We interviewed the CEO of Snapchat

25:26And so I think we're also trying to figure out how can we better use, people are submitting public snaps all over the world of everything going on that are geotagged and made with our camera so we can actually verify that that's a real snap made with our camera. So we're trying to think about, for disaster relief in the future, if you look at what Watch Duty is doing, how can we help integrate some of these public snap data sources but have that layer of at least understanding it was made in our app with our camera at a certain lat long or whatever. Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting that through this experience, since peer-to-peer communication seems even now to be like, like individuals are organizing, them self-organizing right now into peer-to-peer communication during the event, after the event.

26:12And that's likely how things will continue to look or probably progress in the future is this peer-to-peer communication. I want to come back to now, like the concept of like creators on Snap. Like how much money can you make on Snap? I know that's a broad question, But like, you know, I remember the, when the fund hit and there was a creator named Cam Casey, who was like telling stories of, of, uh, he's like, I made a million dollars in a day. Yeah. And there was people, and of course, like there's been various funds and experiences, but I think when we as creators are looking at the landscape of, of platforms, like what's the, what's the case for, for Snap, for creators who are running a business or even individual creators who are looking to make a career out of their creativity?

26:59Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I guess for perspective, we paid out last year in 2024 more than half a billion dollars to creators and publishers. So, you know, it's a decent amount of money. And certainly more than enough, we hear a lot of stories from creators. It's enough to take a risk on dedicating their life to pursuing this passion and becoming a creator, right? Oftentimes we talked about these homegrown creators, folks kind of just get started, but oh wow, now they have a following of a couple million folks. they're earning money through our revenue share program, they can come and move to LA and think about expanding their business or starting their own brand.

27:33And so I think that, at least from the stories I've heard from creators, I think our revenue share program has really helped people kind of take that leap to being a creator full-time, which is really cool. Can you talk a little bit more about how discovery works? For us, I remember we were sitting down with Daniel Eck from Spotify, and he was talking about how Spotify is actually more algatorial. So it's a bit of the algorithm and it's a bit of the editorial of like, this is what is deemed good content for you. How does Snap think about that when it comes to surfacing what is good content? Yeah, we're in the middle of a pretty big change on that.

28:13Because I think one of the ways that the service currently works today on that, we call it like the fourth tab, but really on the stories page, you have those little story tiles. And far too much of the content discovery, you know, was actually driven by that tile click-through rate in order to get people into content. And so people were really trying to game the tiles. It's like thumbnails on YouTube. Yeah, exactly. And so as a result, sometimes, you know, maybe the best tile, but not necessarily the best content, was rising to the top. And I think, you know, we were early back, I guess it must have been before 2017, on doing sort of algorithmically ranked content.

28:48Remember, at the time, it was what your friends liked, right? would go into your feed. And we said, I think that's a pretty limited way to approach filtering content. We want to broaden that out to a much bigger base of publishers and creators and then algorithmically rank it. But we did that in a tile-based UI. And I think as we're looking to the future, we've been testing simple Snapchat, which is a pretty radical simplification of the app into three screens. Really your friends in the map, in the chat page, the camera, and then just a full-screen content consumption experience. And I think that's going to make it a lot easier for us to make sure we're distributing the most relevant content and kind of stop the gamification around the tiles.

29:27Wow, that's really interesting. It's still opening to the camera. Still opening to the camera. Yeah. Although if you're a Snapchat Plus subscriber, you can set your default entry page. Yeah, that's interesting. I think the landscape of short-form vertical video has obviously been through a lot. What do you make of the conversations around the TikTok ban and the realistic nature of that happening? Well, just looking at the events of the last couple of days, I think that's going to really feed the fire on the national security side. Because essentially all of their concerns came true over the past couple of days.

30:12Right. Right. TikTok actually was able to influence the president of the United States to issue an executive order that, you know, essentially undermines Congress and the Supreme Court right in a 9-0 ruling. And so I think all the national security folks were like, whoa, this platform has way too much influence to be controlled by what they deem to be a foreign adversary. They now kind of it was hypothetical. Now they're going to say it's not hypothetical anymore. Like, we just saw that happen. And so I do think, you know, in many ways, even though folks are maybe breathing a brief sigh of relief and hoping a deal will get done, I do think that the national security community is really going to now use this as concrete evidence that there's a problem.

30:51Oh, that's really interesting. What is— So interesting. I had not heard that. I haven't heard that argument anywhere, but it makes logical sense. Yeah. But, yeah, that is nowhere to be found, at least as far as I know. Certainly not on TikTok. Yeah. Yeah. What is your relationship to even the government, the White House? It seems like now we're watching social platforms obviously have really direct relationships. Even the image at the inauguration of seeing Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai. You're like, oh, interesting. There's a lot of direct relationships. With the content platforms that we use as creators as well, like directly there.

