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The fabulous life of Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, the youngest billionaire in the worldhttps://www.businessinsider.in/the-fabulous-life-of-snap-ceo-evan-spiegel-the-youngest-billionaire-in-the-world/spiegel-grew-up-in-the-pacific-palisades-a-ritzy-los-angeles-enclave-just-east-of-malibu-he-is-the-oldest-son-of-two-ivy-league-educated-attorneys-his-parents-divorced-when-he-was-in-high-school-/slidelist/56362002.cms2017-01-05T23:28:22+05:30

The fabulous life of Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, the youngest billionaire in the world

Jan 5, 2017, 23:28 IST

Spiegel grew up in the Pacific Palisades, a ritzy Los Angeles enclave just east of Malibu. He is the oldest son of two Ivy League-educated attorneys. His parents divorced when he was in high school.

When Spiegel turned 16 and got his driver's license, he was given a 2006 Cadillac Escalade, which he parked in the gated Southern California Edison parking lot next to his school. Spiegel's father represented Edison during the energy crisis.

Spiegel spent his early years at an ultra-exclusive school called Crossroads in Santa Monica, which costs tens of thousands per academic year. Other notable alumni include Tinder cofounder Sean Rad, Kate Hudson, Jonah Hill, Jack Black, and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Around the time that he landed a marketing internship with Red Bull, Spiegel decided that he wanted a more fuel-efficient car to drive around the city in. In a letter from 2008, Spiegel asked his parents to lease him a BMW 550i, which retails for about $75,000. "Cars bring me sheer joy," he wrote. "I would really appreciate you validating me and all of my hard work by leasing the BMW."

The Spiegels were members of a number of exclusive clubs, including the Jonathan Club in Santa Monica and the La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club. They often went on trips to Europe, employed a full-time housekeeper, and even went snowboarding by helicopter in Canada. "We live in a bubble," Evan wrote in the letter asking for the BMW.

Spiegel went on to study product design at Stanford (his father's alma mater), where he met future Snapchat cofounders Reggie Brown and Bobby Murphy.

"We weren't cool," Murphy later told Forbes. "So we tried to build things to be cool."

The three were members of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. Spiegel was social chair, and judging from leaked emails, he was quite the partier.

While at Stanford, a friend of the family let Spiegel sit in on a graduate-level class on entrepreneurship and venture capital. In that class he heard talks from tech luminaries like Google CEO Eric Schmidt YouTube cofounder Chad Hurley.

Spiegel befriended Intuit CEO Scott Cook after he gave a talk at one class. Cook ended up letting Spiegel work on a product Intuit planned to release in India while he worked on his undergrad.

Spiegel dropped out of Stanford just a few credits short of graduation to work on Snapchat full-time. The team developed the bulk of the disappearing messages app, which was first called Picaboo, in 2012 while headquartered at Spiegel's dad's house in the Palisades.

Though Snapchat eventually moved to offices on the Venice boardwalk, Spiegel lived at his dad's house for years, in part because "the rent is cheap."

Spiegel moved out of his dad's house in November 2014 and bought his own three-bedroom house in Brentwood for $3.3 million.

It wasn't long before would-be acquirers came knocking on Spiegel's door to buy Snapchat. He famously rebuffed a $3 billion offer from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2013.

As Snapchat's user base and valuation continued to swell, Spiegel quickly became a bona fide celebrity in the worlds of tech and media. Here he is hanging out with George Lucas and Vice CEO Shane Smith during the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit in October 2014.

After Snapchat completed a big funding round in June 2015, Spiegel bought himself a Ferrari.

Spiegel was romantically linked with pop superstar Taylor Swift for a brief time. The two reportedly met in December 2013 at a New Years Eve party.

Spiegel has been fascinated with the music industry for years, and Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton is a longtime Snapchat board member. Spiegel was reportedly interested in buying Big Machine, the record label that represents Swift, though the deal never went through.

Spiegel started dating supermodel Miranda Kerr during the summer of 2015. They first met at a dinner for Louis Vuitton in Los Angeles.

In May 2016, the couple purchased a 7,164-square-foot house that had been owned by Harrison Ford for $12 million.

Things moved quickly after that: the power couple announced that they were engaged in July 2016.

Spiegel cares about fashion more than most tech CEOs. He made headlines in October 2015 for appearing on the cover of Vogue Italy.

He's a licensed helicopter pilot who also enjoys flower arranging. His signature shirt is a James Perse white v-neck, which retails for $60.

In September 2016, Spiegel renamed Snapchat to Snap Inc. and called it a "camera company." He also unveiled camera-equipped sunglasses called Spectacles.

Spiegel highly values secrecy in his business dealings as well as his personal life. Snap employees often don't know about products the company is working on until they're announced publicly.

He often moves across the company’s network of Venice Beach outposts in a black car flanked by his security detail.

When he acquired a small startup called Vergence Labs to help create Spectacles, the startup's employees weren't allowed to acknowledge that they worked for Spiegel until the deal leaked online.

Spiegel is revered by many as a product visionary and genius who knows what young people want. One person close to him even likened him to Picasso.

The 26-year-old has been named the youngest billionaire in the world by Forbes for the past two years. He has an estimated net worth of $2.1 billion.

As he prepares to take his company public in 2017 at a $20 billion valuation, his pitch to investors will reportedly compare him to Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs.

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