home like we feel comfortable with Flynn who's 15 using Snapchat. We know that he's using it to stay in touch with his friends and family and we think that's something that's actually really important for him, right? We know that relationships are key to mental health and wellbeing. That's certainly been reinforced by the research. And so I think for us in our family like an under 16 ban doesn't make sense because we see how much value Flynn gets from communicating with his friends and his family. So I guess I would say, you know, rather than arbitrary bans, I think the more thoughtful approach here is to actually develop clear rules and regulations for how social media is provided, especially to young people, but in general more broadly. And I would really advocate that the government does the work to develop those rules. I mean one of the things for example on Snapchat that's unique to our service relative to text messaging for example is that two people have to add each other before they communicate right and that adds a layer of safety. You have to double opt-in to a conversation right whereas if someone has my phone number they can just shoot me a text right and start bothering me even if I don't want to get that message. And so I think those sorts of precautions and things like not having a public friends list on Snapchat, right? Makes it much harder for people to figure out who someone's friends with or otherwise bully them because of that. So I think things like privacy, things like the protections of people double opting in to conversations are really important ways that we can help protect young people in addition to all the work we do to find bad actors and remove them from our service. So overall, I would say like a really just thoughtful approach to making sure there are rules and regulations in place, I think will help everyone feel more comfortable with providing these communication services to young people, which are so important to their well-being. And I think as I mentioned, that's certainly been proven out by independent research on Snapchat specifically, but also more broadly when social media is used in moderation, the research actually shows it's correlated with overall well-being.

S

Sheree15:17

We love... we cite a lot of research on Tiger Sisters. So, I'm glad you brought that up. We're always talking about like case studies and research. So, your own brand.

E

Evan Spiegel15:27

Yeah. Let's do it. Yeah.

J

Jean15:29

I love how you were talking about for your approach to Flynn, it was more so on a personal level, right? It's like assessing individually, do I think my child is ready for social media, for these messaging apps, for Snapchat. So, I think a lot of parents who are watching would be interested in your discrete approach to that. Like what are the factors and the features that you're thinking through of your individual child to be like, 'Okay, are they ready or do they need a little bit more time?'

S

Sheree15:56

Is it a checklist?

J

Jean15:57

Yeah. Like how do you think about it?

E

Evan Spiegel15:59

Well, it's so interesting, right? Because teens in particular, and we were just having this conversation with Flynn and his mom the other day, where teenagers are at a point in their lives where they want a lot more freedom. And part of I think the conversation with teens is saying with that freedom comes great responsibility. Okay. And so let's talk about okay you want to stay out a little bit later then you need to really stay in touch with your mom and let her know where you're going and whose friend's house you're at and what is the phone number of the parent who's there so we can get in touch with them and you need to come back home when you say you're going to come back home. And that helps us build trust. Right? So when you demonstrate that responsibility, then we feel more comfortable giving you more freedom. And I think, that doesn't just pertain to social media. It pertains to all aspects of a teenager's life. And we want Flynn to be able to go out and have fun with his friends and begin that journey of independence, right? At 15, he's 3 years away from being an adult, right? And leaving our home entirely. That doesn't just happen when he turns 18. That's a gradual process of growth and development. So for us I think in our family depending on what he wants to do or how he wants to spend his time it's always a conversation of balancing that sort of freedom with the real responsibilities of growing up.

J

Jean17:12

Yeah. So it's like an ongoing conversation.

E

Evan Spiegel17:14

I think it has to be. Yeah.

S

Sheree17:15

Yeah. Wait. I love that because I am now realizing in real time I've never had a conversation about technology with... you know when parents sit you down and like they have a conversation with you about things. I never had one about technology and like how to use it in a safe and thoughtful way.

J

Jean17:32

I know. It's like the new conversation to have now. It's like not just like the sex talk, it's like the tech talk, too.

S

Sheree17:38

Oh, shoot. That was good.

J

Jean17:40

Was it?

S

Sheree17:40

Did I eat?

J

Jean17:41

Yeah, you ate with that. You ate with that.

E

Evan Spiegel17:44

And this is actually a great opportunity for me to share the Keys, which if you go online, it's a program that we put together that's all about online safety that teens can do together with their parents. And so I think sometimes parents don't even know where to start that conversation. And also, sometimes the conversation isn't focused enough on the real risk, serious risk online, like extortion or drugs. These are things that can have a really serious impact and negative impact on people's lives. But often times they're not talked about or people don't know enough about them and schools aren't spending time educating young people about these risks. So, we built out our own program called the Keys that parents can do together with their teens. It even has like a little pop quiz in there, too, so you can follow along. But I think it's a really good way to anchor the conversation and make sure it's hitting the most important online safety topics.

S

Sheree18:31

Yeah, I feel like it should be covered in health class.

E

Evan Spiegel18:34

It probably should. This should be like curriculum.

J

Jean18:36

It should be included in health class.

E

Evan Spiegel18:38

I mean, this is a whole other conversation about school in general and what we should be teaching young people, but certainly I think online safety is a big part of that.

S

Sheree18:46

Well, I have a confession and also like a memory kind of unlocked. Yeah. Right now where I think I was like maybe like 11 or 12 and I was in like a kids chat room.

J

Jean18:57

Where's this going?

S

Sheree18:58

And you're not supposed... there's like rules around this chat room. You're not allowed to like reveal like personal information about yourself. But someone's like where is everyone from? And then I said where I was from and then I was banned from that chat room and then my like AOL account was taken down and I had to like get it back. This was you know when I was a pre-teen. So, like I feel like there should be... I mean with that conversation like what should you and should you not say online? What can you and can you not post online for safety reasons?

E

Evan Spiegel19:25

And what are some really quick and easy ways to get help on Snapchat if you're being bullied? You can, you know, press and hold, report the message right away. Get help from our trust and safety team in seconds or minutes. And I think that's a really big deal when it comes to online safety. I do think that technology and the advancements here are so profound and I think it's going to mean that online services like Snapchat continue to get safer and safer.

J

Jean19:48

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S

Sheree20:30

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J

Jean21:05

I think we're both futurists. Like I am just so optimistic about the future and I genuinely think that tech has a role in shaping the future and society for the better. I think you're the same. I'm pretty sure. And I guess like one of the topics that I'm personally interested in, I think you're also interested in is HCI. So human computer interaction. Is that something that you are actively thinking about? Is that something that you think is like part of our future? Is that something you're building towards? Like tell us a little bit about that.

