Arrogant. Egotistical. Cocky. Entitled.
These colorful, critical descriptors are merely a sampling of the words used in association with Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel over the past two weeks. The adjectives are not at all flattering, and Spiegel's reputation — which has teetered between confidence and arrogance — seems to be slipping toward the latter.
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The issues started when Snapchat experienced its first major security breach, a hack in which 4.6 million usernames and phone numbers were leaked online.
The problem worsened when Snapchat acknowledged the hack, but failed to apologize for it, leading Fortune to ponder whether Spiegel or his PR rep should be fired for such a lapse in judgement. (Spiegel has since issued an apology, and even issued a second one Monday for complaints over excessive spam.)
The following week, Spiegel was featured on the cover of Forbes in one of the first major profiles of the 23-year-old founder. The story led to a disagreement between Spiegel and Forbes over details included in the story's lead, which depicts an email exchange between Spiegel and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Our latest cover: Inside Story Of Snapchat: The World's Hottest App Or A $3B Disappearing Act? http://t.co/e3kev9qdfv pic.twitter.com/J57HpYfOek
— Forbes (@Forbes) January 6, 2014
The story claims that after Zuckerberg emailed Spiegel for a meeting, the Snapchat CEO essentially told the billionaire: "I'm happy to meet you ... if you come to me." Spiegel denied this blunt response, releasing an email exchange between the two that revealed otherwise. Forbes countered with a transcript of its interview with Spiegel, claiming he fabricated "a story full of swagger."
All of this happened under the cloud of an ongoing lawsuit filed by alleged cofounder Reggie Brown, who is suing Spiegel and the company's investors for cutting him out of Snapchat's ownership pie.
As Forbes editor Randall Lane bluntly put it last week following the cover-story conflict: "So Snapchat investors, is this the guy you’re betting a couple billion on?"
Yes, it seems so.
Mashable spoke with a handful of Silicon Valley venture capitalists last week, most of whom have no issues with a young, confident Spiegel at Snapchat's helm. Many requested anonymity because their firm is not a direct investor in Snapchat, and more than one VC told Mashable that the media is getting it wrong when it comes to Spiegel.
"I don't see anything unusual about [Spiegel]," said Alex Rosen, managing director of IDG Ventures. "He's clearly a smart guy, clearly competent; he's doing extraordinarily well, so he's got decent grounding for his confidence. There are not a ton of really quiet, humble tech entrepreneurs who build billion-dollar companies."
When asked about Spiegel's failure to apologize, investors recalled the antics of a young Zuckerberg who showed up to meetings in slippers, or Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin who gave an interview to Playboy ahead of the company's 2004 IPO.
If anything, Spiegel appears to be in good company. Other CEOs such as Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, and Jack Dorsey were mentioned in the same breath as Spiegel when investors compared him to other outgoing tech figures. The Snapchat founder seems to draw considerable comparisons to Zuckerberg, who was called similar adjectives after launching Facebook in 2004 (and also had a major legal battle with alleged cofounders).
"These sort of big personality-types of founders can be both a blessing and a curse," said one Silicon Valley VC with investment experience in the mobile-consumer industry. "The curse part is that if it's someone whose ego ultimately gets in the way of building a big and interesting company, and ultimately an interesting business, that's where we start to hesitate."
Investors don't seem to be hesitating, yet. For starters, the security issue, lawsuit and media controversies don't seem to be impacting users, which is ultimately the most important consideration. What is written in the press doesn't matter that much, so long as users continue flocking to Snapchat.
The company also added former Facebook and Instagram executive Emily White as its chief operating officer, a hire that should help Snapchat avoid some of the early mistakes that Facebook made in mobile.
That doesn't mean Spiegel and Snapchat are off the hook completely. The security hack struck a chord with some investors, but passing up a reported $3 billion acquisition offer by Facebook late last year was what caught Rosen's attention.
"Nothing about the PR, nothing about the hacking would make any [investors] hesitate for a second," said Rosen. "If you have a company worth $8 million less than two years ago that turns down a $3 billion cash acquisition offer, you have to wonder what other decisions they're going to make when it comes time to go public or sell at a higher price."
A separate LA-based tech investor felt differently about Spiegel turning down Zuckerberg. "Users actually trust [Spiegel] a lot more because he didn't sell to Facebook."
@oren_saar our business is only two years old. We have a lot to do on a long journey. Confident in our team.
— Evan Spiegel (@evanspiegel) January 12, 2014
Overall, investors don't appear to be concerned with Snapchat or the company's confident CEO. In fact, if the price was right, many would jump at the opportunity to join forces.
One Silicon Valley venture capitalist sums it up thusly: "Every VC I know is like, ‘F*ck, I wish I was in Snapchat.’”
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