Early Life
Evan Thomas Spiegel was born on June 4, 1990, in Los Angeles, California. He grew up in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, and attended Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences in Santa Monica. Spiegel's parents are lawyers. During his high school years, he took design classes at the Otis College of Art and Design and the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He also had an internship at Red Bull.
Rise to Success
Spiegel attended Stanford University, where he studied product design. In April 2011, as a product design class project, Spiegel, along with Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown, proposed an app with ephemeral messaging, which later became Snapchat. The app, initially called Picaboo, was launched in 2011 and later renamed. Spiegel left Stanford before graduating to focus on Snapchat.
Key Business Strategies
Snapchat's success lies in its unique approach to social media, allowing users to share photos and videos that disappear after a short time. Snap Inc. went public in 2017. In 2013, Spiegel famously turned down a $3 billion acquisition offer from Facebook. Snap Inc. has also expanded its offerings through products like Spectacles and acquisitions of companies focused on augmented reality.
Philanthropy
Spiegel and his wife Miranda Kerr established the Spiegel Family Fund, committed to philanthropy in California and beyond. In 2017, he donated $20 million to Stockton Scholars, a program that provides scholarships to students in Stockton, California. In 2022, he and Kerr announced they would pay off the student loans for all graduating students at the Otis College of Art and Design.