Evan Spiegel

Evan Thomas Spiegel was born on June 4, 1990, in Los Angeles, California, to parents John W. Spiegel and Melissa Ann Thomas. He grew up in Pacific Palisades and attended Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences in Santa Monica. His early interest in design led him to take classes at Otis College of Art and Design while in high school and later at Art Center College of Design. Spiegel pursued product design at Stanford University, where he also gained early professional experience through internships at Red Bull, a biomedical company, and Intuit on the TxtWeb project.

In April 2011, during his time at Stanford, Spiegel proposed an ephemeral messaging app as a product design class project. This idea evolved, and later that year, he collaborated with fellow Stanford classmates Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown to develop a prototype named “Picaboo,” which was subsequently rebranded as Snapchat. The application gained traction, leading Spiegel to leave Stanford in 2012, just before completing his degree, to fully dedicate himself to Snapchat. By the end of 2012, Snapchat had achieved 1 million daily active users, marking a significant milestone in its early growth. Spiegel eventually completed his remaining credits and graduated from Stanford in 2018. His innovative work with Snapchat led to him being recognized by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in both 2014 and 2017.

Under Spiegel’s leadership, Snap Inc. has expanded beyond the Snapchat app, introducing products like Spectacles in 2016. In February 2017, Spiegel and Murphy established the Snap Foundation, pledging to donate a substantial number of Class A common stock shares over 15–20 years to support arts, education, and youth non-profits, with a focus on creating pathways to the creative economy for underrepresented youth in Los Angeles. In 2021, Spiegel joined the board of directors of the investment management company Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, further expanding his influence in the business world. His philanthropic efforts continued in 2022 when he and his wife, Miranda Kerr, announced they would pay off the student debt for the graduating class of Otis College of Art and Design.