Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel gave an interview in which he stated that distribution is more important than product. Distribution is the new moat against competitors.

Snapchat is virtually unknown in Russia, but is a popular social network in the US, India, France, and several other European countries. Snapchat invented Stories, swipe navigation, and AR filters, which all other social networks cloned.


In 2026, creating a product is not a problem. Neural networks will build an MVP in a day. But distribution is a dystopia (literal translation). Users almost never download new apps. The average user downloads 0.5 apps per month.

💡 3 tips from Evan:

— Don't listen to users literally. They asked for a "Send to all" button, but got Stories. Empathy is more important than surveys. Spiegel visited users at home and spent hours talking about their lives with their phones.

— Ecosystem is armor. Code can be copied overnight, but a network of millions of creators never. The salvation is new platforms that will replace smartphones. According to Evan, such a platform is AR glasses.

— Human-centered AI. AI should take over routine tasks (tests, bugs, code) so that humans remain the "conductor" of meaning. AI at Snapchat is not a replacement for people, but an accelerator of creativity, especially for designers. Spiegel tells how a team of 9-12 people now uses neural networks to generate prototype code and UI elements, reducing the cycle from idea to test from weeks to hours.

It's not the most technologically advanced that survives, but the one who creates a platform that cannot be copied with simple code.

P.S. Evan forbids his children from having smartphones until age 16.

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