Tag: snapchat

Adding AI to Snapchat might be a disaster

Companies hoping to push AI as a product enhancement should take a step or two of caution as new figures show that it might cost Snapchat a lot of customers.

Searches for ‘delete Snapchat’ exploded 488 per cent as controversial My AI feature is introduced to every account.

Cyber security consultants CloudTech24 found that online interest in the term ‘delete Snapchat’ has skyrocketed over five times the average in the last three months. Searches for ‘how to delete Snapchat account’ have also risen 70 per cent worldwide over the last week, and the hashtag #SnapchatAI currently has over 180 million views on TikTok.

Snapchat CEO wanted $40 million behind the scenes

Evan_Spiegel,_founder_of_Snapchat The Sony hacking has revealed that Snapchat, and its CEO Evan Spiegel might have been involved in trying to get himself some lucrative deals involving secondary shares in the company.

According to Business Insider  the inbox of Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton was exposed by the hackers. Lynton is a Snapchat board member, and the emails from him to another Snapchat board member Mitch Lasky of Benchmark Capital are exposed.

In November of 2013, the pair suggested that Spiegel may have tried to get $40 million flogging secondary shares of his company.  Secondary shares give company insiders some of an investor’s money in exchange for stock.

On October 31 at 2:43, Lasky wrote that Spiegel proposed a new deal today to Tencent that includes $40 million in secondary shares for him. Lasky was cross he was never told about it.

At the time, Snapchat had rejected an acquisition offer from Facebook. New emails confirm the offer was over $3 billion.

Snapchat never raised money from Tencent. It was reportedly in talks to raise $200 million. Tencent was a previous investor. And Spiegel had previously taken $10 million for him and his cofounder off the table.

Snapchat raised $50 million a month later from Coatue, a hedge fund with offices in New York and Silicon Valley. Its Silicon Valley offices are on Sand Hill road, right next to Andreessen Horowitz, and the rest of tech’s elite venture capitalists.

We will never know if Spiegel and his cofounder ever got their $40 million.