After Meeting Mark Zuckerberg, Snapchat's CEO Immediately Bought Every Employee A Copy Of 'The Art Of War'

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Evan Spiegel

Flickr via JDLasica

Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel

Ever since Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel turned down Facebook's $3 billion offer to buy his app Snapchat, the tech world has been watching to see what's next for the ephemeral photo app.

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Forbes published a lengthy profile on Snapchat, which included how Spiegel and Zuckerberg first met.

Zuckerberg flew to L.A. where Snapchat is based for a meeting with Spiegel.

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At the meeting, Zuckerberg tried to coax out the plans for Snapchat, then announced to that he'd be debuting Poke, a mobile app for sharing photos and making them disappear...not at all dissimilar to Snapchat.

Zuckerberg clearly wanted to cover the market for here-and-gone photo apps, but Spiegel turned him down.

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When Spiegel left Zuckerberg, he immediately returned to Snapchat's headquarters and ordered Sun Tzu's "The Art Of War" for each of the Snapchat employees.

Forbes notes that Chapter 6 of "The Art Of War" specifically addresses the need to attack an enemy where and when he displays weakness. Instead of giving in and selling, Spiegel and co-founder Bobby Murphy aimed to "upend the social media hierarchy, armed with a $50 million war chest raised in December at a lower (but still heady) valuation of just under $2 billion."

Poke went on to debut on December 21, but only briefly ruled the charts in Apple's App Store before Snapchat was once again was in the lead.