VANISHING ACT

five years ago, snapchat’s evan Spiegel, then 23, guffawed from the cover of our 30 Under 30 issue (January 20, 2014). Forbes reported that he and cofounder bobby Murphy had just turned down a $3 billion acquisition offer from facebook for their revenue-free disappearing-photo app. rather than cash in, spiegel used his product power and his hubris—both amply detailed in our story—to build a service that, for a time, made facebook sweat. by the start of 2014, snapchat had as many daily uploads as facebook and instagram combined, and by 2016 it had more than 150 million daily users. in that latter year, though, instagram began to mimic core snapchat features and steadily boosted its facebook-powered ad business, while snap (as the company is now known) struggled to monetize. its stock has fallen nearly 80% since its March 2017 iPo, and unforced errors haven’t helped: snapchat’s spiegel-spurred 2018 redesign was a flop, and the billionaire’s aloof management style has reportedly contributed to a deluge of executive departures into 2019. last october, snap warned investors its shrinking user base (186 million, down from a peak of 191 million) will—poof!—continue to decline.