Snap CEO Evan Spiegel says creativity starts with failure — and he makes sure new hires get there quickly.
Snap’s new designers are asked to present an idea on their first day despite having little context or time to prepare, Spiegel said on a recent episode of The Diary of a CEO podcast.
“When you have no context for what the company is working on, no idea what’s going on, how on earth are you supposed to come up with a great idea? I mean, it’s almost impossible,” Spiegel said.”So your worst fear has come true — we’re all sitting there, looking at an idea that’s ultimately not that great.”
First days can be nerve-racking enough without being asked to make an ill-prepared presentation to your new colleagues. But for Spiegel, that early failure is precisely the point. By forcing new hires to showcase an idea with no preparation, context, or background, Spiegel believes the worst fears around failure evaporate early, leaving employees creatively liberated.
“99% of ideas are not good — but 1% is,” he said. “And the best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.”
Ultimately, Spiegel said, “All feedback is good feedback. What you do with it is what matters.”
Spiegel credits Snap’s creativity to its culture of constant experimentation more than a decade after its launch.
Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, famously introduced disappearing photos and videos and became known for introducing features like Stories, which were later copied by platforms including Instagram and Facebook.
Spiegel’s LinkedIn profile recently poked fun at this, describing him as “VP Product @ Meta” — a gag an employee was behind, he told Bloomberg.
Spiegel founded Snapchat while studying at Stanford and became the world’s youngest billionaire at 25.
Snap completed a 2017 IPO with a valuation of about $24 billion, but today, its market cap stands at $15.65 billion. The company famously turned down a $3 billion acquisition offer from Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta — then Facebook — in 2013.
Spiegel also pushed back on perfectionism in startup culture. “People who think the game is to have the perfect idea — those are people who’ve never built a business before,” he added.
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