Evan Spiegel, the co-founder and CEO of Snap, is one of the very few people in the world who has successfully built and scaled a lasting consumer social product. Snapchat has nearly 1 billion MAUs, and Evan and his team invented some of the most important consumer products and features, including Stories, AR glasses, swipe-based navigation, the camera as the primary UX, and a lot more.

In our in-depth conversation, we discuss:

1. Why distribution is now the biggest challenge for creating a consumer technology business

2. How Snap innovates at scale with a 9-to-12-person design team: no titles, no hierarchy, hundreds of ideas reviewed weekly with the CEO

3. Why a pure software business is no longer a moat, and what actually creates durable competitive advantages today

4. How AI is changing the way designers work and why they’re now shipping code

5. Why every major Snap feature was copied and how that forced the company to work differently

6. Evan’s prediction that humanity’s comfort with AI will be a bigger bottleneck than the technology itself

7. This year’s crucible moment for Snap

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Where to find Evan Spiegel:

• X: https://x.com/evanspiegel

• Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/@evan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-spiegel

• Website: https://www.spiegelfamilyfund.com

Referenced:

• Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com

• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com

• Threads: https://www.threads.com

• Snapchat+: https://www.snapchat.com/plus

• Instagram Plus: https://help.instagram.com/26266751476298047

• Pixy: https://www.pixy.com

• Specs: https://newsroom.snap.com/introducing-specs-inc

• Bobby Murphy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Murphy

• Hard truths about building in the AI era | Keith Rabois (Khosla Ventures): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/hard-truths-about-building-in-the-ai-era

• Marc Andreessen: The real AI boom hasn’t even started yet: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/marc-andreessen-the-real-ai-boom

• The design process is dead. Here’s what’s replacing it. | Jenny Wen (head of design at Claude): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-design-process-is-dead

• Claude Cowork: https://www.anthropic.com/product/claude-cowork

• Figma: https://www.figma.com

• Bill Clinton on X: https://x.com/BillClinton

• Superhuman’s secret to success: Ignoring most customer feedback, manually onboarding every new user, obsessing over every detail, and positioning around a single attribute: speed | Rahul Vohra (CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/superhumans-secret-to-success-rahul-vohra

• Bobcat tractors: https://www.bobcat.com/na/en/equipment/tractors

• Palmer Luckey’s blog: https://palmerluckey.com

• ModRetro: https://modretro.com

• Glean: https://www.glean.com

• Marty Supreme on Prime Video: https://www.primevideo.com/detail/Marty-Supreme/0GU3TFPDR9FE2C6L7AAWAA3QXD

• Pokemon: https://www.pokemon.com

• Puking rainbow lens: https://www.snapchat.com/lens/349f631e78cc4b3dbd8c9656a69dbdd0

• Face swap: https://www.snapchat.com/explore/face-swap

Recommended books:

• Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries: https://www.amazon.com/Loonshots-Nurture-Diseases-Transform-Industries/dp/1250185963

• Thinking, Fast and Slow: https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555

• Apple: The First 50 Years: https://www.amazon.com/Apple-First-Years-David-Pogue/dp/1982134593

• The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization―Irreverent Predictions from a Geopolitical Strategist: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09CS8FRRD

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

My biggest takeaways from this conversation:...