E

Evan Spiegel21:38

Our mission with Spectacles is to make computing more human. I think if you look at the history of computing interfaces, right, the most fundamental way to break them down is basically into an input and an output, right? And there was this first big sort of revolution was the keyboard and the mouse, right? I'm skipping a few revolutions, but I think in terms of personal computing, the keyboard and the mouse as inputs were a really, really big deal. And then obviously the graphical user interface as an output. I think then you sort of had another big leap around the iPhone, although it in many ways resembled the personal computer. It combined the input and the output into one touchscreen which I think was another really big leap forward in terms of the way that we use computing. But I think as I look and I think it certainly made computing more natural right I mean even if you look at a young child they can pick up an iPhone and immediately figure out how to swipe around and move around because whereas it might have taken them a little while to learn how to use a keyboard right so I think these interfaces are becoming more natural. The next big step for us with Spectacles which is our intelligent eyewear that overlays computing in the world around you is that rather than having a screen as an interface computing is actually embedded in the world around you and you just use your hands and your voice and you interact with computing the same exact way that you would interact with a friend or with the world around you. And I think that's sort of the next evolution in terms of the way that we just remove more of this friction from computing. And then to put it in sort of my input and output kind of framework, the big step change there, the big difference there is that computing output happens through see-through lenses in the glasses. And the input is just your natural hands and your voice. So that's certainly something that we're really excited about. And then, you know, we can talk futuristic sensors and all this kind of thing, but I think that's sort of the next big step as it pertains to computing and interfaces.

S

Sheree23:34

So that's the next step. And then do you remember that episode of Black Mirror where they had the grain? That's my favorite episode.

E

Evan Spiegel23:40

I never saw it. All right, I'll have to check it out.

S

Sheree23:42

So, it's basically this like micro computer that is implanted into your head so that you can actually record and save everything that you experience day-to-day and then you can play it back. And so, the premise of the episode is that this couple, they have this big fight and so they're like, 'Well, let's play it back. Like, let's look at the grain.' Anyway,

E

Evan Spiegel24:00

Sounds terrifying.

S

Sheree24:02

Well, I guess that's my question is that would you opt into that? Like do you accept that future or do you reject that future?

E

Evan Spiegel24:12

Well, if you go back to the founding of Snapchat, I mean, one of the fundamental things we questioned was why is everything saved forever online? It makes no sense, right? The world that we live in is largely ephemeral, right? Almost all of our conversations except for this one and maybe a few here and there are not recorded at all. And in fact, a lot of the way that the internet worked at the time and the online world worked at the time, saving and storing everything was distorting human relationships because people feel less comfortable expressing themselves or less comfortable sharing a photo where they think they don't look their best. Or a photo of maybe a more intimate moment like they're in the hospital and they don't want to save that or post that publicly. They just want to share it with a friend. And so I think that was one of the first things we did 15 years ago to say technology should actually resemble the way we interact in the real world not create this whole other paradigm just because we can with technology. So I would say overall, I would be concerned about that sort of future where everything is recorded. I think privacy is so foundational to human expression. I think it's so foundational to creativity. I think it's the way that you can try out a bad idea without feeling embarrassed. I think it's so important to a healthy functioning democracy. So broadly speaking, I don't think that a future where everything's recorded and saved forever would be constructive or healthy for humanity. Maybe for a scary autocracy or something but certainly not the world that we'd like to see.

S

Sheree25:41

But would you be open to something being like incorporated in your body?

E

Evan Spiegel25:47

In my body?

S

Sheree25:48

Yeah. Like inside my body.

J

Jean25:50

Yeah. No, I'm like, 'No, I'm not just under the skin.' Like, like a piercing.

E

Evan Spiegel25:56

I mean, I don't even have a tattoo. You know what I mean?

S

Sheree25:58

I'm not... No, a belly button ring. Like an AI belly button ring. I think OpenAI may be working on that.

E

Evan Spiegel26:03

Their next product launch.

S

Sheree26:05

They're going to hardware. Belly button ring.

J

Jean26:08

She almost got a belly button ring when she...

S

Sheree26:11

What? I stopped her from it.

J

Jean26:13

This was freshman year of college. I don't have one. She doesn't have one. What? But isn't she so lucky that I stopped?

S

Sheree26:19

This is what sisters are for.

J

Jean26:20

That is what sisters are for. Wow. Put on blast with Evan.

E

Evan Spiegel26:28

If it's a clip on, I might.

S

Sheree26:31

Okay, you heard it here. Evan's going to try on a clip on belly button ring.

E

Evan Spiegel26:34

Only if it's an AI clip on belly button.

J

Jean26:37

Clip on belly button. Wait a minute.

S

Sheree26:41

Coming soon.

E

Evan Spiegel26:42

Coming soon.

J

Jean26:44

So Evan, as you were talking about the world in front of you and also experiencing that world with Spectacles on, we want to talk about AR and your conviction in AR. You believed in augmented reality long before it was obvious to anyone else. What did you see in AR and how it fits into our daily lives that other people didn't see?

E

Evan Spiegel27:08

I love the real world. I think the real world is great. I think it's incredibly beautiful. I think there are so many wonderful things to experience. I think that, you know, relationships with friends and family are like what make life worth living. And I think so much of computing for so long has said, you know, you have to actually leave that world and go sit in front of a desktop or stare down at a tiny screen to get the value of computing. And that trade-off has just always felt so unfair to me. I mean, I remember growing up, and to use a computer, I had to go in the computer lab at lunchtime, right? Everyone else is playing at recess and I had to go in the computer lab to work on the yearbook and put it all together. Now today it's a little more convenient. You can carry your computer with you in your pocket, but then I think, you're sitting at the dinner table and someone's staring down at their phone instead of finding a way to connect or play a game together or have fun. And that just breaks my heart. Like I don't think that's good enough when it comes to technology and when it comes to the future of computing. And so very early on when we were experimenting with augmented reality and we saw the power of lenses that people were using on their phones, it just seems silly that people were interacting with AR in this tiny little screen, right? I mean, it almost looks like staring through a paper towel tube or something at the world when you're holding up your phone to interact with augmented reality just seems so limiting and it requires you to use your hands to hold the phone. And so, you know, we're humans. We love using our hands for other things. We want to be able to multitask. And so this idea that computing requires so much from us that it takes us out of the real world and out of the moment just feels so limiting and unfair in terms of the capacity of technology to change the world. So quite a long time ago now, I mean 12 years ago or something like that, we started working on Spectacles and with the idea of making a computer that's totally different, a computer that fits into a pair of glasses that allows you to put computing in the world around you that allows you to share those experiences. So if you're sitting across the table from someone having dinner and you're wearing Spectacles, you can actually build something together or play together or learn together. And so it takes computing from being this really single-player experience that it has been for decades and turns it into something that's shared. And I think that's really inspiring and exciting to me.

