REFRAME STRESS

“The first time that the big sort of wake up call was when, you know, Facebook at the time, carbon copied Snapchat to make poke. And Mark Zuckerberg recorded, like, him saying the word poke as the notification sound. He was, like, so excited about this. The nervousness going into that holiday period. I mean, they literally put a download poke at the top of every single Facebook app. And it was just a clone of Snapchat. And then to on Christmas day, see Snapchat number one in the App Store in that context was huge for us.”

“If I look at successful hardware companies over a long period of time, we can look at Apple. We could talk about Tesla. They really try to start with premium or even luxury positioning around a very passionate early adopter group that believes in their vision. Think like the Tesla Roadster, or the early iMac or the early iPhone. And then over time, they work with that really passionate group of enthusiasts to grow into the mass market while preserving their premium positioning, which means high gross margins. Then they take those high gross margins, and they reinvest in r and d, which widens their lead.”

“We learned very, very early on that there's no moat in software, which was an incredibly powerful lesson. All of our ideas, the things that we invent, people just try to copy right away, and it's easy to do that with software. But what's fascinating about the world today is that it has never been easier. So because we learned that lesson very early on, we've evolved our business to really focus on the things that are hard to copy. A network effects business of people communicating with one another.”

“I'll never forget, when I was a lot younger, I was starting the company, I had the opportunity to meet president Clinton. And his advice was, like, the job is explainer in chief. That is the job. Like, you gotta go around and explain this stuff to everybody so they understand their role at Snap or Snap's role in the world, and I think that that's super valuable.”

“I stole this from Walmart, which I thought was great. They have a Friday meeting called in it to win it. They have their leaders from across the company, not just super senior leaders, but leaders from across the company around the world all get together for about an hour, and they essentially raise their hand and say, hey. The shopping cart ball bearing is not working properly. We gotta get this thing fixed. And whoever's in charge of the shopping cart ball bearing can raise their hand and give a response. The thing they found was their leaders would solve the problem just for the store, but they wouldn't solve it for the company.”

“There's a big difference between kind and nice. Huge difference. When you're being kind, it means you really want the best for somebody. And sometimes that means a tough conversation. Nice is about making people feel good. Kind is about wanting the best for them. So one of the big problems in a more hostile work environment is people are more resistant to feedback because they don't hear it coming from that positive place of wanting you to grow and develop.”

“Snapchat opens to the camera. Right? And we always want you to choose to open Snapchat to share a moment with your friends and your family. It literally opens into your experience. And so from the very beginning, we've thought about, like, how do we ground your experience of computing, like, in what what is right in front of you in the present moment and inspire you to create from that.”

“The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas. It is critical. And the most toxic thing you can have is people attached to an idea instead of constantly thinking about ideas are free. There should be an a zillion of them. And if we can do that and create that culture where there's, like, just an endless flow of ideas, you're much more likely to get lucky by finding good ones.”

“I see Snapchat as the best possible vehicle to reinvent the computer. So if you think about Snapchat, we have this core cash flowing profitable business, right, in Snapchat that we're able to then use to reinvest in what has been a very long term speculative project to reinvent the computer. What's very unique about Snapchat is we've been able to do that now for — we've invested in glasses for twelve years. We've been able to very consistently invest in a way that no VC would ever in a million years support.”

“Herb Kelleher, the founder of Southwest Airlines. He was asked one time, how do you handle the stress? He's like, I don't handle it. I like it. I'm not doing this. Like, I wouldn't start a company in a hugely competitive environment if I wanted to take an easy path through life. But I think what he did there, what's really powerful about that, and I think this is what a lot of founders do, is they reframe it. If you can reframe stress as an opportunity, it's gonna be great.”