9781422277317

T he legend of Snapchat’s origin is straight out of the Sil- icon Valley playbook—brainy university students come up with an idea in their dorm room and launch “the next big thing” in the tech world, as Facebook did. Of course, the truth is a bit murkier. Yes, Snapchat co-founders Bobby Murphy (right in photo), Reggie Brown, and Evan Spiegel (left in photo) were students together at Stanford University. Yes, they tried to invent something “cool” that would be a big hit. And yes, there was con- troversy surrounding one of the founders—Reggie Brown—who ultimately ended up suing the company. But there’s a lot more behind the story, including the interesting background of the man in charge of Snapchat, Evan Spiegel.

WORDS TO UNDERSTAND

contentious angry, argumentative crew a sport using long, thin rowboats pulled by two to eight athletes using a single oar apiece venture capital money provided by investors to young companies in hope of helping them grow war chest slang term for a huge stockpile of money that can be used to expand or grow a company

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