Meet the founders, early backers set to get rich from Snap IPO
Snap has just spawned a handful of billionaires. Meet the newly-minted billionaires and catch all the Snap IPO action on around the world.
Evan Spiegel: Snap co-founder & CEO
$4.49 billion (includes the extra 3% of stock he’ll get when it goes public.)
Class A shares: 113,164,485
Class B shares: 5,862,410
Class C shares: 107,943,924 + 37,232,102 granted as a bonus for going public
Evan Spiegel launched Snapchat with Bobby Murphy in September 2011. Described as a product visionary to rival Steve Jobs, Spiegel holds the title of CEO at the company and has set up its share structure so he and Murphy will retain control in the future too.
Bobby Murphy: Snap co-founder & CTO
$3.86 billion
Class A shares: 113,164,485
Class B shares: 5,862,410
Class C shares: 107,943,924
Murphy and Spiegel were frat brothers at Stanford when they cofounded the app and have grown it to a company much larger than just disappearing messages. While Spiegel is described as a product genius, it is Murphy who is leading a lot of Snap’s cutting edge work in its Snap Labs division.
Benchmark
$2.24 billion
Class A shares: 65,799,720
Class B shares: 65,799,720
Benchmark is the largest venture shareholder in Snapchat. “We believe that Snapchat can become one of the most important mobile companies in the world,” Benchmark’s Mitch Lasky wrote in a blog post at the time of the deal.
Timothy Sehn
$114.7 million
Class A shares: 3,373,332
Class B shares: 3,373,332
Since joining in 2013, Timothy Sehn grew Snapchat’s software engineering team by more than 10x. Before joining Snapchat as its VP of Engineering, Sehn spent over a decade at Amazon, where he started as a software developer intern and left as an engineering director.
Michael Lynton
$51.3 million
Class A shares: 1,509,820
Class B shares: 1,509,820
Former Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton stepped down from his position to focus on another role as Chairman of Snap Inc. Lynton has been a trusted adviser to Snap’s Evan Spiegel and on the board of Snapchat’s parent company since 2013.
Imran Khan
$48.2 million
Class A shares: 1,418,868
Class B shares: 1,418,868
Imran Khan jumped from the banking world to the tech world in Jan 2015 when he joined Snap as its Chief Strategy Officer. His connections have already helped Snap get a $200 million investment from Alibaba — he was the lead banker for the Chinese retail company’s IPO — and Snap raised an additional $1.8 billion in May 2016. One of Spiegel’s direct reports, Khan’s main job at Snap is to lead its strategy and help chart its path to IPO.
Lightspeed Venture Partners
$1.47 billion
Class A shares: 43,314,760
Class B shares: 43,314,760
Lightstpeed’s Barry Eggers first heard about Snapchat from his daughter. Jeremy Liew sent Spiegel a message on Facebook about meeting up, right at the time when the company was about to run out out of money to pay the server bills. Liew flew to LA and wrote Snapchat its very first check.
Evan Spiegel: Snap co-founder & CEO
$4.49 billion (includes the extra 3% of stock he’ll get when it goes public.)
Class A shares: 113,164,485
Class B shares: 5,862,410
Class C shares: 107,943,924 + 37,232,102 granted as a bonus for going public
Evan Spiegel launched Snapchat with Bobby Murphy in September 2011. Described as a product visionary to rival Steve Jobs, Spiegel holds the title of CEO at the company and has set up its share structure so he and Murphy will retain control in the future too.
Bobby Murphy: Snap co-founder & CTO
$3.86 billion
Class A shares: 113,164,485
Class B shares: 5,862,410
Class C shares: 107,943,924
Murphy and Spiegel were frat brothers at Stanford when they cofounded the app and have grown it to a company much larger than just disappearing messages. While Spiegel is described as a product genius, it is Murphy who is leading a lot of Snap’s cutting edge work in its Snap Labs division.
Benchmark
$2.24 billion
Class A shares: 65,799,720
Class B shares: 65,799,720
Benchmark is the largest venture shareholder in Snapchat. “We believe that Snapchat can become one of the most important mobile companies in the world,” Benchmark’s Mitch Lasky wrote in a blog post at the time of the deal.
Timothy Sehn
$114.7 million
Class A shares: 3,373,332
Class B shares: 3,373,332
Since joining in 2013, Timothy Sehn grew Snapchat’s software engineering team by more than 10x. Before joining Snapchat as its VP of Engineering, Sehn spent over a decade at Amazon, where he started as a software developer intern and left as an engineering director.
Michael Lynton
$51.3 million
Class A shares: 1,509,820
Class B shares: 1,509,820
Former Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton stepped down from his position to focus on another role as Chairman of Snap Inc. Lynton has been a trusted adviser to Snap’s Evan Spiegel and on the board of Snapchat’s parent company since 2013.
Imran Khan
$48.2 million
Class A shares: 1,418,868
Class B shares: 1,418,868
Imran Khan jumped from the banking world to the tech world in Jan 2015 when he joined Snap as its Chief Strategy Officer. His connections have already helped Snap get a $200 million investment from Alibaba — he was the lead banker for the Chinese retail company’s IPO — and Snap raised an additional $1.8 billion in May 2016. One of Spiegel’s direct reports, Khan’s main job at Snap is to lead its strategy and help chart its path to IPO.
Lightspeed Venture Partners
$1.47 billion
Class A shares: 43,314,760
Class B shares: 43,314,760
Lightstpeed’s Barry Eggers first heard about Snapchat from his daughter. Jeremy Liew sent Spiegel a message on Facebook about meeting up, right at the time when the company was about to run out out of money to pay the server bills. Liew flew to LA and wrote Snapchat its very first check.
