Snapchat CEO’s leaked memo on survival • Hacker News Board

Re: Snapchat CEO’s leaked memo on survival

#131

Post by vkou » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 12:29 AM UTC

xraystyle wrote: post #130

everdev wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's multiple legends of CEOs famously shunning the rational advice of their team and charging down a path they believe in. You're a genius if it works out (ie. Steve Jobs) and second guessed if it doesn't.

The problem here is that Evan isn't Steve Jobs so much as he's just cargo-culting Steve Jobs without really understanding why Jobs was successful. Steve was able to see untapped markets, holes that could be filled by new products, completely different ways of doing things. Most of Apple's biggest successes were had by coming up with something completely new and novel, not by ignoring user feedback when iterating on a…

The iPhone was new and novel in what way, exactly?

It was an iterative improvement on the Blackberry.

Re: Snapchat CEO’s leaked memo on survival

#132

Post by dannyw » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 12:29 AM UTC

kposehn wrote: post #13

Snapchat has failed the test of feature vs. product. Everything that made Snapchat unique is something easily emulated in a myriad of other apps. When you strip away the interface, the only unique part of it was the network/aggregator-effect they have. However, they were much smaller than Instagram and as a result would be fighting an uphill battle with a product that already has the network and could easily duplicat…

I disagree.

Snapchat, at least conceptually to me, is for more private, candid, or even meaningless conversations to close friends. I have very little of a filter on snapchat - and messages and snaps disappearing after a day certainly helps.

Whereas with Instagram, etc, it's about 'showing your best'. There's a layer of artificialness to it.

Unfortunately, literally 90% of my friends left Snapchat after the redesign. This blame can solely and directly be attributed to a brazen CEO.

Re: Snapchat CEO’s leaked memo on survival

#133

Post by Blackthorn » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 12:29 AM UTC

asmithmd1 wrote: post #124

Blackthorn wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do people buy common shares which give them no voting rights as a shareholder? Because you believe in the people who have the voting rights? Let's get real here: for those of us buying stock with voting rights, we don't really have voting rights. The proportion we have is so vanishingly small it's the same as not having voting rights in the first place.

Exactly, Just like democracy is the same as a dictator

Well, in an actual democracy you'd have one person being worth one vote. That certainly doesn't exist where I live (USA), and it doesn't exist with corporate voting shares either (where money = votes), so that analogy is pretty much bunk at the start.

Re: Snapchat CEO’s leaked memo on survival

#134

Post by calimac » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 12:39 AM UTC

iamleppert wrote: post #16

They had a working thing and then ruined it. I’m not sure how they managed to do that with a product change. Didn’t they have a way to release changes and measure impact before just forcing it on their entire user base? Once a company gets to this level, they need to recognize the role that luck played into their original product and design. They hit a resonance with people, and it was probably more luck and timing t…

BINGO!

Re: Snapchat CEO’s leaked memo on survival

#135

Post by dannyw » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 12:41 AM UTC

dhnsmakala wrote: post #117

I am just surprised that a publicly traded, multi-billion dollar company either did not think to A/B test major changes to the product or did not know how to properly conduct A/B testing. I assumed every one of the top apps/websites did this automatically, but I guess I was wrong.

They certainly did, but reports are that the CEO overruled the data and even multiple internal efforts against the change.

Re: Snapchat CEO’s leaked memo on survival

#136

Post by lysp » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 12:46 AM UTC

One of the reasons they had the mass exodus of the celebrity / influencer content makers was due to statistics.

On "Instagram Insights" you can see: Interactions of the last 7 days, profile visits, email clicks, reach, impressions.

Also in-depth demographics by your audience as well: city/country breakdown, age range, age range by gender, gender percentage, followers per hour and per day.

And get similar statistics / demographics for all images and stories you post.

If you were paying someone to promote content - these help justify payments made for content.

Compare to snap with the stat of: "I have 10k follows" and that's it.

Marketers want to know they are getting value for money, so need these to help justify paying someone for promotions/ads.

eg. http://musemarketinggroup.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/insi...

Re: Snapchat CEO’s leaked memo on survival

#137

Post by dang » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 12:59 AM UTC

throwaway901234 wrote: post #28

[flagged]

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18161289 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Snapchat CEO’s leaked memo on survival

#138

Post by grkvlt » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 1:23 AM UTC

Blackthorn wrote: post #133

asmithmd1 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, Just like democracy is the same as a dictator

Well, in an actual democracy you'd have one person being worth one vote. That certainly doesn't exist where I live (USA), and it doesn't exist with corporate voting shares either (where money = votes), so that analogy is pretty much bunk at the start.

I've heard various 'arguments' that the US is not a democracy, but not based on the fact that one person-one vote is untrue; what do you mean by this? Is it something to do with the electoral college system, or perhaps the large class of disenfranchised persons?

Re: Snapchat CEO’s leaked memo on survival

#139

Post by Tempest1981 » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 1:31 AM UTC

profalseidol wrote: post #116

akira2501 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they need to recognize the role that luck played into their original product and design. That's a strong lesson I've learned in life. Successful people _rarely_ know the precise reasons that they are successful, almost exactly for this reason. You may be aware of many of the components of your success, but you won't be aware of all of them and it will be impossible for you to rank their importance correctly. Keep t…

The hand that was dealt to you when you were born is probably the biggest luck factor of all.

There is a good Warren Buffett documentary on HBO where he says the same thing. Or he’s just being humble. Or both.

Re: Snapchat CEO’s leaked memo on survival

#140

Post by opportune » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 1:38 AM UTC

grkvlt wrote: post #138

Blackthorn wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, in an actual democracy you'd have one person being worth one vote. That certainly doesn't exist where I live (USA), and it doesn't exist with corporate voting shares either (where money = votes), so that analogy is pretty much bunk at the start.

I've heard various 'arguments' that the US is not a democracy, but not based on the fact that one person-one vote is untrue; what do you mean by this? Is it something to do with the electoral college system, or perhaps the large class of disenfranchised persons?

Short answer: the US has two senators for each state, some states have much more population than others, so proportionally a vote in Wyoming counts "more" than a vote in California. This has direct effects in the legislative branch (the Senate) and indirect effects in presidential elections (electoral college) and thus also indirectly in the Supreme Court (nomination + approval).