[Founder Notes] Evan Spiegel

Ever studied product design? Look at everyday designs and think about how to make them better.

He learned from his first venture that it's better to build something that doesn't face existing competition. Build differently. Designed Snapchat's background yellow to be different from competitors. Built a design language around being different.

Made a self-pact to never work for someone else — then found himself in the position of needing to create a job that fit him.

Discovery of products: Jobs, long before Spiegel, discovered products that people needed in their minds but that didn't yet exist in the real world. Snapchat invested early in hiring deep thinkers. As a result they understood that people needed more than content. Between research and design, research informed design features. Community and distribution are nature's one-two.

On privacy: Believed in distributing information to people as our natural pattern.

The Zuckerberg moment: Zuckerberg wanted to acquire. Spiegel declined. Zuckerberg then copied Snap. It failed because Snap already existed. Copying features isn't the same as copying the ethos.

— Jay