Employees have continued to feel the aftershocks of those early tremors, and the consequences of operating in a white- and male-dominated tech industry, for years.Īs inventive as Snap has been, it recently showed that it's not excused from answering the same question as every other social media startup: How can one company stay relevant when every other company is vying for users' attention?.Īt its best and most pure, Snapchat is about playfulness, and communicating with friends without the stress of constructing a digital identity. Early scandals, owing, in part, to the company's founding by a literal frat boy, will always be part of its history. It hasn't all been smooth sailing, though, for the 'Camera Company,' which was the puzzling way Snapchat branded itself when it filed for its IPO in 2017.
Its products have inspired ephemeral sharing copycats galore, and investors currently think parent company Snap, Inc. As of its tenth birthday this month, it has over 280 million daily users plus a stable of Content from media brands and influencers. When Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy first went live with Snapchat in the App Store in September of 2011, it was a disappearing photos app made by college kids that *definitely wasn't* for sending nudes.