
What it’s like to work at Snapchat - prostoalex
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-work-at-snapchat-2016-10
======
aluminussoma
When I read this article, I could replace the name of "Evan Spiegel" with
almost any other Silicon Valley executive and get the same result:

> While other Snap employees and executives sit next to each other in an open
> floor plan, Spiegel’s office towers over the building's old lobby at the top
> of a flight of stairs. The door to the office is locked and protected by a
> special keypad."

In every company I've been in that uses open offices, the executives get
closed door offices.

> To the group’s surprise, the meeting was in the security room, where Snap's
> security guards are stationed, according to one person familiar with the
> matter.

Isn't this a matter of safety? I remember this historical story at one large
company I worked at: after a layoff, the employee returned to his manager's
office with a gun. Thankfully, the situation was defused.

> Beyond vague statements like “building the world’s best camera” and making
> “communication more real and authentic,” there’s little-to-no communication
> inside Snap about what’s in the pipeline.

Just about every company...

> “There were times when we would do PowerPoint presentations, and you
> literally would spend 50% of the time formatting it,” one of the former
> executives Business Insider spoke to recounted. “What shade of yellow, that
> sort of thing.”

Just like any big company!

I have nothing for or against Snapchat. It reads like a poorly crafted hit
piece against the CEO.

~~~
carlosdp
At most companies I've worked for, the CEO didn't even really have a desk
because they never used it anyways. They're always in meetings or out of
office, so they had a regular old desk assigned to them, but it was usually
empty. (and they were all open plan)

But I agree with your assessment.

~~~
aetherson
My current employer (Life360) and former employer (Flywheel) both had the CEO
and all other executives working at desks in the open floorplans.

I think that there comes a size of company where that gets impractical, and
Snap is probably at least that size. But it's by no means crazy for execs to
work in the open floorplan.

~~~
tedmiston
According to a LinkedIn query, admittedly a coarse metric for current
headcount, Snapchat has 1290 current employees (includes founders, etc as
well) [1]. Crunchbase says 101–250. They seem to have somewhat intentionally
disappeared off of AngelList with just 3 employees listed.

Edit: LinkedIn is not too far off from what's mentioned in the article:

> The top-secret Snap Labs group overseeing the Spectacles is such a priority
> that the group earlier this year set a goal of hiring 200 people in just
> sixty days, according to the staffer who left. The hiring plan was
> especially aggressive for a company whose total headcount is just above
> 1,000 employees.

[1]:
[https://www.linkedin.com/vsearch/p?f_CC=3186630&trk=rr_conne...](https://www.linkedin.com/vsearch/p?f_CC=3186630&trk=rr_connectedness)

------
kn0where
Business Insider is a pretty trashy "news" website, and to me most everything
the article says could apply to modern Silicon Valley culture in
general—Snap[chat] just happens to be in LA instead. In fact, I see a lot of
HBO's "Silicon Valley" in Snap.

I'm not trying to defend Snap, but these are criticisms that are broadly
applicable to many tech companies. The stupid open offices. Executives
isolated from ordinary people and reality, on retreats that sound like a
"Silicon Valley" punchline. Pretending your company is making the world a
better place when you're mostly just building yet another lucrative
advertising platform.

~~~
thinkmassive
Yeah, I got a chuckle out of the author being offended that Snap wouldn't
confirm the Spectacles project when Business Insider asked, and then it was
announced officially by the Wall Street Journal later that same day.

Sounds like a good strategy to not confirm leaks by a notorious content mill
when you have an official announcement prepared by one of the most respected
news organizations in the country.

------
rl3
> _Employees can flash their badges to get a free meal at local restaurants,
> ..._

The main takeaway I gleaned from this article is: if you ever find yourself
homeless in the Venice Beach area, just fashion a fake Snap employee badge and
dress to look the part. Why use a SNAP card when you can use a Snap badge!

If circumstance has it you're chit-chatting with real employees in line at a
restaurant, just tell them the reason they've never seen you at any of the
offices is that you're working on a _super secret project_ at an undisclosed
neighborhood location.

~~~
wdr1
You don't even need a badge.

Maybe it's how I dress, look, or the conversation we're having, but several
times I've been on Abbot Kinney and the barista (or whatever) working the
register has asked "Oh, just put this on the Snapchat account?"

(I've never said "yes." Maybe if I did they would then proceed to ask for an
ID, but I doubt it.)

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misiti3780
Does anyone else find it odd how many articles point out that the CEOs all
want to be Steve Jobs.

Snapchat, Theranos, etc.

I understand that Steve Jobs was very successful and changed the world and all
that, but his biography also implied he was a pretty big asshole and very
arrogant.

~~~
cylinder
Jobs' success justified his controlling jerk persona. These guys generally
have huge egos and wish they could get away with being assholes too like Steve
did. His personality is what they aspire to, not his success.

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niftich
There's a lot to be said about a charismatic, detail-oriented, and
conventionally attractive leader who maintains an air of celebrity, mystery,
and untouchability about themselves. Spiegel projects the image of someone
who's 'made it', which compares favorably with the sort of founder who
displays those traits but hasn't yet executed, or the sort of person who
executed but lacks that aspirational relatability.