31:36Yeah. I guess it was like one of the first images for me that was like, oh yeah, that is, this is the media, right? I guess like the media platforms that we all are producing media on. I don't know. I don't know what to make of it, I guess, in like the relationship between the government and these content platforms. Well, it does seem to me that there's a real recognition regardless of the administration of the importance of technology platforms, right? I think the Biden administration was very focused on them being too powerful, right? And there was a lot of litigation, especially around sort of monopolistic business practices and these sorts of things.

32:13I think it's too early to say what this administration will do. But I do think the inauguration was a real example of the importance of understanding how powerful these technology platforms are. And I think many of these technology platforms have huge, very strategic, important relationships with the government. So I understand why they're so focused on that relationship. I think generally if I look at how we've built SNAP, we've stayed out of the political – we don't make political donations and this sort of thing. We don't typically engage politically unless it's in service of our community, right?

32:51So we engage with folks a lot on the trust and safety side. So, you know, around the world, we engage with law enforcement, for example, to really make sure that we can protect our community and work to keep, you know, predators or criminals off our platform and that sort of thing. So when we engage with government, it's really like in service of our community. Outside of that, are there any aspects of the relationship with the social platform and the government that could impact content creators in the way we distribute and create content? Outside of harm and safety to users? Here in the United States with the First Amendment, I think creators and platforms have a huge amount of latitude.

33:32There's sort of, I think, been a distortion of what the First Amendment actually means. A lot of platforms are basically saying, we support the First Amendment, so anyone on our platform should be able to say anything. But that's sort of misconstruing what the First Amendment does. It says the government can't tell a platform or a creator what to do. So actually the platform can choose whatever content guidelines or policies it wants under the First Amendment. And so I think there's been a little bit of misdirection, mostly probably because folks don't want to moderate content. Because when they do, engagement goes down.

34:03I mean, I think that's been pretty well understood. But I think here in the United States, at least, which is different even, frankly, than Europe, Europe has a huge, very complex regulatory regime around content. But here in the United States, I think creators and platforms have a lot of latitude to decide what they want to distribute. Is it ever lost on you that you made Future Freshman, then you make this app, and it's— Do you know what I mean? And your whole life has changed forever. Your second go at it was like, I'm sure there was more goes at it, right? Like as, as creative individuals, you have a lot of ideas and a lot of goes at it, but like, it's pretty crazy that.

34:42It's completely wild. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of unimaginable. Can you just talk me through a little bit of what the, the rise of it was like, just like, even as a, as just like a creative person who like for us, anytime we've made things like you never know when you put it out into the world if people are going to be into it or not. And it's the best feeling in the world when people are into it. You know, when you put something out in the world, you're like, oh my God, people, people see it the way I see it. Like to, to have a perspective on the world and design it into something and then have it be adopted at this scale.

35:15The experience of that must've been pretty wild. It's so, it's so much fun. And, and, you know, we got to do that with our friends, which is even more wild. Like that's, that's what's made it, you know, being able to do it with Bobby. I, I was living across the hall from him in school. That's crazy. To be able to do this together, and all of our friends had joined in the early days. There were seven or eight of us living in my dad's house on Toyopo until his then-girlfriend, now-wife, I think walked in, and one of the guys was sleeping on the couch with a blanket she had gotten my dad for Christmas, and she was like, enough.

35:49You guys need to get an office. So, yeah, just so many great memories, but I think to be able to do it together with friends has just been the best part. It's just so crazy to me that we're having the conversation about like, you know, relationship to the government and how like big these, like all these platforms from, you know, the era of us being, I guess, you know, in our early 20s have now influenced the way humans engage with each other. And the way we get information and what we trust and, you know, what we are entertained with. And it is just so amazing to me that this cohort of individuals like yourself have impacted at such scale.

36:27and also created situations for people like us to launch businesses. Like growing up in LA, you know, by no means was connected to anyone in Hollywood. My parents are immigrants, but I really wanted to be a filmmaker or like a creative. And I really struggled to find a pathway in. And then like uploading videos to YouTube was the path, which is insane. That like in order to do that 10 years prior, you just, it just wasn't even possible. So it's just amazing to me. And I think about now the next chapter again, as we talked about getting a demo of spectacles this morning. One of my thoughts about, as I, we were joking that like, we've seen so much AR in the past even year.

