Snapchat invented everything and owns none of it

Snapchat is such a disappointment.

Now, to be fair, they’re not a failure. 450 million people use it almost every day and the founders are billionaires. Nobody's crying for Evan Spiegel.

But look at the history and you see something strange.

Snapchat invented almost everything that matters in modern social media. Stories. Disappearing messages. Filters.

And they own none of it.

Stories? TikTok and Instagram run that now. Disappearing messages? Apple gives them away for free in iMessage. Filters? Instagram.

Over and over again, they get there first — then somebody else does it better.

They're about to do it again with their AR glasses. I'll tell you exactly what happens. Beautiful hardware, first to market, and then Meta or Apple or Google eats their lunch.

So why is Snapchat the eternal also-ran?

There's one factor underneath all of it.

Snapchat has been run as a dictatorship from day one. Spiegel calls the shots, controls the company, and answers to no one.

And here's the part that gets me. Multiple times, the market told him. His own employees told him. "This decision won't work." The whole company, waving their arms, saying don't do it.

He overruled them and did it anyway.

I’ve never met the guy. I don't know what was going on in his head. But the pattern is hard to miss.

The best leaders I know are the opposite. They're hungry for feedback. When the universe sends them a signal, they actually listen. They'll change their mind.

They’re coachable.

It's the thing I look for in everyone, from hiring to partnerships. And the hardest place to keep it alive is at the very top, where nobody's forcing you to hear it.

Great leaders aren’t the ones with the best ideas. They’re the ones who can learn enough to fix the bad ones.

We could all benefit from being more coachable. So try some exposure therapy:

At your next one-on-one or leadership meeting, ask "What's one thing I'm getting wrong right now that you're hesitant to tell me?"

Then: write it down, say thank you, and shut up. Don’t defend. Don’t explain. Definitely don’t punish them for it.

The first few times, people won't believe you mean it. So keep asking.

Eventually somebody will tell you the truth — and that one answer is worth more than a month of your own thinking.

Thanks,

Michael

P.S. By the way, I've got a thread on asking good questions and staying coachable that goes deeper on this. Here's the link. Steal what's useful.

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