S

Sheree29:12

Yeah. I think the thing about lenses is it decreases the barrier to being creative. Like you can just easily, throw on a lens and use that to not only interact with people, interact with the world, but you feel like you're doing something fun and creative.

E

Evan Spiegel29:30

I think that origin of lenses was so helpful and powerful to Snapchat. In the early days of Snapchat, people said, 'Why would I take a selfie? That doesn't make any sense.' But as soon as you gave people a new way to express themselves or vomit a rainbow or put on funny dog ears or whatever, people wanted to share those moments with their friends and it became an opportunity to connect or to share that folks otherwise didn't have. And so, that real invitation to create, I think, was so important in the early days of lenses and in terms of building that foundation to the platform we have today.

J

Jean30:02

Yeah. And I feel like that tenant of creativity obviously it's a core pillar of Snapchat and I think it very much stems from you like I think that creativity is very important to you personally. So I mean can you just talk a little bit about that? Like what is the role of creativity in your life? Like how do you tap into being creative and why is it so important to you?

E

Evan Spiegel30:25

Yeah, it's funny. I just can't turn it off. You know what I mean? I'm constantly inspired by all sorts of stuff. Primarily by other people, right? And the people who use our service or our team members who've got great fun ideas. I really love coming up with new ideas and playing around with different ways of seeing the world and I just find it endless. I was in the car this morning and I came up with a new idea that I'm very excited about. So it really put a little bounce in my step coming into the office. Belly Button AI is going to be big. It's going to be big. We're launching it in collaboration with the Tiger Sisters. Going to take off, co-marketing and the whole thing. We got it figured out.

S

Sheree31:02

I don't claim that actually.

J

Jean31:05

I rebuke that.

E

Evan Spiegel31:09

So yeah. So I don't know. It is something that just brings me so much joy and I think the most fun part is like doing it together in a team, right? Because you can take something that's a little seed of an idea and so quickly build on it and iterate when you've got other people who you can be creative with.

J

Jean31:26

Do you get inspiration? I guess very tactically from going to museums or art or architecture, reading magazines, like what do you do to get inspired by the world around you? Is it consuming like movies or like what do you...

E

Evan Spiegel31:41

Yeah, what a great question. So the reason why going to a museum can be inspiring or traveling can be inspiring is just that it breaks your regular routine. I think that to me is like one of the most important things for creative people, but also just for myself. I think every now and then it's so important and I'm a very routine oriented person like I like to get up at the same time, do the same thing, you know, I really operate my life that way. For me, it becomes so important to break that up with a trip to the museum or travel or something like that just to change that mental space. And for some reason, just changing the frame of reference or breaking the routine can generate so many new ideas. But, I also have ideas when I'm exercising. So, it's a non-stop kind of thing. You know,

S

Sheree32:30

It doesn't stop.

J

Jean32:32

Yeah. I feel like having a creativity practice is something that's just really important that we don't talk about enough in society. Like I feel like it changes a person to have that and then in changing a person it changes society at large.

E

Evan Spiegel32:47

I really love that you said that and the thing that really inspired me the most, when I was at Stanford I was in the product design program and what I love the most about the product design program is that their fundamental thesis is that everyone is creative but it is suppressed by fear and by the events you go through as you get older. You look at young people all the time they're constantly creative and building things and drawing and then as we get older we suppress that and we don't share our new crazy ideas and we don't make that time or space to be creative. And what the product design program did was to say every single person is creative and in fact rather than waiting for lightning to strike or the apple to fall out of the tree and bop you on the head, what we think is most important is that you have a repeatable process to be creative. And so the product design program teaches this repeatable process where you start with need finding by talking to people and understanding things that they don't like or things they wish they could improve or that kind of thing. You then iterate on a bunch of different ideas and solutions to those problems. You take them back to those people and say, 'What do you think?' You iterate some more and get more feedback. You test, you prototype, and then ultimately you end up at the end of that process with a really cool new product or idea. And I think by taking that sort of amorphous or scary part of creativity away by creating this structured, repeatable process, they empower so many people to be creative.

S

Sheree34:07

Yeah. I think it's like learning the process, but then it's a lifelong journey to continue to learn and exercise it, right? Because you took that... Sheree took an improv class when she was at Stanford.

J

Jean34:19

So fun.

S

Sheree34:20

And was that a good use of my tuition money? I don't know. But well, to be taught by a professional clown.

J

Jean34:26

It was in the Stanford theater department. This is when I was a business school student.

S

Sheree34:30

But it was like mixed with you with grad students, undergrads.

J

Jean34:34

Yeah. And it was a good way to be creative and like going from my public speaking communications class at the business school like walking over to the theater department like okay improv class time. They are kind of tied and related but it was a great space to feel creative and one of our friends Jim Keys says creativity is intelligence having fun.

S

Sheree34:55

Which I absolutely love that.

J

Jean34:58

Stanford Business School seems so awesome. I got a chance to audit a business school class as a sophomore in college and I was just like wow this seems like college but like way better and more fun and less stressful than like you don't have to worry about your GPA and you're learning for the curiosity of it all. It was a fabulous experience.

E

Evan Spiegel35:17

That's great.

S

Sheree35:18

On this thread of creativity we wanted to talk about the Met Gala that you went to recently. This is probably the first podcast that you've been on that asks you about that.

E

Evan Spiegel35:28

No one has ever asked me about it. Yeah.

J

Jean35:30

Well, I mean, from the outside since we haven't been yet, but...

S

Sheree35:34

Yet, but I mean, the Met Gala is iconic and iconic in its fashion history in its use of creativity. And so we just wanted to ask about your experience there. Is it as magical as it looks from the outside?

