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What Evan Spiegel thinks about design

@evan-spiegel · 22 positions · 0 changes of mind

Co-founder and CEO of Snap Inc., the company behind Snapchat, which he started in 2011 while studying product design at Stanford.

Evan Spiegel did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

10 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Evan Spiegel has said — not written or endorsed by them.

  1. Our readingThe next generation of great consumer companies will be born on new form factors like glasses, the way the last one was born on mobile.

    Their wordsas we look forward to, you know, sort of these next generation form factors, things like glasses, there's going to be a whole new set of opportunities and a whole new surface for people to build generational consumer companies.

    ↗How to win when software is not a moat | Evan Spiegel (Snapchat CEO)youtube.com 3rd of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  3. Our readingA platform of creators and developers is a durable moat, because an ecosystem, unlike a feature, cannot be cloned.

    Their wordsthe more that we could build a platform uh around our business, the more that we could build an ecosystem with creators and developers, the harder it would be for folks uh to to just copy that.

    ↗How to win when software is not a moat | Evan Spiegel (Snapchat CEO)youtube.com 5th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  5. Our readingIf you want to have a good idea you have to have lots of ideas, so the velocity of design work matters more than any one idea.

    Their wordsthe velocity of work uh, you know, is really important because our favorite saying is, you know, if you want to have a good idea, you have to have lots of ideas.

    ↗How to win when software is not a moat | Evan Spiegel (Snapchat CEO)youtube.com 12th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  7. Our readingYou have to talk to customers and share your ideas as early and as often as possible, even though you need not take their advice.

    Their wordsI would say uh, you have to talk to customers. You have to share your idea. You should share your ideas quickly as possible, as frequently as possible. Uh, it doesn't mean you need to take people's advice or feedback, but it's really important, I think, to listen.

    ↗How to win when software is not a moat | Evan Spiegel (Snapchat CEO)youtube.com 13th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  9. Our readingListening to customers is invaluable, but you should not build the thing they asked you for.

    Their wordsAll of those insights that we you know, received just from listening to folks made a huge difference in the product design process, but we didn't build exactly what they asked for. We we empathized and then you know, came up with something new.

    ↗How to win when software is not a moat | Evan Spiegel (Snapchat CEO)youtube.com 14th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  11. Our readingDesigners, not product managers, should own product direction, and a company can go a long way with designers doing the PM work themselves.

    Their wordsin the early days, my view was not that we don't need PMs. My view was that designers should do that work.

    ↗How to win when software is not a moat | Evan Spiegel (Snapchat CEO)youtube.com 15th of 22 in this recording

    product management

    Interesting

  13. Our readingDesign should be an intentional bottleneck every shipped thing has to pass through, because that is what makes a product cohere.

    Their wordsfor us design actually has always operated as like a bottleneck at the company, which is incredibly important, right? It's intentional that things need to be approved by design to ship.

    ↗How to win when software is not a moat | Evan Spiegel (Snapchat CEO)youtube.com 16th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  15. Our readingRange, not a distinctive style, is what separates a designer from an artist, so a portfolio where everything looks alike is a bad sign.

    Their wordsDesign is really about, you know, empathizing with your customer, empathizing with your audience, your viewer, whoever it is, and then building something that will really resonates with them. And And that means you need to have a an extraordinary amount of range.

    ↗How to win when software is not a moat | Evan Spiegel (Snapchat CEO)youtube.com 18th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  17. Our readingPreciousness about ideas is what holds designers back; if you are producing a thousand ideas it does not matter that most of them are bad.

    Their wordswhen you're creating a thousand new ideas, who cares if most of them are not great ideas? That's totally fine, right? What we want to get rid of is that sense of, you know, preciousness that people have around ideas

    ↗How to win when software is not a moat | Evan Spiegel (Snapchat CEO)youtube.com 19th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  19. Our readingListing out your jobs to be done is how a company brings order to AI, because it shows exactly where an agent belongs and what it should improve.

    Their wordsby listing out all these jobs to be done, you know, really for the for the community journey and for advertisers as well, it became very clear where we could use agents, where we needed to be very focused in terms of building cross-functional teams around those jobs supported by AI tools.

    ↗How to win when software is not a moat | Evan Spiegel (Snapchat CEO)youtube.com 20th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting