Despite financial problems, Snap Inc. will remain independent and will not seek to be acquired, swears CEO Evan Spiegel

A week after the announcement of mass layoffs and the start of a major corporate restructuring, Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel said the social media company is committed to remaining independent and resisting any offer.

“When I look at the long-term opportunities in our business, I really think they are huge. I think we’re a long way from reaching our full potential, “the co-founder of Snapchat’s parent company said in a 30-minute speech at the Code Conference in Los Angeles.” Over time, the stock price has gone up and down, but we have tried to stay focused on delivering real value to shareholders since our IPO [in 2017], I think we have increased revenue 10x. … We have doubled the size of the community. We think these things are really important ”.

Snap last week announced the layoff of 20% of its workforce, along with drastic cost-cutting measures. After a poor quarterly financial report, the company’s shares fell over the summer and continued their decline through 2022, knocking down its valuation by two-thirds. Spiegel acknowledged that recovering the company’s market cap from its current $ 19 billion level will be a difficult process. “Looking at macroeconomics, we don’t see much to be optimistic about,” he said.

Recode co-founder Kara Swisher, who is finishing a 20-year term at the conference, was joined on stage by NYU author and professor Scott Galloway for the Spiegel poll.

Although the recovery process “will be difficult” because Snap is “smaller than these other big companies,” Spiegel insisted that an easier exit through the acquisition is not in the plans. “These other large companies also started out as small companies,” noted the CEO. “They asked a lot of the same questions about the competition, they asked a lot of the same questions about revenue growth. They faced a lot of instability and a lot of challenges. This is the difficulty of building an independent business. but I think so far [Snap co-founder Bobby Murphy] And I think the best way to realize our long-term potential is to create an independent company.

By abandoning activities such as original content and flying drones, the company plans to focus more on improving AI-powered direct response advertising products, among other core initiatives. Not everything is included in the metaversion. “We think most people will spend time in the real world,” Spiegel said. “How can we improve this?”

The current third quarter is on track for revenue growth of 8%, Spiegel said, compared to a growth rate of 44% in 2022. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, the spiral of inflation and the House Price Rising Power, among other factors, has hit Snap, Spiegel said, but its 350 million daily active user base is a key component.

When asked about the forays into TikTok, whose rise has destabilized the entire social media industry, Spiegel said he created unique challenges due to his corporate structure. The privately owned China-based company (ByteDance) has provided TikTok with tremendous resources to grow its presence. “It wasn’t about innovation, it was about subsidizing large-scale consumer acquisition around the world,” Spiegel said.