37:12You know, we've gotten a lot of demos and sometimes I feel like I'm sounding the alarms to my parents because I'm looking at them and I'm like, want to shake them. I'm like, you don't even know what's coming. And like somewhat closed door briefings on AI as well. You're like, oh my God, it's all happening. But I wanted to get a sense from you. One of my, not concerns, but things that I think about for us as creators is as technology gets more entertaining itself, like wearing spectacles is an entertaining experience. Will we have a limited capacity for entertainment and content? like is technology going to be entertainment?

37:55Does that make sense? Yeah, that does make sense. I mean, I have a couple thoughts here. I think one is that like, we shouldn't forget that content is at the center of human relationships, right? Whether it's like you wanna, you know, whether we cuddle up as a family and watch a movie or people share a video that they think their friend will like or be interested in. I do think content is such an important part the way that we all relate to one another. And so I don't think that's going away at all. But I think we should ask the question, how can we make computers something that are much more engaging, much more enriching, much easier to use together with friends?

38:35And I think just looking at the educational potential of augmented reality is extraordinary. And so I do think there's no reason why those sorts of experiences shouldn't transcend the screen. I do think in many ways, screens are very limiting. So I do think content creators in the future are going to spend more time on more immersive experiences in augmented reality. And I think that will become an important form of entertainment, but also learning, productivity, of course, and those sorts of things. What's the expected timeline? And I'm sure this is difficult to answer, but when I'm trying to explain to my mom what's happening with AR, and I'm like, I'm telling you, they're on your face, and you can see this and you can touch that.

39:17When can I tell her that this may be a reality for you truly moving throughout the world? I think by the end of this decade. I mean, we sort of have felt that way for quite some time and kind of invested against that on our roadmap. So I think you could definitely see much more widespread adoption by the end of the decade, almost at the latest at this point, I think. And that has to do with advances in the technology going into a smaller form-fitting size. Yeah, those are definitely big drivers. I mean, one of the big things we focused on is the optical engine. So the little projector that projects light on the waveguide, which is that glass in the frame.

39:57That's a big area of investment for us. Making that a lot more efficient will be a big driver of power consumption. And then we're doing a lot on the sort of operating system side to optimize that for lower power chips and those sorts of things so that you get a much more streamlined pair of glasses. I liked that with the spectacles. We didn't have to wear anything to be able to. No handcuffs. Yeah. Like, you know, we tested Orion when we were up in Palo Alto and you wear like a wristband for that. And that was a really cool experience. But it was interesting to me that you didn't, with spectacles, you don't have anything else.

40:32You're just operating like that. But I think from a form factor perspective, what Meta has done with Ray-Ban is actually really interesting and really smart. because there's people who will wear those. And obviously those don't have the computing power of AR glasses, but it's interesting that people will wear those and you almost don't notice. And it's like a recognizable brand that people are wearing. So I'm really interested to see when and how that materializes, largely because whenever I've experienced AR this morning with the spectacles, the one thing we've been talking about is, do we think that, you know, in 20 or 30 years from now, people will look back at humans hunched over phones in the same way that we look at people smoking on airplanes?

41:19You know, like, do you think our kids will be like, what? You guys all, like, these images of families at dinner like this, like, it's a bizarre experience. And, of course, it's also bizarre to have, you know, an interface around you while I'm talking to you. but with with with the glasses it does feel like you get your engagement with the world back you get your posture back in an interesting way you get your hands back um and i don't know how to explain that to people who haven't experienced it i do think that even people listening and watching this will be like this is a far-fetched reality that these guys are talking about it's not real but it when you experience it you go like oh as humans eye contact matters a lot and your posture matters a lot and like it's uh and we haven't even started talking about all implications for eyesight, right?

42:03Myopia, all these issues people are struggling with because they're staring at screens all day long, right? That can be solved with these sorts of products. Yeah. So that, that fascinates me because, you know, it could be a very long time from now, but you know, on the precipice of, of having a kid, I think a lot about like, what is his version of being 15 years old going to be like? What's that in your mind? Like, what does the future look like? Yeah. Our, our vision, like I, you know, what I've really talked about with our team, what we're really trying to make real in the world, it's like, I want to be sitting at home, look out the window, see our four kids running around outside, and look at my wife and be like, they won't get off the damn computer, right?

42:43Like, that should be our vision for computers, that our kids can be outside wearing glasses, running around playing together, doing something that is fun and teaches them something, hopefully, but in a way that supports all those things we know are so important to human interaction. you mentioned, things like eye contact, but also getting outside, running around, being together with friends. And so I think we should just have a lot more ambition for what computers are. I mean, they've basically been screens for a very, very long time. And I think pretty soon they're going to be much more immersive in the world and something that people can share.

