Who was the CEO of Snap Inc. when it went public in March 2017?

Evan Spiegel was Snap Inc.’s CEO when the company went public in March 2017. Spiegel co-founded Snapchat in 2011 with Bobby Murphy while the pair were students at Stanford University; Murphy became Snap’s chief technology officer and another key executive, not its CEO.

Snap Inc. listed its shares on the New York Stock Exchange on March 2, 2017, under the ticker SNAP. The offering priced at $17 per share, and the stock opened at $24, giving the camera-and-messaging company a market value far above its earlier private-market valuations.

The IPO also highlighted Snap’s unusual share structure: public investors received non-voting shares, leaving founders Spiegel and Murphy with exceptional control. Mark Zuckerberg is associated with Facebook, and Kevin Systrom co-founded Instagram, so neither was Snap’s chief executive. Spiegel remained CEO as Snapchat’s parent company adopted the Snap Inc. name in 2016.