How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars

by Billy Gallagher

  Morris, Betsy and Seetharaman, Deepa. “The New Copycats: How Facebook Squashes Competition From Startups.” Wall Street Journal, August 9, 2017. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-copycats-how-facebook-squashes-competition-from-startups-1502293444

  Perlberg, Steven, and Deepa Seetharaman. “Facebook Signs Deals with Media Companies, Celebrities for Facebook Live.” Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2016. https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-signs-deals-with-media-companies-celebrities-for-facebook-live-1466533472

  Pierce, David. “Facebook Live Video Is Facebook at Its Most Facebook.” Wired, December 4, 2015. https://www.wired.com/2015/12/facebook-live-video-is-facebook-at-its-most-facebook/

  Snap Inc. “Snap Inc. Form S-1.” US Securities and Exchange Commission, February 2, 2017. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1564408/000119312517029199/d270216ds1.htm

  Wagner, Kurt. “Snapchat Hires Exec Who Ran Facebook’s Ad Network.” Recode, February 29, 2016. https://www.recode.net/2016/2/29/11588316/snapchat-hires-exec-who-ran-facebooks-ad-network

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Snap Inc.

  Carman, Ashley. “Snapchat Will Let You Buy Temporary, On-Demand Geofilters for Your Next Party.” Verge, February 22, 2016. https://www.theverge.com/2016/2/22/11092406/snapchat-rent-custom-geofilter-launch

  ________. “Snapchat Is Killing Its Lens Store.” Verge, January 6, 2016. https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/6/10722868/snapchat-lens-store-shutdown

  Constine, Josh. “Snapchat Seamlessly Combines Video, Audio, GIFs, Stickers in ‘Chat 2.0.’” TechCrunch, March 29, 2016. https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/29/snapphone/

  Dave, Paresh. “Snapchat Turns Geofilter Digital Stickers into Revenue Source.” Los Angeles Times, June 15, 2015. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-0613-snapchat-geofilters-20150616-story.html

  Del Rey, Jason, and Kurt Wagner. “Shopping Is Coming to Snapchat, Board Member Joanna Coles Says.” Recode, February 17, 2016. https://www.recode.net/2016/2/17/11587960/shopping-is-coming-to-snapchat-board-member-joanna-coles-says

  Dotan, Tom, and Amir Efrati. “Snapchat Explores New Scannable Ads.” The Information, August 2, 2016. https://www.theinformation.com/snapchat-explores-new-scannable-ads

  Hamedy, Saba. “You Can Now Buy Your ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ Tickets on Snapchat.” Mashable, May 23, 2016. http://mashable.com/2016/05/23/x-men-apocalypse-snapchat-takeover/

  Heath, Alex. “Snapchat Comes under Fire for ‘Digital Blackface’ Filter That Turns You into Bob Marley.” Business Insider, April 20, 2016. http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-faces-backlash-for-bob-marley-filter-2016-4

  Heath, Alex. “The cult of Evan: What life is like inside Snap right now” Business Insider, August 1, 2017. http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-employees-prepare-sell-stock-lock-up-ipo-2017-7

  Isaac, Mike. “AMC Unveils ‘Preacher’ Clip on Snapchat.” New York Times, May 16, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/business/media/amc-unveils-preacher-clip-on-snapchat.html

  Johnson, Lauren. “Taco Bell’s Cinco de Mayo Snapchat Lens Was Viewed 224 Million Times.” Ad Week, May 11, 2016. http://www.adweek.com/digital/taco-bells-cinco-de-mayo-snapchat-lens-was-viewed-224-million-times-171390/

  Kokalitcheva, Kia. “Cosmopolitan’s Editor-In-Chief Joins Snapchat’s Board.” Fortune, January 26, 2016. http://fortune.com/2016/01/26/snapchat-joanna-coles/

  Primack, Dan. “Exclusive: Snapchat Buys Bitmoji Maker.” Fortune, March 24, 2016. http://fortune.com/2016/03/24/exclusive-snapchat-buys-bitmoji-maker/

  Shields, Mike. “Publishers Flock to New Instagram Stories.” Wall Street Journal, August 12, 2016. https://www.wsj.com/articles/publishers-flock-to-new-instagram-stories-1470999602

  Snap Inc. “Snap Inc. Form S-1.” US Securities and Exchange Commission, February 2, 2017. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1564408/000119312517029199/d270216ds1.htm

  Stevenson, Seth. “Snapchat Releases First Hardware Product, Spectacles.” Wall Street Journal, September 24, 2016. https://www.wsj.com/articles/snapchat-releases-first-hardware-product-spectacles-1474682719

  Swisher, Kara, and Walt Mossberg. “Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel on Diversity, Features for the Olds and More at Code Conference 2015.” Recode, June 8, 2015. https://www.recode.net/2015/6/8/11563322/snapchat-ceo-evan-spiegel-on-diversity-features-for-the-olds-and-more

  Thompson, Ben. “Snapchat’s Ladder.” Stratechery, March 30, 2016. https://stratechery.com/2016/snapchats-ladder/

  Wagner, Kurt. “Inside Evan Spiegel’s Very Private Snapchat Story.” Recode, May 9, 2016. https://www.recode.net/2016/5/9/11594144/evan-spiegel-snapchat

  ________. “Snapchat Hires Longtime Pandora Executive Tom Conrad as VP of Product.” Recode, March 15, 2016. https://www.recode.net/2016/3/15/11587006/snapchat-hires-longtime-pandora-exec-tom-conrad-as-vp-of-product

  ________. “Snapchat’s New Money-Maker: Discover Channels for Advertisers.” Recode, October 26, 2015. https://www.recode.net/2015/10/26/11620050/snapchats-new-money-maker-discover-channels-for-advertisers

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Spectacles

  Connolly, Kevin. “Snapshot Affair: The Enduring Power of the Polaroid.” BBC, June 22, 2010. http://www.bbc.com/news/10355526

  Dave, Paresh. “Snapchat Has Changed through Acquisitions, and It’s Hunting for More People and Tech to Buy.” Los Angeles Times, May 10, 2017. http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-snapchat-acquisitions-20170510-htmlstory.html

  ________. “Exclusive Interview: How Snapchat Founder Evan Spiegel Feels after the Historic IPO.” Los Angeles Times, March 2, 2017. http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-evan-spiegel-bobby-murphy-20170302-story.html

  Evans, Benedict. “Imaging, Snapchat and Mobile.” Benedict Evans, August 15, 2016. http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2016/8/15/imaging-snapchat-and-mobile

  Farrell, Maureen, and Corrie Driebusch. “Snap’s IPO Roadshow Message: We’re the Next Facebook, Not the Next Twitter.” Wall Street Journal, December 29, 2016. https://www.wsj.com/articles/snaps-ipo-roadshow-message-were-the-next-facebook-not-the-next-twitter-1483007406

  Flynn, Kerry. “Snapchat Spectacles Latest Vending Machine Drops in Los Angeles.” Mashable, December 1, 2016. http://mashable.com/2016/12/01/snapbot-spectacles-/#hKfNS8KrXSq9

  Frier, Sarah. “Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage.” Bloomberg, June 2, 2016. https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/2016/06/02/snapchat-passes-twitter-in-daily-usage

  Singer, Daniel. “A Real Teen’s Take on Snapchat’s Hot New Spectacles.” TechCrunch, November 14, 2016. https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/14/a-real-teens-take-on-snapchats-hot-new-spectacles/

  Swisher, Kara, and Walt Mossberg. “Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel on Diversity, Features for the Olds and More at Code Conference 2015.” Recode, June 8, 2015. https://www.recode.net/2015/6/8/11563322/snapchat-ceo-evan-spiegel-on-diversity-features-for-the-olds-and-more

  Additional Sources

  While researching and writing this book, I also found the following books helpful:

  Bilton, Nick. Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal. New York: Portfolio, 2013.

  boyd, danah. It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014.

  Burrough, Bryan, and John Helyar. Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco. New York: Harper and Row, 1990.

  Carlson, Nicholas. Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo! New York: Twelve, 2015.

  Christensen, Clayton M. The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Brighton, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 1997.

  Fagan, Kate. What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2017.

  Gottschall, Jonathan. The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012.

  Grove, Andrew S. Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company. New York: Doubleday, 1996.

  Harris
, Blake J. Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation. New York: It Books, 2014.

  Isaacson, Walter. Steve Jobs. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011.

  Knight, Phil. Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike. New York: Scribner, 2016.

  Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York: Anchor, 1995.

  Lowenstein, Roger. When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management. New York: Random House, 2000.

  Martinez, Antonio Garcia. Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley. New York: HarperCollins, 2016.

  Mezrich, Ben. The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook; A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal. New York: Anchor Books, 2010.

  Miller, James Andrew. Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood’s Creative Artists Agency. New York: Custom House, 2016.

  Miller, James Andrew, and Tom Shales. Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2011.

  ________. Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told by Its Stars, Writers, and Guests. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2016.

  Moritz. Michael. Return to the Little Kingdom: How Apple and Steve Jobs Changed the World. New York: Overlook Press, 2009.

  Reis, Eric. The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. New York: Crown Business, 2011.

  Roose, Kevin. Young Money: Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street’s Post-Crash Recruits. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2014.

  Rose, Todd. The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World That Values Sameness. New York: HarperOne, 2016.

  Schlender, Brent, and Rick Tetzeli. Becoming Steve Jobs. New York: Crown Business, 2015.

  Sorkin, Andrew Ross. Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—and Themselves. New York: Viking, 2009.

  Stone, Brad. The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2013.

  ________. The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2017.

  Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. New York: Random House, 2007.

  Thompson, Derek. Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction. New York: Penguin, 2017.

  Tzu, Sun. The Art of War. date unknown; https://www.amazon.com/Art-War-Sun-Tzu/dp/1599869772/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1501497433&sr=1-1&keywords=the+art+of+war

  Vance, Ashlee. Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. New York: HarperCollins, 2015.

  Walsh, Bill, Steve Jamison, and Craig Walsh. The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership. New York: Portfolio, 2009.

  Walton, Sam. Sam Walton: Made in America. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

  Wu, Tim. The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get inside Our Heads. New York: Knopf, 2016.

  INDEX

  The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

  Academy Awards

  Accel Partners

  “acquihire” startup practice

  Acton, Brian

  AddLive

  Adler, Ike

  Adler, Manny

  Airbnb

  Amazon

  Anderson, Tom

  Andreessen Horowitz

  Android

  Angry Birds

  AOL Instant Messenger (AIM)

  API (Application Programming Interface)

  Apple

  “1984” ad

  app revenue

  and IBM

  iMessage

  investments in

  iPhone

  iPod

  iTunes

  and Picaboo

  Silicon Valley headquarters

  stores

  and user activity

  See also Jobs, Steve

  Apple Music

  Apple Pay

  Apple Watch

  Arora, Nikesh

  Art of War, The (Sun Tzu)

  Auletta, Ken

  Bell, Nick

  Benchmark Partners

  Benioff, Mark

  Bezos, Jeff

  Bieber, Justin

  Bilton, Nick

  Binoculars Building

  Bitstrips

  BlackBerry

  BlackBerry Messenger (BBM)

  Blaine, David

  Bonanos, Christopher

  Bonatsos, Niko

  boyd, danah

  brand advertising

  Breaking Bad (television series)

  BroBible (website)

  Brown, Reggie

  “Blue Suit” nickname

  at Duke

  and Kappa Sigma

  lawsuit

  origins of Snapchat

  personality and temperament

  and Picaboo

  at Stanford

  Browning, Phillippe

  BuzzFeed

  Byron, Katy

  Cameron, David

  Caraeff, Rio

  Carter, Clarence

  Chang, Chi-Chao

  Charles River Ventures

  Cheever, Charlie

  Christensen, Clayton

  Chubbies

  Cisco Systems

  Clinkle

  Clinton, Hillary

  CNN

  Coca Cola

  Cohler, Matt

  Colao, J. J.

