One of the world’s youngest billionaires is Evan Spiegel. At age 29, this man is estimated to be worth over $4 billion. And, as it turns out, Snapchat has made up for the money it lost in 2017 after going public and making several mistakes, including a widely derided app redesign.
Inventor and CEO of Snap Inc., Evan Spiegel, created the app Snapchat. Snap Inc., better known as Snapchat’s parent company, is a publicly traded firm. However, Snapchat is renowned for its once-revolutionary communication features, such as vanishing messages and the ability for users to exchange photos, texts, videos, and filters with one another.
The Spiegel family life is going well too. Evan and his wife, the model, and entrepreneur Miranda Kerr, have a child named Myles. Let’s find out more about Evan in this guide.
Quick Facts
| Full Name | Evan Thomas Spiegel |
| Birth | June 4, 1990 |
| Born Country | United States |
| Height | 6’1″ (185 cm) |
| Father | John W. Spiegel |
| Mother | Melissa Ann Thomas |
| Siblings | Caroline Spiegel, Lauren Spiegel |
| Ancestry | German American |
| Net Worth | 5.2 billion |
| Awards | Best Mobile Application AwardEddy Award |
| Children | 2 |
| Nationality | American |
| Place of Birth | Los Angeles, California |
| Fields of Expertise | Entrepreneurship |
| Institutions | Otis College of Arts and Design, Stanford University, Crossroads School for Arts Sciences, and ArtCenter College of Design |
| Contributions | Snapchat |
Early Life
The birth of Evan Thomas Spiegel took place in Los Angeles, California, on June 4, 1990. Both his mom Melissa Ann Thomas and dad John W. Spiegel are lawyers. In his teenage years, he received a $250 weekly allowance from his well-off family. But unfortunately, his parents split up after a while.
Despite this setback, Spiegel excelled academically during his high school years at Santa Monica’s Crossroads School for the Arts and Sciences.
After that, Evan moved in with his mother, protesting against her refusal to buy him BMW when he was a teenager. Instead, he leased the $75,000 automobile he leased from her. He was raised in an affluent environment. Therefore he could never accept “no” as an answer.
Evan attended studies at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He then studied design courses at the Otis College of Art and Design. He also worked as an unpaid intern in sales for Red Bull and played around with Photoshop.
After finishing school, Evan applied to and was accepted to Stanford University’s famed product design department, thanks to his intelligence and academic prowess. He also pledged to Kappa Sigma there.
After meeting a fellow student, now his business partner Bobby Murphy, Evan was hired by Bobby to create a social networking website modeled after Google’s Circles. Unfortunately, this attempt did not succeed.
Personal Life
Evan was linked romantically to a model who was on “The Bachelor” in 2013. He was also linked to the pop icon Taylor Swift in early 2014 after the two allegedly met at a New Year’s Eve party. Evan began dating the supermodel and now his wife Miranda Kerr in 2015. The two met at a Louis Vuitton dinner in New York in 2014.
Marriage
After meeting at dinner for Louis Vuitton in 2014, Spiegel began dating Australian supermodel Miranda Kerr in 2015. Glenda Bailey, editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar, told Kerr on their first date, “I bet you two are going to be married.”
From then on, the couple’s lives progressed rapidly. Spiegel and Kerr spent $12 million on a Brentwood mansion in May 2016. Harrison Ford formerly lived in this spacious 7,164 square foot estate, which included a gym, swimming pool, and separate guest cottage.
This pair keeps a low profile on all major social media platforms. However, after some time, the pair shared the news that they were engaged. Spiegel gave Kerr an engagement ring with a value of between $75,000 and $100,000.
Children
Evan and his wife Miranda have two children named Hart and Myles. Miranda also has a son, Flynn, who is 11 years old, from her previous husband, Orlando Bloom.
Career
Throughout their careers, Evan and Bobby experimented with many different businesses. First, they tried to replicate Google Circles as a social networking platform, but it proved unsuccessful.
In addition, they created a web-based service targeting university admissions officers. Moreover, the “Future Freshman” initiative was intended to facilitate college application management for high school seniors. Unfortunately, though it gained some ground, steady expansion eluded it. As a result, the effort was abandoned.