43:15That's so crazy. Yeah, I mean, for me, I'm definitely in line with that. I always say that I'm so grateful that I was in elementary school before I had a smartphone or even in high school, really, because that's all it was. it was like I'd come home, call my friends, and see if they were there, and we'd go play, and we would just stay out, you know, all day. Go to the village. That's right. Razor scooter yourself to the village. Go to Pally Skates, get a new deck. Go to Savon. Skate the... Listen, I did it all. I did it all. What advice then, like with all these changes happening, like what do you think creators should be thinking about?

43:51You know, even back to what we were talking about in the context TikTok or in the context of even as we look into the future of wearables, like what matters in the new world? Like with AI, AR, with changing platforms, like what's in your perspective, what matters? Hey guys, have you heard of Gold Belly? It's this amazing site where they ship the most iconic, famous foods from restaurants across the country, anywhere nationwide. I've never found a more perfect gift than food. Gold Belly ship Chicago deep dish pizza, New York bagels, Maine lobster rolls, and even Ina Garden's famous cakes. So, if you're looking for a gift for the food lover in your life, head to goldbelly.com and get 20 % off your first order with promo code GIFT.

44:36That's goldbelly.com, promo code GIFT. This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Between two-factor authentication, strong passwords, and a VPN, you try to be in control of how your info is protected. But many other places also have it, and they might not be as careful. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it. Guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40 % your first year. Visit lifelock.com slash podcast for 40 % off. Terms apply. Well, I do think, you know, in many ways, I think a lot of folks were sort of in denial about some of the TikTok changes.

45:16And I think this 75-day period, whatever happens at the end of it, I think is an amazing opportunity for people to take it seriously and to think about how to diversify across a set of platforms. Because ultimately, I think what endures, regardless of the platform and over time, I'm sure there will be many more new platforms that arise, is that authentic connection with your audience. And so I think so many folks have that. I think it's something that creators really love to cultivate on Snapchat with Stories and now with Spotlight. But I think that authentic connection is what transcends any platform change.

45:49And so I think as creators think about just investing and making sure they diversify their platforms while staying true to who they are, I think that's how you build a following that can last a lifetime. Do you have any sense of what Gen Z and even Gen Alpha look for when it comes to content and out of your platform? because obviously Snapchat is one of those platforms that does and has retained a very young user base and something that the Facebooks of the world and even YouTube are looking at. How do we make sure we hold on to and attract younger audiences? What do you think it is about Snapchat that has retained younger users?

46:32I think fundamentally people come to Snapchat for their friends and family, for a better way to communicate. I think what's so fun about communicating visually is that you can share things that can't be said. That's sort of the value proposition. In a moment, you can share how you feel or what you're doing rather than spending, I don't know, a minute, two minutes punching it out on text message. I think as soon as folks realize how powerful and simple it is to communicate visually, they don't want to go back to texting. So for us, that's always driven the growth of the business. And then ultimately, as people are sharing snaps with their friends and communicating, sometimes they want to share to their story, and ultimately they end up watching stories from friends and then watching stories from creators and publishers and other content partners.

47:21So I think as long as we continue to stay focused on that core value proposition of helping people communicate with their friends and family in a way they really can't do anywhere else, we'll be able to continue to grow our audience and ultimately to grow our content business as well. Is there a problem that Snap is facing right now that is top of mind for you? That when you get up, you're like, this is the thing we need to try and figure out. This is what we're spending a lot of our energy on. A lot of what we spent time on over the last two years has been our advertising platform. It's really tough to compete with the Googles and Metas of the world at their scale.

47:58We have a unique audience that's hard to reach on other platforms. I think that's a real asset for us. But we've been investing a lot over the last two years on improving our advertising platform and driving better results for advertisers, especially in the direct response business and for small, medium-sized customers. Because ultimately, for us to be able to reinvest in the platform, we've got to drive the growth of our ad business. So we've made a lot of progress there, but that's still a real priority for us. And then we're spending a lot of time thinking about the future. I think you were right to mention AI, which is hugely important to our business.

48:28That's a big focus for us. But then thinking about how are people going to be using AI in the future? And we think that's going to be with glasses. And so ultimately, making sure that we're making the right long-term investments so that when these platform shifts occur, that we can really support our community and hopefully build the leading product. What's it like being a public company CEO? I really like it, actually. I didn't necessarily think I would, but I like it a lot. I like the discipline. I like the quarterly cadence, actually. you know I think we're very fortunate that Bobby and I control the business so even though we're on this quarterly cadence we can make long term investments I think if we weren't able to make if we weren't able to do that it wouldn't be interesting at all really because you guys have held firm on your perspective like since 2011 like we keep bringing it up the UI is like yes it's different but it has the same perspective and a lot of the apps that we engage with very few of them have retained the original perspective from a design and UI standpoint.

