Snap Inc. / Snapchat — Key Facts
| Founded | September 2011 |
| Founders | Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy & Reggie Brown |
| Stock Ticker | NYSE: SNAP |
| Headquarters | Santa Monica, California, USA |
| CEO / Controller | Evan Spiegel (super-voting shares) |
| Daily Active Users | 400+ million (2024) |
Snapchat is a multimedia messaging app owned by Snap Inc., a publicly traded technology company. Known for its disappearing messages, Stories format, augmented reality (AR) filters, and Snap Map features, Snapchat has over 400 million daily active users globally. Despite being a public company, Snap Inc.’s voting structure gives co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel effective voting control over the company.
Who Owns Snapchat?
Snap Inc. is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: SNAP). However, due to its dual-class share structure, co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel and co-founder Bobby Murphy hold Class C shares that carry 10 votes per share — giving them together super-voting control over all shareholder decisions, regardless of the public float. This means that despite institutional investors holding large portions of Snap’s outstanding shares, Spiegel and Murphy can effectively block any major corporate decision, making them the de facto controllers of the company. The third original co-founder, Reggie Brown, was pushed out early and settled a lawsuit with Snap for an undisclosed amount.
History and Founding
Snapchat was created in 2011 by Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy while students at Stanford University. Reggie Brown, who claimed to have originated the concept of disappearing messages, was an early contributor but was removed by Spiegel and Murphy. The app launched as “Picaboo” before being renamed Snapchat. Its disappearing photo feature proved wildly popular with younger users. Facebook offered to acquire Snapchat for $3 billion in 2013 — which Spiegel famously rejected. Snap went public in March 2017 in one of the most anticipated tech IPOs of that year, raising $3.4 billion.
Snap’s Products and Strategy
Beyond disappearing messages, Snapchat has pioneered augmented reality (AR) features through its Lens Studio platform, allowing users and brands to create immersive AR experiences. Snap’s “Stories” format — later copied by Instagram and WhatsApp — originated on Snapchat. The platform’s Spotlight (TikTok-style short video) and Snap Map features have expanded its use cases. Snap has invested heavily in Spectacles — AR glasses — as a longer-term hardware bet on the future of augmented reality.