Reggie Brown, the third co-founder of Snapchat, joined Bobby and Evan after their previous enterprises had failed.
Awards & Achievements
The best mobile app of 2013 goes to Evan Spiegel’s Snapchat. In addition, he was awarded the 2015 Eddy Award. It was granted by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation or LAEDC in recognition of its pioneering role in developing the LA County economy and creating well-paying jobs for its inhabitants.
Net Worth
Evan Spiegel has been financially secure ever since he created Snapchat. He invented it in 2015, and his wealth skyrocketed, making him the youngest billionaire in the world. According to estimates made in May 2022, Spiegel has a net worth of $5.2 billion.
Quotes by Evan Spiegel
- “It seems odd that at the start of the Internet, everyone decided everything should stay around forever.”
- “I don’t want to disrupt anything. We never conceive of our products as disruptive – we don’t look at something and say, ‘Let’s disrupt that.’ It’s always about how we can evolve and improve this.”
- “People are going to copy your product especially if you build great stuff. Just because Yahoo has a search box doesn’t make it Google.”
- “We built our business on creativity, and we’ll have to undergo an education process for the next five years. It is to explain to people how our users and that creativity create value.”
Which Invention Does Evan Spiegel Take Credit For?
Snapchat
Snapchat, a massively popular social network and messaging application, was created by Evan Spiegel, Reggie Brown, and Bobbie Murphy. They have created or significantly contributed to the spread of specific now-commonplace tools in social media and instant messaging, such as filters and vanishing messages.
Snapchat App History
The three guys created Snapchat after getting their ideas from a school assignment. The concept behind these photographs that mysteriously vanished was straightforward. To start such a venture, Bobby Murphy, Reggie Brown, and Evan Spiegel would get to work intensely.
Any media attached to these messages, such as still images or moving videos, would be deleted after a predetermined time. These safeguards ensured the sender’s privacy, at least to some extent.
Snapchat was released on smartphones in 2011. One million people were using the app by early 2012. By then, 25 Snaps were being sent per second. As the business gained traction, Evan decided to leave Stanford. He had just a few more courses to go before he could graduate. Unfortunately, despite repeated attempts, he did not finish his graduate studies.
Since then, Snapchat’s trajectory and popularity have skyrocketed. Publicly accessible stories, the launching of spectacles (smart glasses), a discovery tab for curated content, and Snapchat filters are just some new additions to the app. They made it throughout its development. In addition, you can share snaps of either privately or publicly accessible tales.
In March 2017, Snapchat held its initial public offering. That day, the stock price rose 44% from its opening price of $24. Since then, the price of the stock has fluctuated wildly, which costs $24.92 right now.
Frequently Asked Questions:
1. Who is Snapchat owned by?
On September 16, 2011, Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy relaunched the photo-sharing app Picaboo under the Snapchat brand name and officially launched the company. Unfortunately, the app was breached on December 31, 2013, exposing 4.6 million usernames and phone numbers online.
2. How did Evan Spiegel come up with Snapchat?
Spiegel presented a time-limited texting app in April 2011 for a product design course. Eventually that year, Evan collaborated with Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown, two of his Stanford University friends, to build a prototype of this concept called initially “Picaboo.” They later renamed Snapchat.
3. How much Snapchat does Evan own?
According to a January 2017 story in The Wall Street Journal, after Snap Inc.’s expected IPO in March 2017, Murphy and Evan Spiegel would control over “70% of the voting power” and own over 45% of the company’s total equity.
4. How rich is the owner of Snapchat?
On Friday, Bloomberg reported that Snap CEO and founder Evan Spiegel had suffered an 83% drop in net worth over the previous year. On October 21, 2021, Spiegel was worth $13.9 billion. Today, it is worth approximately $2.3 billion. Likewise, Bloomberg estimates that Bobby Murphy, a co-founder, and CTO, is now worth $1.9 billion, a decline of 81%.
5. Does Zuckerberg own Snapchat?
Contrary to popular belief, Snapchat is not owned by one large internet company like Google or Meta. Instead, Snapchat is owned by a corporation called Snap Inc. Its founders were Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown.