THE world’s two youngest billionaires are 20-something Stanford fraternity brothers who developed a mobile app that allows users to send photos or videos that will disappear after a few seconds and one of them is the son of Filipina migrant.
One of them, Evan Thomas Spiegel, who at 24 is now the youngest billionaire in the world, with a net worth of $1.5 billion while the other is Spiegel’s partner, 25-year-old Bobby Murphy, who has the same net worth.
Murphy is the son of a Filipina migrant who is now working for the State of California while Spiegel is the son of Los Angeles lawyers. The two met at Stanford University where they joined forces to tap the power of American venture capital.
After a false start setting up an app to help high school graduates with their college applications, Spiegel and Murphy stumbled on the notion of creating an app that sends photos or videos that will disappear after the few seconds.
Spiegel became the chief executive officer while Murphy was the chief technology officer, who pushed the code for the app.
They initially called their product Picaboo and it allows users to take photos, record videos, add text and drawings, and send them to a controlled list of recipients who can view the message for only a limited time, after which they will be deleted from the recipient’s device.
The two later changed the company name to Snapchat and launched it in 2011 and it was a hit. By 2014, the app users were sending 700 million photos and videos per day, while Snapchat Stories content was being viewed 500 million times per day.
In a cyber-world with mounting issues over privacy, the app was a hit and even impressed Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who offered $3 billion for their Snapchat, an offer Spiegel and Murphy rejected.
Spiegel and Murphy raised less than half a million dollars in its first round of venture-capital funding, but in 2013, it raised $60 million in a funding round.
Also in June 2013, Snapchat introduced Snapkidz for users under 13 years of age. Snapkidz is part of the original Snapchat application and is activated when the user provides a date of birth to verify his/her age.
Snapkidz allows children to take snaps and draw on them, but they cannot send snaps to other users and can only save snaps locally on the device being used.
The company is now estimated to be worth from $10 to $20 billion and Murphy is already starting to enjoy the fruits of his creating and has already bought a $2.1-million house in Los Angeles’ hip Venice Beach district.