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Embarrassing Ex-Employee Complaint Against Snapchat Unsealed (variety.com)
"Saying it had 'nothing to hide,' the company behind Snapchat released an unredacted version of a lawsuit filed against it by a former employee that claims investors and advertisers were misled about usage data." And one allegation -- about a meeting with the company's 25-year-old CEO about flawed user metrics and low adoption in India in Spain -- is particularly embarrassing.
Pompliano, who had just been hired away from Facebook, contends that he presented methods to address the issue, but that Evan Spiegel, the company's CEO, abruptly cut him off. "This app is only for rich people," Spiegel said, according to Pompliano. "I don't want to expand into poor countries like India and Spain"... Pompliano claims that Spiegel then met with two other executives and determined that "Mr. Pompliano presented a risk to Snapchat's IPO."
It may have been a flip remark, but the lawsuit also alleges two data analysts confided to Pompliano that Snapchat had "an institutional aversion to looking at user data," where its efforts showed "utter incompetence". The former employee -- who was fired after three weeks -- alleges that Snapchat inflated the rate of completed registrations and the number of users who stayed longer than seven days.
Snap originally said the lawsuit should remain redacted because it contained damaging trade secrets that would help its competitors, but now Snap attorneys are accusing Pompliano and his attorneys of "just making things up... The simple fact is that he knows exactly nothing about Snap's current metrics." Variety reports that Pompliano's attorney "said that Snap withdrew its effort to seal the complaint because the company knew it would lose."
It may have been a flip remark, but the lawsuit also alleges two data analysts confided to Pompliano that Snapchat had "an institutional aversion to looking at user data," where its efforts showed "utter incompetence". The former employee -- who was fired after three weeks -- alleges that Snapchat inflated the rate of completed registrations and the number of users who stayed longer than seven days.
Snap originally said the lawsuit should remain redacted because it contained damaging trade secrets that would help its competitors, but now Snap attorneys are accusing Pompliano and his attorneys of "just making things up... The simple fact is that he knows exactly nothing about Snap's current metrics." Variety reports that Pompliano's attorney "said that Snap withdrew its effort to seal the complaint because the company knew it would lose."
The CEO is a 25 year old, ignorant, narcissistic millennial. What did you expect?
We don't know what the CEO said. Only what one person claims he said.
Should he bother expanding into, say, the United States? Because the average American is "poorer" than the average Spaniard, or any EU citizen for that matter. (don't invoke your GDP per capita, the wealth of the 1% has no bearing on the life of the 99%)
You realize that there are millions of Americans who are literally dirt poor, right? Or are you just as ignorant as this "fuck you I got mine" American we're laughing about right now?
There's nothing embarrassing about not wanting to go into certain places. Chances are very good any company you can think of actively excludes themselves where things don't fit their business model.
Decisions based on where to offer services are based on demographics, target market, legal landscape, logistics, potential profits and so on. Chances are senior leadership is already going to be aware of their target market and probably doesn't need to do in-depth market analysis to realize certain countries don't make sense. In other words they can dismiss a country with half a second in thought - and be right.
Now if you want something that actually is embarrassing - we can talk about their data analytics.