E

Evan Spiegel35:50

It's pretty magical. Yeah, it's really cool. It's such an amazing... Not going to lie, it's pretty magical. It's an amazing celebration of fashion. And I'm not sure like too many people know the history of the gala, right? Which is that when that costume collection was created, it had to be funded separately from the museum's endowment. So, they created space for the collection, but they said, 'If you want this collection here, you're going to have to self-fund this, right? You're going to have to raise the money to fund the collection on an ongoing basis.' Because back then fashion wasn't viewed as art in the way that it is so widely appreciated as art today. And so I

I think the history and what that celebrates is so meaningful. And to me, obviously the designers, the creativity is incredible, but the seamstresses, the people who put together this just exquisite piece of fashion. I mean, it's really impressive. It's so cool. So cool to see.

J

Jean36:43

Yeah. I mean, I can tell that you are genuinely interested in it and you genuinely love it. The details that go into it, is that partially because your wife Miranda is so involved in fashion and you kind of learn this new vantage point through her?

E

Evan Spiegel37:02

Yeah. I mean, I wear the same thing every day. So I hadn't noticed. She was like, 'Honey, what do you think about me wearing the same thing every day?' I was like, 'I don't know. I mean, you could try it, I guess.' She's really passionate about fashion and that's something that inspires me. She knows so much about it and she's got great taste. So yeah, it's something that I've definitely grown to know more about and appreciate more being together. But I think where we sort of our point of connection is that appreciation of the creativity and of the design, whether that's fashion or anything else. But it's been so much fun to learn from her and she's certainly brilliant in that space.

J

Jean37:49

Yeah. I mean, I think it's so cool and impressive and kind of aspirational that both of you are founders and you live together. You grow your businesses together, I guess. What is that like and what do you learn from each other? What have you learned from her?

E

Evan Spiegel38:08

Oh my goodness, it's endless. So, to kind of take a step back, I think I was 24 when we met. Flynn, I think, was three at the time. We were sat next to each other at a dinner our friends were hosting in New York.

J

Jean38:26

And then how old was Miranda then?

E

Evan Spiegel38:28

Oh gosh. I'm never supposed to say. She's 7 years older than me.

S

Sheree38:31

It's important for me personally because I'm single, so you know.

E

Evan Spiegel38:37

So we were sat next to each other at this dinner and we really kind of connected and were having fun. She's like eating dinner off my plate. I'm like, you can have it if you want. And the woman who was sitting next to her, Glenda Bailey, who's the editor of Harper's Bazaar, turns to Miranda, I didn't know this at the time, turns to Miranda and like, 'I think you guys are going to get married.' And Miranda's like, 'What?' And we exchanged contact details and ended up talking again like a month later or something like that. The spark was definitely there, but I thought I had no chance. So I was like, I don't really want to get heartbroken here.

J

Jean39:13

So did you message her a month later?

E

Evan Spiegel39:15

She messaged me a month later and that's when I was like, 'Okay, maybe I do have a chance.' And we went on our first date which was to a yoga class. Now we're really going down memory lane here. Anyways, our first date and my first ever yoga class.

J

Jean39:29

Wait, that's so brave that you agreed to a yoga class having never gone before.

E

Evan Spiegel39:35

It was wild. I called my sister and I was like, 'What do I do at a yoga class?' Like this was before AI. Like you couldn't ask like what do you do? What do I wear? What do I do? It was crazy. And I like to be punctual. So I was like, you know, early. I was like maybe 15 minutes early to the yoga class. It was some famous like Kundalini yoga teacher or something. And I sort of befriended like this elderly guy who was there with his wife, whatever. And Miranda comes like 30 minutes late. So I was like deep into this class. I'm like doing it with my new buddy over here. Like we're chanting. Like it was a whole thing. It was great. It was great. I learned a lot. Anyways, so back to our relationship. I think one of the things that was so helpful is that she had grown up in the public eye from such a young age. And so she was so used to that pressure and the scrutiny and everything that comes along with that. And so at a time in my life when I was going through a lot of that change and I'm naturally a very private person. Miranda's very open and comfortable in those sorts of environments. I was not. I was worried about public speaking. I didn't like the attention. And it was so incredible to see her grace and poise in all of these wild, public situations. And to really learn from that was amazing. And then the other thing that was so clear from the very beginning is she's a great mom. And that was something that was really important to me. And so to see what a great mom she was with Flynn really, really inspired me. And we've got four boys now. And I really wanted a big family. So I knew from a young age I wanted a big family. I wanted to get married young. My parents had me when they were quite a bit older. And I really wanted to have the energy to chase our kids around. And so yeah, it's been just amazing building our family and learning so much from her. And I think as you point out, it's great that we met each other when we'd already created our companies. We already both had a ton going on. And so from the beginning, we figured out how to really build a strong family together, even with all the chaos of running businesses and living life in maybe a more public way than I had expected I would growing up.

J

Jean41:53

What do you think she learns from you?

E

Evan Spiegel41:55

Oh gosh. We'll have to ask her when she's on our podcast.

S

Sheree41:58

Yeah, there you go. That's a great idea. I would love to hear her thoughts on that.

E

Evan Spiegel42:06

Gosh, I don't know.

S

Sheree42:08

You're allowed to compliment yourself. We give you permission.

E

Evan Spiegel42:13

Well, I think it's always helpful to have someone else's perspective who really cares about you and wants you to succeed to give you their point of view. So, I don't know if it'd be one thing I've offered, but I think I'm always there and available as like a coach who's not unwilling to say the tough thing or to push on something that I think will help her business or her as a leader or help her succeed. I think it's just so important to have friends and family that care about you that are not afraid to keep it real. Miranda keeps it very real with me, so I try to in a gentle way do the same with her.

J

Jean42:54

Yeah. I mean, you've said before that she's brutally honest with you.

E

Evan Spiegel42:58

Yeah, it helps. Yeah. Sometimes it hurts, but it helps.

J

Jean43:01

What's an example of something that she's brutally honest with you about?

S

Sheree43:05

Like did she give you like a glow up skincare routine when you guys first met?

E

Evan Spiegel43:08

Well, for sure. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. She's like, 'What is wrong?' Like my skin is so dry. Actually, that's like a really great thing because I have this like vivid memory of second grade. I was like standing in line and the teacher had us all like hold hands and I like held hands with the girl next to me and she was like, 'Your hands are so dry.' And I like have this like moment, this like scarring.

J

Jean43:29

Like that'll stick with you.

E

Evan Spiegel43:30

And so I think it's like hilarious. I like ended up with someone who has like this amazing skin care. My hands are softer. You know what I mean? I'm like I've made it, you know, in terms of my hands.

