Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel On His Business: 'This S--- Is Hard’

Snapchat has captured the attention of over 100 million active users and is increasingly popular as a platform for media companies, major advertising agencies and celebrities. At the helm of the four-year-old company, which is valued at $15 billion and is home to 330 employees, is a precocious 24-year-old named Evan Spiegel.

Bloomberg’s Brad Stone sat down with Spiegel for a 90-minute interview at Snapchat’s headquarters in Venice, California. The CEO has been known to rarely take such extensive interviews let alone provide a statement. Why?

“I’ve been working,” Spiegel told Bloomberg. “This s--- is hard!”

Indeed, Spiegel has been touring agencies in New York and Los Angeles, courting media companies like iHeartMedia to join the company’s Discover news network and looking to entice brands to try its new advertising program.

Despite Snapchat’s astounding valuation and rapid success, Spiegel is not shy from admitting his own inexperience. When asked about Snapchat’s broader mission to protect privacy in a social media landscape that includes giants like Facebook and Twitter, where everything is on permanent display, he narrowly defined the company by its original goal -- to share pictures.

“I am 24 years old. We have been doing this for four years. I’m not going to stand up and make a statement that is that ludicrous. We just don’t have the capability to solve that. I’m sorry. We help people share pictures,” Spiegel told Bloomberg.