  Colbert, Stephen

  Coles, Joanna

  Collins, Jim

  Comedy Central

  Conrad, Tom

  Constine, Josh

  content management system (CMS)

  Cook, Scott

  Cooley LLP

  Cornelius, Robert

  Crook, Jordan

  Crossroads School (Santa Monica)

  Cruz, Ted

  Cuban, Mark

  Cutler, Joel

  Cyborgology (social sciences blog)

  Daly, Carson

  Davis, Baron

  DeGeneres, Ellen

  digital dualism

  Disney

  DJ Khaled

  Dorsey, Jack

  Dr. Miami (Michael Salzhauer)

  Drimal, Chloe

  Dropbox

  Dubie, Jack

  Duplan, Lucas

  Dutch Goose (Menlo Park sports bar)

  eBay

  Ebersman, David

  Eggers, Barry

  Electronic Arts

  Entourage (television series)

  ESPN

  Etchemendy, John

  E*Trade

  Facebook

  demographics of users

  innovation and

  Instagram purchased by

  interest in Snapchat

  launch of

  lawsuits

  Messenger

  Onavo purchased by

  Poke app

  Silicon Valley headquarters

  Slingshot app

  Snapchat as rebellion against

  Snapchat compared with

  Thiel and

  WhatsApp purchased by

  Winklevoss lawsuit

  See also Zuckerberg, Mark

  Fagan, Kate

  Fairchild Semiconductor

  Farley, Thomas

  Federal Telegraph

  Fenton, Peter

  financial crisis of 2008

  Flickr

  Flurry (analytics platform)

  Founders Fund

  Fox Studios

  funding and investment

  Series A

  Series B

  Series C

  Series D

  Future Freshman

  Gallucci, Dena
/>   Gates, Bill

  Gatorade

  Gawker

  Gee, Garrett

  Gehry, Frank

  General Catalyst Partners

  geofilters

  Gibson Security

  Goddard, Julieanna. See YesJulz (Julieanna Goddard)

  Goldroom

  Goldwyn, Emily

  Good Luck America (election show)

  Google

  app revenue

  Googleplex

  IPO

  Los Angeles office

  privacy and

  Snapchat compared with

  user activity and

  See also Schmidt, Eric

  Google AdWords

  Google Circles

  Google Glass

  Google Maps

  Google Ventures

  Grande, Greg

  Green, Diane

  Greylock Partners

  group messaging

  Hamburger, Ellis

  Hamby, Peter

  Hastings, Reed

  Hatmaker, Taylor

  Hawkins, Billy

  Hazelbaker, Jill

  Hewlett-Packard

  Honan, Mat

  Hurley, Chad

  Hwang, Sharon

  Hwang, Steve

  Hyland, Sarah

  Hyperloop Technologies

  IBM

  Innovator’s Dilemma, The (Christensen)

  Instagram

  Arsenic and

  demographics of users

  Facebook purchase of

  Instagram Stories

  investors and funding

  launch of

  Snapchat compared with

  Snapcodes and

  Institutional Venture Partners

  Intel

  Interview, The (film)

  Intuit

  iOS

  James, Nicole

  Jenner, Kylie

  Jobs, Steve

  Jordan, David Starr

  Joss, Bob

  Jurgenson, Nathan

  Justin.tv (Justin Kan)

  Kan, Justin. See Justin.tv (Justin Kan)

  Kerr, Miranda

  Khan, Imran

  Kinney, Abbott

  Knight, Phil

  Kravitz, David

  Krishnan, Sriram

  Kundera, Milan

  Land, Edwin

  Landrieu, Mitch

  Lane, Randall

  Lasky, Mitch

  Lee, James

  Lee Tran & Liang

  Leica camera

  Li, Frank

  Lieberman, Tressie

  Liew, Jeremy

  Life Time Value (LTV)

  Lightspeed Venture Partners

  Line (messaging app)