Snapchat CEO: Why distribution has become the most important moat | Evan Spiegel

You guys have a billion monthly active users. Why is it so freaking hard to build a durable lasting social consumer product? So much of consumer technology focuses on to buy product market fit. People don't spend nearly enough time thinking about distribution. And figuring out distribution. I feel like SNAP has always been punching above its weight in terms of just how much new stuff comes out of your team. Stories, AR glasses, swipe based navigation. We have a very, very small design team that is constantly innovating and creating new things. Your first day that you join the design team, you present work. You're making things. If you want to have a good idea, you have to have lots of ideas. People copy you. As a human, how does it feel just to see this consistently happen? Fifteen years ago, we essentially learned that software is not emotion, which is something that everyone is discovering today with AI. You describe this coming year as the crucible moment. It's a real turning point. We're in an industry where so much of the conversation is focused on technology. Humanity is far more Important because humanity dictates how technology is adopted. Technology leaders think that folks will just blindly adopt new technology as it comes out. There's gonna be a huge amount of societal pushback on a lot of the changes that are coming with AI. Today my guest is Evan Spiegel, CEO and co-founder of Snap.

Evan is one of the very few humans in the world who has successfully built and scaled a lasting consumer social app. In the fifth years since Snapchat launched. There are essentially zero social consumer apps. That have launched and stuck around. Snapchat has over one billion monthly active users, is generating over six billion dollars a year in revenue. People post over eight billion AR lens photos a day on Snapchat.

And over the years, Evan and his team have invented the concept of stories. They had the first AR glasses product in the market, they invented swipe based navigation, the camera being primary. And also back in the day, face swapping, making people look older. And so many of the things that are just copy throughout the entire industry. If this is truly the golden age of consumer products, like many people say AI is going to enable.

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