S

Sheree43:41

Your skin is much better now than it used to be because you used to get sunburned a lot and very dry. Yeah. All sorts of problems.

E

Evan Spiegel43:45

So things have definitely gotten better in that regard and I'm grateful for that.

S

Sheree43:53

I mean on this topic of love and also relationships, we wanted to ask you since this is Tiger Sisters, what is your most practical dating or relationship advice specifically for people who are single?

E

Evan Spiegel44:05

You know, I think there's nothing more important than really clear communication. I think it's so valuable in any relationship and certainly in dating. I think the more that folks can be upfront and clear about what they're looking for and what they want, I think that just forms a really strong foundational relationship. And I think it also gets rid of like the game playing, which I think is so unproductive and a waste of people's time. And so I think sometimes it's scary to be clear about like, 'Hey, this is what I'm looking for.' You know, with Miranda when we had met early on. She was like, 'Hey, you know, I had just gotten out of a marriage. She'd been single for a year or something like that, and she was like, 'Hey, like I'm just kind of figuring it out.' And I was like, 'That's cool, but like I'm actually looking for something serious, so like if you're not interested in that, then like this isn't the right fit for me, you know?' And so I think just being clear from the beginning. She was like, 'Oh, okay. I wasn't expecting that from a 24-year-old, but like if that's what you want to do, let's see how this goes.' And I think it was really important for me to just say that upfront and be clear about that. So I just think the more people skip the games and get straight to like actually what they're looking for, what's important to them, and can communicate that in like a loving and positive way, I think that forms a foundation of a strong relationship.

J

Jean45:22

Right after that yoga class, you were like, 'Yeah, I'm looking for something serious.'

E

Evan Spiegel45:26

Yeah.

S

Sheree45:28

After shavasana, like I'm looking for something serious.

J

Jean45:33

Communication is a topic that applies to so many things whether it's small talk, presenting, networking. And Matt Abrahams is the best to do it. So he was actually Sheree's TED Talk coach and he is also a renowned professor of communications at Stanford's business school. Check out his podcast Think Fast, Talk Smart wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about aesthetics and sort of your design sensibility. So, I feel like that's always been very important to you and very much like an innate part of your product design thinking. How do you know when something feels good to you design-wise?

E

Evan Spiegel46:15

I think it really depends what we're talking about, right? I think there are so many different parts of design. At the core of design is really like the way that something works, right? And the foundation of the way that something works in my opinion is really the philosophy behind it. Like what are you trying to achieve? And I think that's what makes design different than art, right? Like art is, you know, whatever I want it to be. It's me expressing myself, right? But design is really expressing a point of view or expressing an idea or trying to provide a service. And so design really has an objective in a way that art doesn't necessarily. Some art certainly may, but design I think there's almost always a real objective behind it. And so for me it's about understanding what is a product or a service or a new icon, what is it really trying to achieve at the end of the day, what is really the purpose of whatever it is that we're making. And if I can understand that very, very clearly, the design almost like reveals itself from there. It becomes obvious, right? So you think about Snapchat, at the core of Snapchat was the idea of sending an image very, very quickly back and forth super fast. So we made very specific design choices. We open to the camera which was different. I think still is different than almost every other app out there. We made it really easy to pick your friends on the send to page, you know, and then send your message. Then we did a bunch of work on the engineering side and Bobby invented a new way of sending images very quickly which at the time was like a big breakthrough because sending an image at the time took a minute or something on your phone and with Snapchat it took seconds. So I think when you can really understand what something is trying to achieve and understand its purpose then the design kind of flows from there.

S

Sheree48:02

I love that because I can feel that in the app. I used to work at LinkedIn prior to going to business school. I was there for 5 years designing products and I would say Snapchat's app feels very alive. As much love as I have for LinkedIn, like I wouldn't call the LinkedIn app, it doesn't feel alive.

E

Evan Spiegel48:24

Professional would be a good word.

S

Sheree48:25

It feels very professional, not alive, proficient. So, and I mean this in the best way, like Snapchat has felt always less polished, but like more alive than other platforms. Was that an intentional choice?

E

Evan Spiegel48:40

It's so important for people to feel comfortable expressing themselves on Snapchat. And if you take yourself too seriously, it's very hard to feel comfortable sending an image in the moment, right? And one of the things that we were trying to do with Snapchat is fundamentally change the nature of how people thought about photography. So prior to Snapchat, every photo you ever took was designed to be saved forever. So you actually didn't take them very often. You only took photos at special events. I mean, it's hard to imagine that this was the case, you know, 15, 20 years ago, but photography was really about saving life's most important moments, right? And that meant that the tools for photography were really different. You really needed great lighting and the perfect framing and maybe a portrait effect or something like that. And with Snapchat, we were trying to change the entire nature of the camera and what its core purpose was. And in fact, the majority use case of the camera today is communication, which is crazy to think. In a 15-year period of time, people went from mostly using cameras to save important moments to mostly using their camera to talk with other people. And part of that transition was creating an app that didn't take itself too seriously, so that you didn't feel like you were in a portrait studio like a normal camera, that you felt like you were in a place you could just talk casually with your friends, which is really what Snapchat is all about. So, a lot of the design choices and the playful colors and those sorts of things are about creating a more casual atmosphere where you feel comfortable being creative, not that you have to pose for the perfect photo.

J

Jean50:02

Yeah. And I also feel like Snap has been on the cutting edge of this. I get to brag about Jean now through Snapchat. She has over 50 AI patents with you guys.

E

Evan Spiegel50:14

Wow. I love that. 50. That's a lot actually. Yeah.

S

Sheree50:17

Right. And it's also like a fraction of what we actually invented. It's just what we ended up submitting, like had time to submit.

E

Evan Spiegel50:25

Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. It's expensive to submit those.

S

Sheree50:29

Well, it's funny because maybe y'all should submit more because y'all are on the cutting edge and I think especially with Spectacles too and wearables over the face glasses over the last few years there's been a lot of advancements with competitors. How do you think about Snap in general with competitors? You've talked about this in the past, too. How you guys lay a lot of the foundation for other companies to build on and also potentially steal those ideas, but also with the wearables. I think it's been really heating up over the last few years. And where do you see Snap differentiating with the wearables compared to the hot new competitors?