49:37So I find that to be really interesting because being a public CEO and having a design perspective and a perspective on how things should feel, sometimes those can be at odds, right? Like the perspective of the board would kind of take. Yeah, I think we're fortunate that we've now been right enough times that even when it's early, so I think Glass are a great example. Over the last 10 years, This is an area we've been investing. It wasn't really till this year people are like, oh, wait a minute, this whole VR metaverse thing, like nevermind, actually, we know that's not gonna be a meaningful platform.

50:10People don't actually want it. We think glasses are the future. And that's what we've been investing against for 10 years. So I think oftentimes it takes, you know, the broader industry a while to come around. But I think we've just found that if we can stay focused on, you know, delivering value for our community, really building great products that ultimately over time, you know, that - What do you know about human nature in that you've come up with a lot of products that, again, we talked about have been adapted by the rest of the industry. What do you feel like you've learned about human connection, human nature through your perspective and lens?

50:45And what have you known across all these years to be right that many times? That's a great question.

50:54I think we really try to have empathy for the little things. So, for example, when we first started the service, back in the day on your smartphone camera, you had to toggle between photo and video mode. Do you remember the little switch? You had to hit the toggle to record a video. And that feeling of just how annoying is that? That every time I want to make a video, I have to go toggle, then it flips over, then I miss the moment, right? That's what led us to create tap for photo, hold for video. The idea that you can use the same button and make a photo or a video. Or with stories, we were just listening to people and they were talking to us about the way they felt using social media.

51:32They felt like they were just being judged by their friends in a giant popularity contest, that the reverse chronological feed made no sense and didn't feel human. And then we were just like, how have people shared with each other historically? Oh, they tell stories in chronological order. There isn't this huge permanent record. People don't like, you know, laugh at them and make fun of them all day long. You know, actually people can feel comfortable expressing themselves without those sorts of likes and comments. Yeah, I heard you talk about ephemeral messaging mirroring human conversation. That's such an interesting note that like when, obviously right now.

52:06This doesn't count. This doesn't count because we're being recorded from every direction. But like in a normal conversation, the conversation we had prior to getting in here was ephemeral. Like there was no record of that conversation. So the comfort that we speak in that environment is very different. It's going to be different than when you have a mic in front of you and when you have cameras. And I think too often, especially in the technology business, we let the technology drive the product rather than really putting the human needs at the center. So, I mean, ephemerality is a good example of that.

52:35Back in the day, it was more expensive to write over the hard drive to erase the data than to just store it. Because the more that you write over it, you actually wear out the disk and ultimately you need to get a new hard drive. So it's actually better to say, you know what, we're not actually going to go back and delete it. We'll just leave it, and at some point we'll write over it. So I think a lot of these interesting paradigms we have in technology are actually driven by the technological constraints rather than what's best for people. And so I think one of the reasons why we're having so much fun with the glasses is the entire UI, you experience it as a natural UI.

53:05It's wild to be able to just look at your hand, press the button, use your hands to pinch and grab things. I think we're getting closer and closer to computers that have changed to fit what humans need rather than forcing humans to change to fit the computers. I think that's really going to be valuable. Something I've been saying a lot is that I'm really excited that the future of technology is a world where there's no right way to necessarily operate it. I think that's very liberating that as voice comes into the picture, as AI comes into the picture, that when I'm older, when my parents continue to get older, that they could potentially be using a piece of tech where they just talk to it.

53:43And it understands the way that they talk and it does what they want it to do, right? And that we can go into this world where technology is not this like pain point. It just works more with us and how we actually live. Yeah, I love that. Looking back on the journey, is there anything you would have done different to this point? I'm sure there's a million things you would have done differently. We never have let TikTok advertise.

54:10No, I... Were they a big advertiser of yours? Huge. No way. What were you thinking at that time? Yeah, I mean, you know, clearly we weren't thinking of the issue. No, I think there are tons of mistakes and things we would have done differently over the years. But I think, you know, to the team's credit, we've tried to just learn from all those. That's so interesting that TikTok was an advertiser. They were an advertiser on every major platform. But when you first saw it like that, were you like, oh, there'll be a cultural force? because I remember when I first saw it, I was like, this is not interesting.

54:45The first time I played with TikTok, I was like, this is not interesting at all. Yeah, and I think we really underestimated how quickly, you know, because they were subsidizing both the creator side of the ecosystem and the viewer side, how quickly the ML would improve, right? So I think they were really able to bring an audience and creators together and just iterate incredibly quickly. I mean, they're the opposite of opening to the camera, right? Like they truly are. They're the opposite of that. Why is the ranking system different or better? Why does it feel different? Why does TikTok feel different?

