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Evan Spiegel

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Evan Spiegel
Spiegel in 2013
Born
Evan Thomas Spiegel

(1990-06-04) June 4, 1990 (age 34)[1]
Los Angeles, California
Citizenship
  • American
  • French
EducationStanford University (BS)
OccupationEntrepreneur
Known forCo-founder and CEO of Snap Inc.
Spouse
​
(m. 2017)​
Children3 children, 1 stepchild

Evan Thomas Spiegel (born June 4, 1990)[1] is an American-French businessman, co-founder and CEO of Snap Inc. Spiegel was the youngest billionaire in the world in 2015.[2] As of August 2024, he had a personal net worth of $2.6 billion according to Forbes.[3]

Early life and education

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Evan Thomas Spiegel was born in Los Angeles, California, to lawyers John W. Spiegel and Melissa Ann Thomas.[4] He grew up in Pacific Palisades, California, where he was raised Episcopalian.[5] He was educated at the Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences in Santa Monica, and attended Stanford University.[1]

Spiegel took design classes at the Otis College of Art and Design while still in high school and at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena the summer before entering Stanford.[1] He also had an unpaid internship in sales at Red Bull.[1] While a student, he worked as a paid intern for a biomedical company, as a careers instructor in Cape Town, South Africa, and at Intuit on the TxtWeb project.[1] Spiegel is a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity.[6]

Career

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Spiegel at the 7th Annual Crunchies Awards on February 10th, 2014 in San Francisco.

In April 2011, Spiegel proposed an app with ephemeral messaging as a product design class project.[7] Later that year, Spiegel worked with fellow Stanford classmates Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown to launch a prototype of this concept called "Picaboo", which they later renamed as Snapchat.[8][9] The app's popularity grew significantly and in 2012, Spiegel left Stanford to focus on Snapchat shortly before completing his degree.[1][10] By the end of 2012, Spiegel's Snapchat app had reached 1 million daily active users.[8] He later completed his remaining credits and graduated in 2018.[11][12]

Spiegel speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference

In February 2017, Spiegel and Murphy pledged to donate upwards of 13,000,000 shares of Class A common stock over the next 15–20 years to an arts, education and youth non-profit. They have created the Snap Foundation which is a non-profit organization.[13][14] Their mission is to "develop pathways to the creative economy for underrepresented youths in Los Angeles." Recently they have donated $3 million to people affected by COVID-19.[15][13][14] In January 2017 The Wall Street Journal reported that after the predicted March 2017 initial public offering for Snap Inc., Murphy and Evan Spiegel would hold over "70% of the voting power" in the company, and own around 45% of the total stock.[16]

Spiegel joined the board of directors of investment management company Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in 2021.[17]

Controversy

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In 2014, emails sent by Spiegel during his time at Stanford were leaked to Gawker. The emails included misogynistic and homophobic comments and openly encouraged getting women heavily drunk in an attempt to convince them to have sex. The emails included comments about getting his friends laid by wasted "sororisluts", and shooting lasers at "fat girls". He was also encouraging underage drinking.[18][19][20][21]

Spiegel issued a statement responding to the controversy stating, "I'm obviously mortified and embarrassed that my idiotic emails during my fraternity days were made public. I have no excuse. I'm sorry I wrote them at the time and I was jerk to have written them. They in no way reflect who I am today or my views towards women."[22]

Personal life

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Spiegel began dating Australian model Miranda Kerr in 2015.[23][24] They became engaged on July 20, 2016.[25][26] They married in a private ceremony in Los Angeles on May 27, 2017.[27] Just a month before Spiegel's engagement to Kerr, he purchased a 7,164 square foot, $12 million house that was previously owned by Harrison Ford.[28] Spiegel has three sons with Kerr and a stepson from Kerr's previous marriage to Orlando Bloom.[29][30][31][32]

As of 2021, Spiegel was ranked number 55 on the Forbes 400 with $13.8 billion in wealth.[33]

In 2017, Spiegel became one of the youngest public company CEOs at age 26 when Snap began trading in March.[34] Spiegel is also a member of the Berggruen Institute's 21st Century Council and its board of directors.[35][36][37]

A Francophile, Spiegel learned French. In 2018, he and his son Hart received French citizenship through a clause in the naturalization laws that waives French residency requirements for applicants that contribute to the French culture or economy.[38] In November 2022 he joined the board of directors for Gagosian Gallery.[39]