To me, this didn't seem like a hit piece -- one person's hit is another's
hype, and I think Snap understands the power of hype (-> excitement).

For a while now, their Android product has been atrocious, while iOS is
thriving. For a platform that famously shunned Windows Mobile as uncool, is
this intentional, or just a byproduct of their haphazard management and either
lack of skill or dreadful luck?

I feel Facebook's relentless copying of Snapchat will cause them to pivot more
and more into being a media-like company. In this article today, I learned
they were already staffed in a way to enable such a transition.

However, this article is absent about how this company culture affects morale
of the staff, and we are left to speculate.

~~~
cfreeman
I just got an iPhone for the first time after many years of Android. I was
sick of the Android versions of most popular apps being much worse/buggier
than their iOS counterpart. It's not just Snap.

------
tedmiston
I'll take what might be a contrarian perspective to say that I don't
necessarily think this is bad. Apple has always been very secretive internally
pre-launch of a major new product too. Seems like it's worked out okay. There
are tradeoffs of course but top-down information opaqueness seems to be the
norm more than the exception at companies this big.

> Compared to the "dogfooding" tradition in many tech companies, where
> employees try out their products before releasing them to the public, most
> Snap employees don’t know when a new product is coming — regardless if it
> would affect their team’s long-term metrics or goals. When the company
> launched Lenses, its famous filters that morph people’s faces, most
> employees learned about it for the first time on the company blog post
> announcing it to the world.

> This strategy has been somewhat effective at quelling leaks, but has also
> alienated people from knowing the direction the company is going in.

~~~
user5994461
Was Apple secretive only to the public or to all the teams that worked on the
products as well?

~~~
tedmiston
I've only been on campus once, so take me with a grain of salt, but I've heard
there is still a lot of secrecy between teams internally.

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relics443
For some reason over the past few years I've been waiting to hear that
Snapchat has gone under. Never really thought they would execute.

I still think they're one slip up away from disappearing, but I've got to give
them credit for building the way they did.

~~~
minimaxir
Last week, there was a HN discussion on how Instagram's latest moves have
successfully reduced the need to use Snapchat:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13166882](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13166882)

~~~
notwhereyouare
I mean, if it helps. the snapchat app for android is complete garbage

~~~
jpatokal
You don't get to Snapchat's scale with a "garbage" app. Yes, the UI is...
nontraditional, but I've heard it argued this is on purpose and finding out
about its hidden features becomes like a game.

~~~
freyr
> _I 've heard it argued this is on purpose_

I've heard that argued too. I wonder if that's true or if it was an
accidental, but apparently fortuitous, side effect of having a confusing UI.

But apparently part of the issue with the Android app is excessive lag, which
can't be explained away as a UI decision.

------
kkhire
obviously a biased piece to make snap and spiegel look bad. the product is
great, even if it's garbage on android.

but it's really no secret that spiegel is arrogant and it shows. He pressured
his rich parents to buy him nice cars in high school to fit in better, his
leaked college emails, kicked out the founder who came up with the snapchat
idea, etc.

I went to a hackathon in college when he was like 22 or 23, showed up wearing
a suit and gave a speech with JFK quotes like some 20 year F500 executive
would. comes off as a tryhard but his strategies are obviously working really
well so who cares. keep at it, love the product.

~~~
davidlee1435
LA Hacks? I got the same impression when he spoke there back around
2013/2014-ish

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bogomipz
>"Evan Spiegel, the 26-year-old cofounder and CEO, moves across the company’s
network of Venice Beach outposts in a black Range Rover, flanked by his
security detail."

Security detail? Why would he need or want this?

This piece is pretty horrifying. Is it possible that this is just a hatchet
job designed to hurt Snapchats image as an employer?

~~~
rl3
> _Security detail? Why would he need or want this?_

Given his worth it's not hard to justify. The world has plenty of criminals
and mentally unstable people.

Interestingly, the satellite office model that the article decries strikes me
as a huge boon in physical security for both him and his employees.

That said, if I were a Snap employee I'd probably have a field day with the
jokes anyways.

 _" The Emperor's coming here? We shall double our efforts!"_

~~~
bogomipz
>"Given his worth it's not hard to justify."

His net worth exists only on paper until theres a liquidity event.

I've spent time in both Unicorns and hedge funds and none of the founders have
had body guards, at least not at the office.

~~~
rl3
> _His net worth exists only on paper until theres a liquidity event._

Point is he's high profile and has a lot to lose.

If I were on track for being a billionaire many times over, I'd probably be a
little paranoid too.

Besides, for all we know he could have received specific threats and his
security arrangement is completely justified. Granted, secrecy and paranoia
often do go hand-in-hand.

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antidaily
No mention of free La Croix. Can anyone confirm?

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therobot24
sounds pretty toxic, however there was a pretty clear bias to the article to
give that impression

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wehadfun
The article said they are going to make $350M this year.

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johnwheeler
Sounds like a demoralizing nightmare not to be emulated.

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tedmiston
If you happen to be browsing with Safari, you can still use Safari Reader mode
here without having to disable your ad blocker.

~~~
Bartweiss
Alternatively, Google has it cached.

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teetermld
so... exactly like apple that's been a thriving growing business for decades?