55:20Yeah, from Reels or Spotlight or Shorts. It just feels different. You might be better positioned maybe than me. I think one of the things that they've invested in is actually the manual curation and the editorial process to really try to boost trends. And I think one of the things that they did, I mean, I really admire this, is the way that they use trends to inspire creation. So just like we were talking about lowering the barrier to creativity with ephemerality or lowering the barrier to creativity with lenses, they lowered the barrier to creativity with trends. And I think that makes people feel comfortable trying to practice making a new video or that sort of thing.

55:57And so I think there's that sort of sense of community of people trying and experimenting with trends that's so core to who they are. And the gap like on a YouTube has actually gotten really big from a creator and an audience member. Whereas when you go to other platforms like even a Snap, you're like, I can actually be a creator and a consumer at the same time, which is fun. It's almost like an interactive game, right? You get to watch a piece of content. You're like, I can also make that piece of content. YouTube is getting really hard to go, I'm a viewer and I can be a creator of similar content.

56:31because YouTube's essentially, you know, what TV was when we were younger. So, yeah, it's interesting to watch the landscape for sure. The last question that I have for you, I know you've brought up Bobby a couple of times. And considering that Samir and I have worked closely together for 13 years, I'm curious, what is it about your relationship with Bobby that has allowed you guys to work well, to work efficiently, to get through problems together after all these years? What a great, you know, sometimes you just click with people, you know, and that really happened for me and Bobby. I think we both have very different perspectives.

57:02We have different strengths. But man, if I can get words of wisdom from Bobby or his advice, there's almost nothing more valuable to me. So I think the way that he thinks, his creativity, just kind of complements mine. And I think we're able to just feed each other in terms of how we think about growing the business or evolving the product or investing in some crazy new technology or something like that. And we just love working together. I mean, that was the big takeaway from future freshmen. It was like a total disaster. But we were like, man, this is so fun. Like, this is awesome. And I think that learning that like, wow, okay, we found something we love doing.

57:40We love working together. That's been kind of the cornerstone of the whole thing. You got to have some failed projects together. We've had more failed projects than successful ones. So I think that makes a lot of sense. What about for you guys? I think it's similar. It's like when you get together every morning and the thing isn't working, but you're still having fun doing it. And you're like starting to push into your late 20s and like your friends are working at Snap and finding, you know, having a ton of success. And you're - Snap IPOs. Yeah, Snap IPOs and they're buying homes. They're buying a house.

58:12And we're like just making YouTube videos that very few people are watching, but having a blast doing it. You're like, and we also had an early success. So we had a really early success on YouTube and we sold our company in 2014, which was a sports network on YouTube. And then we got to see the world of like bigger media and, and, uh, got to have a front row seat. Um, we just were really arrogant and we're like, we could do it again. And we just couldn't. We were just, we were, we felt like we were invincible. You know, we were like, we, we are the greatest creatives. The internet has seen. And then you fall flat on your face and you're like, Oh my God, no one cares.

58:49Uh, it's, it's a humbling experience. I think to go through that together, but to stay committed to the craft, you know, now you gain so much perspective, you know, as guys in their mid thirties who have been through a lot of ups and downs. And now even from a life perspective, like some pretty wild ups and downs that only we can experience. Like it's pretty rare that we've had this exact same experiences. So I think our perspective on what is important is pretty aligned. And that's a rare thing as you get older and work and creativity to find people that you align with from a values perspective.

59:23And that's like, you spend more of the time as a creative creating the work than enjoying the results of the work, right? So you have to enjoy the process of making the thing with someone. And that's the whole thing. So I think that's what I would say about our relationship. You know, it's like, just like making the things. That's awesome. Your comment about the Snap IP, our equivalent of that That was in our fraternity, when you got a job, you would get a job keg for everyone. You know what I mean? So one after one, everyone's getting a job, a job keg. Everyone's so excited. We're like, no job.

59:58This is probably good. Probably good for you. Snap IPO was tough from a pure comparison perspective, living in Venice and being like, oh man, all these young people are becoming so well off. But at the same time, we had an irrational belief and we always did. When we left that first company, we were so arrogant. And we did get humbled, but we managed to hold on to the irrational belief that when we worked together, something would come of it. We spoke to someone else who worked with a partner, a creative partner for a long time, and he said that it just seemed like when they worked together, one plus one equaled three.

1:00:35Like it was supposed to equal two, but for some reason when they worked together, it equaled three. And I think we had proven that to ourselves and held on to it. Yeah, that's awesome. Lightning does strike twice, so there you go. Yeah. Well, dude, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I hope we get more opportunities to chat. And I'm so curious to see, you know, where the future of all this goes. I'm like now starting to think much further down the line of communication, of our own, you know, trust in each other, our, you know, how humans and technology will engage with each other. And so excited to be able to watch it firsthand.

