Young CEO turned Mark Zuckerberg down

This young CEO turned down a $1.5 BILLION offer from Mark Zuckerberg.

 

Everyone said he was crazy.

Zuckerberg was furious; he threatened to copy the entire product...

...and vowed to crush the company.

 

But today?

That same company is worth over $13 BILLION - and it’s 10x better.

 

Here’s how one bold “NO” rewrote tech history forever: 

 

November 2013.

23-year-old Evan Spiegel, co-founder of a rising photo-sharing app called Snapchat, flies to Los Angeles for a private meeting.

 

Waiting for him is Mark Zuckerberg, then 26, the billionaire CEO of Facebook.

 

At the time:

– Facebook is worth $104 billion

– Snapchat is just 2 years old, run by college dropouts with zero revenue

 

But Snapchat is growing fast. Too fast.

Zuckerberg sees it as a threat.

 

So he makes a bold move:

He offers $1.5 billion in cash to buy Snapchat and shut down the competition.

 

But what happened next shocked everyone...

 

Evan Spiegel didn’t even let Mark Zuckerberg finish his pitch.

He rejected the $1.5 billion offer on the spot.

 

No hesitation. No counteroffer.

 

Zuckerberg was stunned and furious.

He immediately switched to "war mode."

If he couldn't buy Snapchat, he'd destroy it.

 

Meanwhile, Wall Street analysts slammed Spiegel:

 

🗣️ "The height of tech arrogance"

🗣️ "A decision he'll regret forever."

 

But behind the scenes, Spiegel saw something no one else did...

 

By late 2013, Snapchat’s growth was explosive:

 

– 📸 Over 350 million snaps sent every day

– 👥 71% of users were under 25

– 🔁 The average user opened the app 18+ times daily

 

But here’s the stat that terrified Facebook:

 

While Snapchat was winning teens... Facebook was losing them.

 

That one trend signaled a major shift, and Zuckerberg knew it.

 

Zuckerberg didn’t take the rejection lightly.

His response was swift and brutal.

 

Just weeks later, Facebook launched “Poke”, an exact clone of Snapchat.

 

The message to Spiegel was loud and clear:

“Sell to us, or we’ll copy you out of existence.”

 

It was the first shot in what would soon become an all-out war between Facebook and Snapchat.

 

2014. After Poke flopped, Facebook wasn’t backing down.

They came back with $3 billion, a massive offer.

 

But Evan Spiegel turned it down again.

 

Internally, Snapchat’s board is in full panic mode.

Everyone is urging him to sell before it’s too late.

 

Yet Spiegel remains firm.

He wouldn’t budge.

 

Facebook’s next move? Total warfare.

Zuckerberg wasn’t playing around anymore. 

 

He launched clone after clone:

 

– Instagram Stories, a Snapchat copy

– WhatsApp Status, another clone

– Messenger Day, you guessed it, another clone

– Facebook Stories, yet another clone

 

Zuckerberg’s strategy was clear: clone Snapchat’s features across every Facebook platform to suffocate the upstart and crush its growth.

 

The pressure was immense.

The odds were stacked against Snapchat:

 

– Facebook’s user base: 1.3 billion

– Snapchat’s user base: 50 million

– Facebook’s resources: Unlimited

– Snapchat’s runway: Limited

 

In 2017, as Snapchat’s growth stalled, tech media piled on:

They declared that Evan Spiegel had made the “biggest mistake in tech history.”

 

But behind the scenes, Evan Spiegel was executing a completely different vision.

 

While the world doubted him, he was:

 

– Rebranding Snapchat as a “camera company”

– Launching Spectacles hardware

– Developing augmented reality (AR) technology

– Creating original content

 

His big bet?

Social media was just the beginning - visual communication was the future.

 

Then in 2018, 

The real test of Spiegel’s vision arrives:

Snapchat redesigns its app.

 

The result? Disaster.

 

– 1.2 million users sign a petition to revert the changes

– Kylie Jenner tweets she’s done with the app

– Snapchat’s stock drops 7%, losing $1.3 billion in just one day

 

Yet, Spiegel remains unwavering.

His response?

“The risk will pay off later.”

 

Meanwhile, the competition intensifies.

 

– 2019: Instagram hits 500 million daily users

– 2020: TikTok explodes globally

– 2021: YouTube launches Shorts

 

Many in the tech world predicted Snapchat’s imminent death.

The odds seemed stacked against them.

 

But then, something unexpected happens...

 

Snapchat doesn’t die. It thrives.

 

While Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok chased broad trends, Snapchat focused on what Zuckerberg overlooked:

 

– Real friendships over mere broadcasting

– Privacy when others prioritized virality

– Augmented Reality (AR), while others obsessed over Virtual Reality (VR)

– Young users, while competitors aged up

 

And that’s when the tide began to turn.

 

By April 2023.

 

 Snapchat went from 50 million to 750 million monthly users

– Stock price: 10x higher than its IPO low

– Market cap: $27billion

– Annual revenue: $4.6 billion

 

And Evan Spiegel’s personal stake?

It’s now worth far more than Zuckerberg’s original $1.5 billion offer.

 

While Snapchat may have lost some momentum over the years, it’s still going strong and thriving even today.

 

Today, with a $13 billion market cap, Spiegel’s “mistake” now looks like genius.

 

Not because he predicted everything correctly.

Not because the path was smooth.

 

But because he understood something profound:

 

Some visions are worth fighting for,

even when everyone tells you you're wrong.

 

So what can we learn from Snapchat’s story?

 

It’s simple: Some visions are worth fighting for,

 even when everyone tells you you’re wrong.

 

- Stick to your vision - Even when the world doubts you, stay true to your purpose.

 

- Innovate in ways others don’t - Be bold enough to carve your own path, even if it means standing apart.

 

- Take risks - Not every decision will be popular, but sometimes risk is what leads to the biggest rewards.

 

- And above all, stay resilient - The road to success is rarely smooth, but your ability to adapt and persist can turn failure into triumph.

 

Evan Spiegel’s rejection of billions transformed into a $13B success, 

 

proving that sometimes, the hardest paths lead to the biggest rewards.

 

Mushfiq Sajib told it first via X then was shared here by Marvelous Elochukwu

 

#snapchat

#TechStories

#Innovation