Million dollar idea
Reggie Brown, the third co-founder of Snapchat, went to Stanford with Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy. He claims that he came up with Snapchat's "disappearing photos" core principle, an idea that has since been capitalized on by his classmates and adopted by Instagram. Whether or not that's true will remain a mystery, as the case was settled in the last year. Brown is not listed in the filing as having a stake of 5% or more in Snap (possibly another scandal story on par with "The Social Network"?)
In 2013, Brown filed a lawsuit against Spiegel and Murphy after being forced out of the company without equity.
In the last week, Snap revealed that they gave $157.5 million in cash to settle with Brown, $50 million of which was paid in the first year of 2014 and the other $107.5 million paid in 2016. Brown originally requested a settlement of $500 million. Evan Spiegel claims that Brown "exploited my generosity," whereas Brown's lawsuit claims that Spiegel repeatedly exclaimed that Brown had come up with a "million dollar idea." Spiegel is the world's youngest billionaire at 26.
That million dollar idea was originally called "Picaboo" and Spiegel and Murphy used the concept of disappearing photos for a class project. Although not immediately or enthusiastically received by classmates, the founders perseverance eventually paid off.
Around the same month as the settlement, two young women requested compensation for their early involvement in promotional items for the company. They claim their compensation did not match their pivotal involvement, but Snapchat claims that this lawsuit is without merit.
Snapchat's value
Snapchat has since reportedly filed for an IPO, putting its valuation at $25 billion.
This year, Snap Inc. (the parent to Snapchat), has surpassed Twitter and Pinterest to become the fastest growing social media platform to date. Users are sending 9,000 Snaps per second and 10 billion videos per day. Also this year, Snap capitalized on their Discover feature and settled major deals with companies like the NFL, NBC, and The Wall Street Journal.