1:01:13Awesome. Well, thanks so much. And congrats on all of your success and i'm so sorry about this total disaster but you have babies coming soon which is going to make everything better so we're all okay thank you cool thanks evan evan was really fun to talk to like i mean you know before the episode during the episode after the episode we had we had great conversations with evan um and i think the uh the the relationship of creators and snap has been not you know super linear uh and i think it's because it's one of those platforms that you open the platform for like a multitude of reasons and probably primarily to engage with your friends.

1:01:53And so a platform where you're opening it to engage with your friends and then there's also creators on there is a very different platform. Yeah, and it's hard to compare it to YouTube. There was even a question I asked about, well, YouTube's, the watch time's going up on TV. Is that something Snapchat would be interested in? And it doesn't really sound like it. It's hard to even compare an app like Snapchat to a YouTube, right? And I think we do that a lot with short form video apps. We try and do it with Reels and with TikTok and compare it to YouTube because we are obviously so YouTube native.

1:02:25But you realize they are such different platforms specifically with Snapchat because you're right. It is about interaction and messaging. It is not like a entertainment for entertainment sake app kind of like YouTube is, right? We don't take the YouTube necessarily to update my closest friends on what's happening. No, and YouTube's also not about speed, right? So again, we talked about when the fires were going on, Snap was actually a really visual resource to see what was going on. And the map itself is a resource to go, oh, who is posting from the Palisades right now? And you click in, you're like, oh, that's what it looks like in this exact moment.

1:03:05And when I think about, I think we compare TikTok and YouTube so much because they are both lean back experiences in a way, right? Yeah, that's true. Like those two are actually really similar, right? It's like I go there for entertainment. Primarily watching, not interacting. Instagram and Snap are more similar in that they are messaging. I'm messaging my friends on Instagram. I'm sending them content. I'm connecting with them. And then on Snap, you're messaging. And then you are engaging with creators like a David Dobrik, which we talked about. I mean, if you want to see what a Snap creator looks like right now, just watch David Dobrik's stories.

1:03:41That's what Snap creation, I think, to the masses really looks like. But that content does not look different from your friend's content. You know what I mean? Yeah. And on Instagram, actually, like, my friend's content looks really different from creator content. But that's not the case on Snap. In terms of production value. Visually, yeah. visually a snap chat like piece of content looks like a snapchat because content i think it's just because of the emphasis on the the camera opening to the camera yeah opening to the camera and making sure or ensuring that people try and use the phone camera yeah it maintains a certain aesthetic and i think to evan's point what he's trying to harp on is like it maintains a certain level of authenticity yeah yeah i i am uh i've always been interested in uh posting content on snap i've always been a bit overwhelmed by it.

1:04:34I don't know why. I think like cutting content for it has just never been top of mind. But over the past year have just engaged with so many more people from the company, have talked to more creators who are utilizing the platform. And, you know, I think the world of vertical video with potentially whatever is going to happen with TikTok is about to shift. And it's about to shift in different ways. I think Snap is one of those platforms that really encourages an authenticity that is starting to get lost on social. You know, I brought up this quote probably ad nauseum, but when Jake Shane said to us that the best TikToks feel like you're on FaceTime with a friend.

1:05:18Does ad nauseum mean like it should make you nauseous? Like I've said it so much that you might vomit. Starting to feel like nauseous. Right. Oh, I think I understand ad nauseum. Yeah, because I bring it up a lot. Yeah, I've heard it so much. I think Snapchat is like that to the extreme, right? Where it's like that really still retains what social media originally was, which was just this unfiltered look into human beings' lives. So thinking about the future of platforms, creator platforms, like I think YouTube will continue to go in the direction of competing with Netflix and competing with this like sit down on your couch and watch premium programming.

1:05:56Now, where we all engage with each other and that mix of like, you know, he said something in the episode about shopping and that Snap actually has more influence on shopping than other platforms. And I believe that because like purchase decisions are made through word of mouth. Yeah. And production value creates a barrier between me and word of mouth. It no longer feels like word of mouth. But again, you watch Dobrik Snaps and you're like, yeah, he's just, it's him talking into a camera, like a phone camera, not into a DSLR. that like creator ads perform a lot better than, you know, ads made by the companies.