E

Evan Spiegel51:10

Yeah, what a great question. So I think one of the things that actually makes me so excited about Spectacles and our work on glasses in general is that we've been focused on it so clearly for such a long period of time that we have really compounded our technical advantages in so many different ways. And I think it's hard to talk about it now because people haven't seen the next generation product, but what I think people will realize is that it reflects our ownership of the full stack. So everything from the developer tools to the rendering engine to the operating system itself to the optical engine which we have designed and built ourselves to be the highest performing optical engine in the world and then a bunch of other stuff we haven't announced yet. All of that together means that we are going to be able to deliver a product experience that will be unmatched. And I think that is something that's really exciting to me and very, very hard to replicate because the technical advancements and the problems we've solved are so hard to solve. They're such difficult problems and we've been focused on investing in these areas for such a long period of time. And then when you layer on the ecosystem with the developer tools and all this other proprietary technology, I think it becomes something that you can't just copy paste like a software feature, right? And that's one of the things that was so appealing to us about investing in the hardware space and on building our own developer ecosystem because we realized over time that if it's just a new software feature, it's super easy to copy and it's never been more true today with AI, right? I mean now you can copy almost any piece of software in a couple minutes. So I think it's really illustrating for folks that if you want to differentiate long term and build a business with a real moat, it has to be an ecosystem like our augmented reality ecosystem or our content ecosystem or have network effects like our messaging business. So very early on because we were so and are so relentlessly copied by competitors, we've thought about how to build those more defensible moats over time.

J

Jean53:10

Yeah. Sheree has a computer science degree, so she got excited when you said full stack.

E

Evan Spiegel53:16

Well, that's the moat, right? It's being able to touch every part of the process and also create these network effects over time that it's extremely hard to replicate. I think that might be LinkedIn's maybe like, I don't mean to be railing on them. I love my time there, but like one of their claim to fame is like their network effect, which is really hard to replicate.

S

Sheree53:42

Yeah. I mean, Evan, your vision is and has been so clear for so long. Like I don't know if you fully expressed it to the world as much in previous years. I wonder like what do you think it is that the market is missing versus like what you know and what you see about the company and the future of the company?

E

Evan Spiegel54:06

Well, I think if you look at like investors today and what they're really asking of Snap, they are looking at us through the lens of a social media company like a Meta or something like that without really understanding the attributes that make Snapchat unique. I think one of the things people do understand and appreciate is that we have a huge highly engaged audience of nearly a billion folks using our service. But I think the area where we're falling short today is on converting that huge audience and engagement into higher rates of advertising revenue growth. And I think when you dig under the hood, really what we've been doing over the past couple of years is transitioning from a business that was highly dependent on large customers in North America, primarily focused on brand advertising to lower-funnel performance advertising with small and medium customers, which is a much more diversified advertising business. But that transition has been challenging.

J

Jean54:59

Oh, really?

E

Evan Spiegel55:00

Yeah. It's been challenging and I think investors are...

S

Sheree55:02

I worked in it.

E

Evan Spiegel55:04

It's super challenging and hard to do. And really only Meta and Google have developed very large performance-oriented businesses. TikTok to some degree. But...

S

Sheree55:15

Is that you think the benchmark that the market is like holding Snap against?

E

Evan Spiegel55:20

I think they're still overly focused on advertising revenue. I think our advertising revenue will re-accelerate over time because, as I mentioned, we have this very fast growing small-medium customer business and generally speaking, our large customer business outside of the United States is very strong. So, it really just comes down to now this legacy US sort of brand-oriented advertising that needs to re-accelerate. And I think if we can make some progress there, investors will be pleased with the ads product. But the thing they're really missing is that we've also taken this huge amount of engagement and passion for Snapchat and built other revenue streams like our direct revenue business, which is over a billion run rate business now growing 87% year-over-year in the prior quarter. And so I think people are not yet appreciating that Snapchat is increasingly diversifying its revenue in ways that I think are much stickier and durable for the long term. And then, I think people really have a question mark around Spectacles and the future of our glasses business, mostly because they haven't seen anything yet. And so I think it's really hard to underwrite a huge long-term investment in something you haven't seen yet or haven't been able to use or haven't been able to try. So, I think as we get through the year and people are able to actually put the next gen Spectacles on their face or in their hands, they're going to be able to see what's possible with the product and why we have such a high degree of conviction in it. So, I think for investors, it's hard to underwrite slower ad growth and then huge long-term investment. But I think if ad growth can recover a little bit, people will be more willing to appreciate the direct revenue story and then when they see Spectacles, they'll understand what we've been investing billions of dollars into over the last 12 years.

J

Jean56:57

Yeah. Do you think it's like your mindset because it's so long-term oriented is maybe just like a little bit off like not really a total fit with like public markets?

E

Evan Spiegel57:08

I think you raise a good point which is that investing in the long term is very, very hard in public companies and it's compounded by the fact if you look at like the average tenure for public CEOs now I think it's like four years or something. How do you do something really meaningful in technology if CEO tenure is so short? How do you see through these really important long-term investments? And you look at any of these profound technology shifts, they don't happen in a couple of years. It takes a really long time. I mean, that's certainly the case obviously with the latest breakthroughs in LLMs, right? It's decades of research to get to that point. Or the smartphone for example which everyone views as an overnight success but the iPhone was shipping hundreds of thousands of units in its first year and that was building on so much progress that Apple had made over the prior decade. So I think it's always really easy in technology to look at these developments and call them like overnight successes but I think the folks who really inspire us, the Jensen's of the world or you look at what Bezos was able to accomplish or look at Elon, I mean he saved Tesla from bankruptcy, right? Not too long ago. And so I think it's really easy for folks to forget that like the defining characteristic of all these incredible entrepreneurs is actually that their pain tolerance was incredibly high. I mean, people were just constantly criticizing and ridiculing Jensen or Jeff or Elon for their vision and what they were trying to accomplish. And so I think that's part of building something for the long term. That's part of innovating, acknowledging that upfront so you're not surprised when people are criticizing you or calling your idea stupid. That's really important because you have to be able to build the resilience to execute through all that sort of doubt or public pressure or short-termism that pervades public markets today.

S

Sheree58:55

And then stunting on the haters.

E

Evan Spiegel58:59

That too. I think that's a technical term. Yeah. Is that, did I get that right?

J

Jean59:03

I mean, you know, it's funny. I think back to the early days of Snapchat. Nobody thought Snapchat could work. I mean, our early investors we went to talk to were like, 'Yeah, good luck. You know, try competing with Facebook. They've got it locked down, right?' And so I think that's been one of just the themes of building our business that there is of course constant doubt, especially when you're innovating because in order to innovate, you have to do something that's not obvious. Right. That cuts against the grain, that's different from the way that people see the world today. And so that's why this combination of innovating over the long term is so difficult because you're working on something that's fundamentally misunderstood. Otherwise, it wouldn't be innovation.

S

Sheree59:41

Yeah. Do you think that that's like an intrinsic trait to you? The kind of self-belief, pain tolerance, and then kind of like a little bit of like I'll show them.

E

Evan Spiegel59:53

I don't think that's unique to me. I think that is in every single entrepreneur. To be able to endure the challenges of building a business, to be able to invent something takes incredible resilience. And I think actually what you just described is the common thread through almost any meaningful success story I can think of.

J

Jean1:00:12

Yeah. Yeah. And I think a lot of, I mean even thinking back to Sheree's been a creator for a long time and she was pretty much the first of her genre where she was doing like, 'Oh, this is what I'm doing at work. This is what it's like as a product manager. This is what it's like to work in tech as a woman.' And like I remember at the beginning people were kind of like, 'This is cringe.' People were like, 'What is this?' But then don't film in the office.

S

Sheree1:00:39

I mean, I did that way before there were any like really social media conduct stuff.

J

Jean1:00:42

Yeah. They made the rules around her.

S

Sheree1:00:44

Well, not me specifically, but because of genre I created where they're like, 'Okay, now we need to talk about social media at work.' Yeah, but I think like when I did it in like 2020/2021, it was kind of like a new short form of like sharing with people and also educating while making it entertaining of like this is what it's like to be a product manager at a big tech company.

J

Jean1:01:06

She would like do a dance and be like DAU.

S

Sheree1:01:08

I'm like what does DAU stand for?

J

Jean1:01:10

Seriously. Seriously.

S

Sheree1:01:12

And I think we laugh at it, but people were like, 'Oh, I didn't know that's what that meant.'

J

Jean1:01:16

Exactly. So it's really cool.

S

Sheree1:01:17

Yeah. So it just reminded me of it like the kind of persistence and ability to like see something through over many, many years.

E

Evan Spiegel1:01:26

But even harder because it involves making content.

S

Sheree1:01:28

Yeah.

E

Evan Spiegel1:01:29

And doing dances in public.

S

Sheree1:01:31

You soon in like 15 minutes.

J

Jean1:01:36

Quick pause, Tiger fam. We know you guys like to be in the know and we want you to be even more in the know. How do you do that? Subscribe to Tiger Sisters podcast. And while you're at it, rate us five stars. What are you waiting for?

S

Sheree1:01:50

Wait, you haven't rated us five stars already?

J

Jean1:01:52

Wait, that's like so... that's so crazy.

S

Sheree1:01:54

That's so embarrassing.

J

Jean1:01:57

Is that too harsh, guys?

S

Sheree1:01:58

Please go rate us five stars. It helps us get discovered, more people can find our content and it really means the world to us.

J

Jean1:02:05

It seriously is really important. So, if you're enjoying our content, please rate us five stars, subscribe, and then also sign up for our newsletter. We have a Substack. Have I mentioned that we have a Substack? You can sign up at the link in the description or at tigersisterspodcast.com. All righty. Now, back to our show. This entire conversation has been about I think the future of Snap with Spectacles and also the future of where we see I think the next generation and how people are using your product. If you can summarize what Snap will be doing in like one sentence for the next 5 years, how do you think about it?

E

Evan Spiegel1:02:47

Snap will be making computing more human.

J

Jean1:02:50

All right, he had that one ready. Okay, cool. Let's do rapid fire.

S

Sheree1:02:58

Okay, so we have a fun game of rapid fire questions. This is like some of the lingo that we wanted to ask you about. So it's kind of like this or that but also we'll have different variations of that. Okay. So first question, what's more important, IQ, EQ, or aura?

E

Evan Spiegel1:03:19

EQ for sure.

S

Sheree1:03:20

Yes.

J

Jean1:03:21

You can say why, elaborate.

E

Evan Spiegel1:03:23

Well, I think one of the biggest shifts right in the world today is with AI, intelligence is being democratized in a pretty radical way. Everyone in the world is going to have access to incredible levels of intelligence, far higher than average intelligence, right? And so I think what's most important, what I see over and over and over again is that people who are able to build strong relationships, who are able to connect and collaborate and work with others, who are able to reflect on themselves and understand their own opportunities for growth and improvement. Those are the sorts of things that are just massive superpowers in the modern workplace. And in order to do anything interesting in the world today, you have to do it with other people, right? The technical problems to solve out there are so complex, it's very hard to sit on your own and do that. And so that actually means that EQ and the ability to work with other people is almost like the most important differentiator in terms of being able to do hard and interesting things.

S

Sheree1:04:23

And what about having aura? I mean, does that matter? Is that a thing? I don't know.

J

Jean1:04:29

It's what the kids are talking about these days. Aura farming, aura points.

E

Evan Spiegel1:04:35

I mean, gosh, it would be nice if it was that easy, right? If you just had aura. I mean, some people do. I guess some people do. God bless them. That's great.

S

Sheree1:04:45

And also wanted to ask you, since we have a podcast, you're on the podcast now. What is a podcast that you've been listening to recently?

E

Evan Spiegel1:04:53

I think Founders is such a great podcast. I think whether it's like the historical icons or some of the modern day leaders, to me the connections that Senra is able to make across sort of his deep analysis of founders is really, really interesting.

S

Sheree1:05:13

And then a follow-up question, if you were to have a podcast, who would be your dream guest that you'd want to talk to? I guess this is the new version of like if you were to have a dinner guest dead or alive if you were to have a podcast.

E

Evan Spiegel1:05:26

It's a great question. So I basically have like not a podcast, sort of been like privately working on a project to just ask people about the next 100 years in America. And to ask people to think long term about what American success over the next 100 years and the most important inputs to that and just talking to leading experts across like every domain. So like education or healthcare or whatever it is. So I think for me it would be another guest who could speak to long-term success in our country.

S

Sheree1:05:58

Yeah. Wait, so what have you learned so far?

