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Co-founding Snapchat at Stanford in 2011, Spiegel introduced ephemeral messaging and AR filters to mainstream social media — inventions copied by every major competitor — while building a public company whose AR lenses have been used billions of times.
Evan Spiegel is the Co-Founder and CEO of Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, the multimedia messaging app that introduced ephemeral messaging and augmented reality filters to the mainstream.
Spiegel co-founded Snapchat in 2011 while a student at Stanford University, and the app quickly became one of the most popular social platforms among younger demographics. Snap went public in 2017 and has pioneered innovations in augmented reality, with its AR lenses being used billions of times. Spiegel has been one of the most prominent advocates for the camera as a communication device and for AR as the future of computing. Snap's innovations including Stories (a format later adopted by Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube), Discover (a media platform), and Spectacles (AR glasses) have influenced the entire social media industry. Spiegel became one of the youngest billionaires in the world and has been named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 and Fortune's 40 Under 40. His vision for visual communication and AR continues to shape social technology.
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