Charity

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In the same year, he gave $20 million to Stockton Scholars, a scholarship program in Stockton, California.[40]

In 2022, at the Otis College of Art and Design commencement, Spiegel announced that he and Miranda Kerr would pay off the 2022 graduating class student's debt.[41]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g Van Grove, Jennifer (November 26, 2013). "Snapchat's Evan Spiegel: Saying no to $3B, and feeling lucky". CNET. Archived from the original on December 7, 2013. Retrieved December 10, 2013.
  2. ^ Robehmed, Natalie. "The World's Youngest Billionaires 2015: 46 Under 40". Forbes. Archived from the original on September 24, 2017. Retrieved September 19, 2017.
  3. ^ "Evan Spiegel". Forbes. Archived from the original on August 3, 2024. Retrieved August 3, 2024.
  4. ^ "StartupBook » Curated News and Advice for Entrepreneurs » 24-Year Old Snapchat Co-Founder Probably Threw The Best Parties Ever In High School". StartupBook. Archived from the original on February 1, 2014. Retrieved January 22, 2014.
  5. ^ Maddaus, Gene (October 17, 2013). "Snapchat Went From Frat Boy Dream to Tech World Darling. But Will it Last?". LA Weekly. Archived from the original on October 4, 2020. Retrieved January 23, 2020. John Spiegel strove to make sure his children understood that their life was privileged. Every Christmas, he would take them to hand out food at Head Start centers. Through their church, All Saints Episcopal in Beverly Hills, they traveled to Mexico to build houses for the poor.
  6. ^ "5 Facts About Evan Spiegel, Snapchat's Often Controversial Co-Founder". Entrepreneur.com. July 9, 2015. Archived from the original on May 15, 2016. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  7. ^ Colao, J.J. (November 27, 2012). "Snapchat: The Biggest No-Revenue Mobile App Since Instagram". Forbes. Archived from the original on November 28, 2015. Retrieved December 31, 2015.
  8. ^ a b "Snapchat: An Abridged History". Fortune. Archived from the original on August 25, 2018. Retrieved August 24, 2018.
  9. ^ MacMillan, Douglas (November 20, 2013). "Snapchat CEO: 70% of Users Are Women". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on December 27, 2015. Retrieved December 31, 2015.
  10. ^ Matthews, Natalie (November 14, 2013). "Finally, a Tech CEO With Style: A Closer Look at Snapchat's Evan Spiegel". Elle. Archived from the original on January 3, 2015. Retrieved December 10, 2013.
  11. ^ Clifford, Catherine (July 15, 2020). "Pro-UBI Mayor Michael Tubbs lived across the hall from Evan Spiegel in college: 'While I was campaigning for city council, he was building Snap'". CNBC.
  12. ^ "Forbes Profile: Evan Spiegel". Forbes. Archived from the original on July 28, 2022. Retrieved August 26, 2022.
  13. ^ a b Taylor, Harriet (February 2, 2017). "Snap co-founders create Snap Foundation to support non-profits". CNBC. Archived from the original on February 25, 2017. Retrieved February 24, 2017.
  14. ^ a b Velazco, Chris (February 2, 2017). "Snap Inc, Quietley created A Foundation to support arts and education". engadget. Rochester, New York. Archived from the original on March 3, 2017. Retrieved March 3, 2017.
  15. ^ "Snap Foundation". www.snapfoundation.org. Archived from the original on August 15, 2020. Retrieved September 3, 2020.
  16. ^ Farrell, Maureen (January 20, 2017), Snapchat Parent Plans to Pay Banks 2.5% of IPO Proceeds, New York: The Wall Street Journal, archived from the original on January 21, 2017, retrieved January 22, 2017
  17. ^ Karsh, Melissa (October 6, 2021). "KKR Names Snap's Evan Spiegel as Independent Director". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on June 3, 2024.
  18. ^ Biddle, Sam (May 28, 2014). ""Fuck Bitches Get Leid," the Sleazy Frat Emails of Snapchat's CEO". Gawker. Archived from the original on August 15, 2020. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  19. ^ "Confirmed: Snapchat's Evan Spiegel Is Kind Of An Ass". TechCrunch. May 28, 2014. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  20. ^ Manning, Ben Grubb and James W. (May 29, 2014). "Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel 'mortified and embarrassed' by sexist, derogatory emails". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on October 2, 2019. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  21. ^ "Evan Spiegel's Leaked Fraternity Emails Prove He's Actually Even Worse Than You Thought". Bustle. May 28, 2014. Archived from the original on August 14, 2020. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  22. ^ "Confirmed: Snapchat's Evan Spiegel Is Kind Of An Ass". TechCrunch. May 28, 2014. Retrieved August 25, 2021.
  23. ^ "Miranda Kerr introduces beau to parents". Thespec.com. August 15, 2015. Archived from the original on December 17, 2015. Retrieved December 31, 2015.
  24. ^ "Miranda Kerr introduces boyfriend to her parents – The West Australian". Yahoo! News. August 17, 2015. Archived from the original on December 8, 2015. Retrieved December 31, 2015.
  25. ^ Christie D'Zurilla, Model Miranda Kerr engaged to Snapchat co-founder Evan Spiegel Archived June 27, 2018, at the Wayback Machine, Los Angeles Times, July 20, 2016.
  26. ^ Biz Carson, Meet LA's newest power couple: Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel and supermodel Miranda Kerr profile Archived July 23, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, Business Insider, July 20, 2016.
  27. ^ Desantis, Rachel (May 28, 2017). "Miranda Kerr weds Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel". Daily News. New York. Archived from the original on May 28, 2017. Retrieved May 28, 2017.
  28. ^ Green, Dennis (May 10, 2016). "Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel and model Miranda Kerr just bought a $12 million home together". Business Insider. Archived from the original on October 26, 2017. Retrieved September 19, 2017.
  29. ^ "Miranda Kerr and Evan Spiegel Welcome 'Beautiful' Son Hart: 'Words Cannot Explain How Happy We Are'" Archived July 31, 2018, at the Wayback Machine. People. May 7, 2018.
  30. ^ "Miranda Kerr Gives Birth to Baby No. 2!" Archived March 30, 2019, at the Wayback Machine. Yahoo!. May 9, 2018.
  31. ^ Jensen, Erin. "Miranda Kerr and Evan Spiegel welcome baby boy Myles: 'We are overjoyed'". USA Today. Archived from the original on June 4, 2020. Retrieved April 24, 2020.
  32. ^ "Miranda Kerr Gives Birth To Her Fourth Baby". Marie Claire.com. February 27, 2024. Retrieved February 27, 2024.
  33. ^ Forbes 400 2021: Youngest Archived November 4, 2021, at the Wayback Machine Forbes. Retrieved November 5, 2021.
  34. ^ Forbes 400 2017: Youngest Archived October 7, 2019, at the Wayback Machine Forbes. Retrieved March 19, 2019.
  35. ^ "Berggruen Institute". Archived from the original on January 6, 2017. Retrieved January 12, 2017.
  36. ^ Gardels, Nathan (November 5, 2015). "China's New Five-Year Plan Embraces the Third Industrial Revolution". HuffPost. Archived from the original on July 21, 2020. Retrieved May 12, 2020.
  37. ^ Benner, Katie. "Snap's Chief Taps Into the 'Right Now'" Archived February 2, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, The New York Times, February 1, 2017. "Mr. Spiegel has also involved himself in some political conversations. In 2015, he met with China's president, Xi Jinping, as a member of the 21st Century Council at the Berggruen Institute. Its founder, Nicolas Berggruen, said he impressed a group that includes Mohamed El-Erian, the economist, and former President Nicolas Sarkozy of France with his 'thoughtful and mature approach to people.'"
  38. ^ Moutot, Anaïs (December 16, 2019). "EXCLUSIF Comment le PDG de Snapchat est devenu Français". Les Echos (in French). Archived from the original on December 16, 2019. Retrieved December 16, 2019.
  39. ^ "Larry Gagosian Announces the Formation of a Board of Directors". Gagosian. November 16, 2022. Retrieved March 7, 2023.
  40. ^ "Should Philanthropy Fund Government? A $400 Million Gift Settles That Question in Kalamazoo, Mich., for Years to Come". The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Retrieved August 9, 2021.
  41. ^ Treisman, Rachel (May 17, 2022). "Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and Miranda Kerr paid off art school graduates' student loans". NPR. Retrieved May 18, 2022.
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