1:06:33And if you look at most of the ads on Snap, something that I enjoy that I don't think other platforms do well is that most Snap ads are shot through like, they look like they're from the Snap camera. It's like everything on that platform feels native. And that's really interesting. So like that's not the case on, you know, YouTube or on Instagram, right? So that's really interesting to me. And I'm just really curious to see where the company goes because they've had an emphasis on wearables for 10 years now. So it's like, is that the direction? And every company now has an emphasis on wearables.

1:07:11It seems like absolutely it's the direction. It seems like, and we've talked about this before where we've been in rooms and seen a lot of demos and a lot of interesting things, but it's hard to wrap your head around. Like, is this really about to happen? But it's interesting to see that these investments are being made in the direction of like a bet on 10, 15 years from now. Yeah, I appreciated the realism with which he talked about, you know, looking at screens being harmful, right? Like he has a product for our screens where we look at our screens, but it seemed like as a parent and with the information that's out there, he has the understanding that, yeah, no, like this could be harmful to our eyes.

1:07:54Like we don't know. this phone consumption is actually such a new thing. And the right thing to do is to rethink what a computer is. And a computer does not just have to be a screen. A computer should be something that fits more. Maybe I'm just drinking the wearables Kool-Aid over here. But I hear that and I'm like, yeah, I think you're right. We should push the bounds of what a computer is. We shouldn't just think about looking at these screens and hunching over. And should think about, in 15 years, can our kids actually be running around again? because they don't, not because we're asking them to run around and play outside, but because they don't feel like they have the reliance on the phone.

1:08:28But also what's, you know, the reality is the reason we should rethink that is because computers have not been a part of our lives for that long. Like we experienced at our age, we've experienced going from computers not really being a part of our life to computers being a part of your life on a minute by minute basis. And, you know, now it's going to be even further, right? We're going to be like almost, we're moving in a direction where we're becoming like one with computers. Yeah, and hopefully that's the right thing, hopefully, right? Because like what he said there was, because technology was advancing and it became so good, we conformed as humans to what the technology could do, right?

1:09:06By putting it in these boxes. And we had to operate the technology in a certain type of way. And that hopefully the paradigm is shifting to technology and computers that work more with who we actually are. Yeah, our natural state. Yeah, our natural state. That's the optimistic lens. I think one part of our natural state as humans has been, you know, our desire to and our ability to tell each other stories. And so I just wonder how that will take shape as time moves on. Because I think actually technology has amplified and supported our ability to tell each other stories. Right? At scale. At scale.

1:09:45And now we're seeing that. I mean, that is also a spectrum of all kinds of good and bad. One thing Evan mentioned is that like simplicity in storytelling is what really works. And that's why we are more susceptible to conspiracy theories because they boils a very complex topic into a very simple thing. So I thought that was really interesting too, that like technology has supported our ability to tell stories to each other. That has many edges of - That can send good and bad stories very far. Yeah, exactly. And so now this next version of like computing being even more ubiquitous with the human experience, where does storytelling fit into that?

1:10:22How does storytelling now permeate through human existence when we are constantly plugged into something? And can technology be used to make sure we know what we're looking at is verifiably real? Right? Because the human experience is to see something in front of your eyes and be able to tell someone, no, I saw it with my eyes. Of course, conspiracies can start there too. But at least you know you believe something when you see it in front of your eyes. And that's what he was talking about with the snap map. That at least, hey, at least you know for the most part that this video was taken in this location with the camera on the phone.

1:10:59Big questions. Yeah. Big questions. It's just fascinating to me, you know, that these, the young creative people from the past, you know, decade plus are the people solving for that. Isn't that interesting? Like, what, like Evan Spiegel, Mark Zuckerberg? Yeah. Like you make an app to connect your friends and then you're - On a desktop. Yeah. On a desktop. And then, you know, fast forward 15 years later and you're talking about how humans should engage with computers in general. I guess it makes sense. The dots connect when you look backwards. But it's amazing to me that, you know, we're a show that talks about the creator economy, but that the creator economy is like humans telling stories to other humans and, you know, the future of media and the future of trust and the future of, it is so much bigger than I think what I thought the creator economy was.

1:11:57The underlying subtext is like, is all of this good for humans or bad? Yeah. And of course, it's a gradient. There's shades of gray. Yeah. But that also is this underlying conversation of the way that we're now able to tell stories. Is it good? Is it bad? How do we make it safe and just better for everybody? The immediacy at which we can get information out to each other. Is that positive or negative? Or what does the spectrum look like? So apparently, we've left you with more questions than answers. More questions than answers, yeah. Hopefully, that's a good thing. So hopefully you guys enjoyed this conversation.

1:12:29It was really fun for us. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this conversation with Evan on Snapchat on the future of human connection. All right, make sure you subscribe and we'll see you on the next episode of The Colin and Samir Show.