E

Evan Spiegel1:06:00

Oh my gosh, I've learned so many things. It's insane. Well, I'm trying to like synthesize it and now with AI, I'm like more convinced I'll be able to synthesize all these conversations into something that actually makes sense. But to me I think what's so important is actually to root the next 100 years in the values that I think have animated the founding of the country. So like freedom, equality, justice, like life, liberty, pursuit of happiness and take those and overlay them on different parts of our society, right? So like in education, what does freedom, equality, and justice actually look like in practice? What does that actually mean? And how would we, the education system we have today was created a hundred years ago really for the industrial era in America. And so for factory work, everything from the school bell to everyone learning how to do these individualized things and getting A, B, and C grades, all of those things were really oriented around a career path that's not a common career path in America today, right? And so if we had to rethink our education system aligned with our values but with an eye to what we think young people will be doing in the future, I think we would design education completely differently for the next hundred years. So I don't know. There's so much in there. This is a whole other, it's a podcast really.

S

Sheree1:07:19

Wait, or a documentary like what is the format that you're creating?

E

Evan Spiegel1:07:23

I'm trying to figure out what to turn it into to be honest. It really just started out as a journey to learn and to begin to kind of put the pieces together because my general concern is just as a society we are not spending any time talking about our long-term success. And in fact if you look at all of the ways that our government makes decisions, almost all of them are inherently short-term. So if you look at for example the budget that Congress approves, our budget window is a 10-year budget window. What's really interesting about that is that any meaningful long-term investment and the most obvious one is investments in young people look negative in 10 years. So if you make an investment today in healthcare for young people, preschool for young people, food for young people, putting a roof over young people's head if they don't have one, over 30 years, the returns on those investments are so profitable. I mean, there's no more profitable investment really that our government can make than in young people. But when you look at those same investments over a 10-year time horizon, they look terrible. They look super negative. You're spending all this money to educate young people or to feed them or to provide them healthcare. And you're not yet seeing it show up in earnings later on. And so we're just constantly making these terrible decisions where we're distributing a huge amount of money to older folks in America, which is not necessarily the wrong thing to do. The problem is that we're just not distributing a lot of resources to young people. And that means as a result that we're just short-changing our future every single day. And so to me, what really drew me to this was the realization that I'm just not hearing leaders talk about the next hundred years, what we need to do differently to set America up for success over a longer time horizon.

S

Sheree1:09:05

And unfortunately, the government is best positioned to invest long term, right? That's what's so surprising and frustrating about the whole thing. Who better to invest than the government, which is basically a legal monopoly in our country? I mean, they're so well positioned to invest long-term, but none of the incentives are set up around that, right? Because the longest tenure you can have at the executive level is 8 years. So, like, how do you reconcile that with like having a multi-decade long goal?

E

Evan Spiegel1:09:31

Well, I think part of it is reframing the conversation and the measurement, right? So, I do think if Congress had the tools to look at their budget over 30 years, for example, it would show very clearly that investments in young people are very profitable. And so I think part of it is just starting to shift that narrative and to create the tools to do that and to ask people, yeah, okay, I see how your budget performs over 5 years or 10 years, but what does this mean actually over 30 years? And are there opportunities we're missing out on because we're just not looking at this over the appropriate time horizon?

S

Sheree1:10:00

What's another sector or industry that you would want to apply what is it? Equality, justice, and freedom to outside of education. Like what do you think is also really high importance?

E

Evan Spiegel1:10:11

I think you could apply that frame to almost any part of America today, but I think one that would be ripe for that conversation. Although, in my learnings, in my research, it seems like absolutely the hardest problem to tackle is healthcare. You know, if you look at the state budget here in California, healthcare is eating the state budget. And that's true in America as well. Healthcare costs have just absolutely exploded. And part of that's a good thing. Like if you look at overall our ability to provide really advanced care and create all this new technology, it doesn't surprise me that that's where some of the cost growth has been because it's important to be able to extend people's lives or have people live in healthier and more productive ways. But I think unless we're really able to innovate there, it's going to create a huge drag on our future as we reallocate more and more resources to healthcare. I think a lot of this ties back to, and I think this is very common today, a lot of times government is focused on where they're spending money. I don't think they're as focused on the cost side of that equation. And actually, the history of America would say that we've done an amazing job at productivity growth, at innovating to actually drive cost down, and to make things more accessible to more people. And that's really been one of the huge miracles of America's success over the last 250 years that we've made a lot of stuff that previously was really expensive and only accessible to a very small number of people really cheap and really widely available. And as a result, everyone's quality of life in America has improved, but also around the world. So I think we need to apply that sort of innovator's mentality to a lot of these big problems. And healthcare seems like one that is absolutely intractable but is not going away as a huge issue for us to work on.

S

Sheree1:11:55

Evan for senator.

E

Evan Spiegel1:11:57

No, no, thank you. I got four kids and a day job. So I appreciate it though. Thank you. Thank you.

J

Jean1:12:03

And an upcoming documentary series.

E

Evan Spiegel1:12:05

Yeah, I want to see...

S

Sheree1:12:05

Maybe a podcast.

E

Evan Spiegel1:12:06

I want to see it published. I got to, I don't have time to work on this right now, but that is one of the things I was like thinking maybe I should take this on as my like side quest.

S

Sheree1:12:19

Yeah. Or just try to take a week this summer and like knock it out.

E

Evan Spiegel1:12:20

I got to just like focus and get it done. So...

S

Sheree1:12:24

Is it recorded or is it...

E

Evan Spiegel1:12:26

There's copious notes. So, I got to kind of synthesize it into something that actually makes sense.

S

Sheree1:12:33

Well, I look forward to seeing it soon.

E

Evan Spiegel1:12:35

Yeah. Send it this way.

J

Jean1:12:38

He sent us the preview. Some feedback. Yeah. Great. Awesome. Evan, thank you so much for taking the time and chatting with us on Tiger Sisters podcast.

E

Evan Spiegel1:12:46

Thanks so much for having me. I've had a blast. So...

S

Sheree1:12:48

Yay. Usually, we ask our guests to give their handles on social media. Should people add you on Snap?

E

Evan Spiegel1:12:54

I'm just Evan on Snapchat, so easy to find.

S

Sheree1:12:57

The original Evan. Awesome. Thank you so much.

E

Evan Spiegel1:13:00

Thank you.

J

Jean1:13:00

Thank you.

He Turned Down $3B at 23. How Evan Spiegel Thinks Now.

About Evan Spiegel