5 interesting details about Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel who paid off $10 million student loans
Snapchat CEO is married to supermodel Miranda Ker. Here are more such interesting details about the billionaire you need to know.
Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel is in the news for paying students loans worth 10 million US dollars for new graduates. Spiegel and his wife Miranda Kerr paid off the entire student debt of 284 graduates of Otis College of Arts and Design.
Spiegel, who studied design at the same school, attended the college’s graduation ceremony on Monday with his wife. "We have one more gift for the class of 2022. We know most of you and your families shared the burden of student debt at a heavy price that you paid for an exceptional Otis College education...so we are pleased to announce that Evan and Miranda, through their Spiegel Family Fund have made the largest single gift in the history of Otis College," Charles Hirschhorn the president of the college said.
The Snapchat CEO left a room full of students with tears of joy with this announcement.
At this point, we are pretty sure that you would want to know more about Spiegel. We have got you covered. Here are five interesting details about him you cannot afford to miss.
5 INTERESTING DETAILS ABOUT EVAN SPIEGEL
1. The billionaire CEO: Evan Spiegel is the co-founder and CEO of Snapchat. At the age of 25, he became the youngest billionaire in the world in 2015.
He, with his classmates Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown, launched Snapchat’s prototype with the name "Picaboo," which was later renamed as Snapchat.
In 2012, the app gained huge popularity and reached one million daily active users by year-end.
2. Education: He studied at the Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences in Santa Monica. Spiegel graduated from Stanford University with BS in Product Design in 2018.
Before studying at Stanford, he took designing classes at the Otis College of Art and Design when he was still in high school.
3. His love life: The 31-year-old Snapchat CEO is married to supermodel Miranda Kerr.
They started dating in 2015 and got engaged on July 20, 2016. A year later, Spiegel and Kerr got married on May 27, 2017.
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They have two sons who were born in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
4. Net worth: According to Forbes, his real-time net worth is 5 billion US dollars.
He was named among the Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people. He was also named under Forbes 30 under 30's Hall of Fame.
5. Controversy on comment on India: Spiegel once landed up in a controversy for allegedly calling India a poor country in 2015.
The statement came out from an ex-employee of Snapchat, Anthony Pompliano. After termination, Pompliano stated that Spiegel said that "the app is only for rich people. I don't want to expand into poor countries like India and Spain."
After this, the app and Spiegel received backlash from Indian users. Many also deleted the app and tweets with #boycottsnapchat were all over the internet.
Later, Snapchat issued a clarification saying: "This is ridiculous. Obviously, Snapchat is for everyone! It's available worldwide to download for free."
HOW SNAPCHAT MANAGED TO STAY IN THE MARKET
After Snapchat's popularity, Facebook, now Meta, introduced Snapchat like features to Instagram and now on Facebook too.
It started with Instagram stories. The 24-hour format of Snapchat was quite popular. Instagram made a smart move and added this feature.
The filters introduced to Instagram stories were also similar to those of Snapchat. This was later introduced to WhatsApp too.
But Snapchat users did not leave the platform.
Snapchat still gives its users a personal experience with pictures. The prompt notifications after taking a screenshot, the notification you receive while someone is typing, the unique filters, messages that do not save automatically and many more such features make Snapchat unique.
Snapchat is also a place where you can put your real side, unlike the influencer Instagram effect.
Therefore, even after having stories on Instagram, Snapchat is still used for more personal, visual conversations.