How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars: The Snapchat Story
Written by Billy Gallagher
Narrated by Billy Gallagher
5/5
()
About this audiobook
Read by the author
This audiobook is the improbable and exhilarating story of the rise of Snapchat from a frat boy fantasy to a multi-billion dollar internet unicorn that has dramatically changed the way we communicate.
In 2013 Evan Spiegel, the brash CEO of the social network Snapchat, and his co-founder Bobby Murphy stunned the press when they walked away from a three-billion-dollar offer from Facebook: how could an app teenagers use to text dirty photos dream of a higher valuation? Was this hubris, or genius?
In How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars, tech journalist Billy Gallagher takes us inside the rise of one of Silicon Valley’s hottest start-ups. Snapchat began as a late-night dorm room revelation, the brainchild of Stanford English major Reggie Brown who was nursing regrets about photos he had sent. After an epic feud between best friends, Brown lost the company to Spiegel, who has gone on to make a name for himself as a visionary—if ruthless—CEO worth billions, linked to celebrities like Taylor Swift and his fiancée, Miranda Kerr.
A fellow Stanford undergrad and fraternity brother of the company’s founding trio, Gallagher has covered Snapchat from the start. He brings unique access to a company Bloomberg Business called “a cipher in the Silicon Valley technology community.” Gallagher offers insight into challenges Snapchat faces as it transitions from a playful app to one of the tech industry’s preeminent public companies. In the tradition of great business narratives, How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars offers the definitive account of a company whose goal is no less than to remake the future of entertainment.
Praise for How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars:
"If you're as confused as I was about Snapchat, whether to swipe left or right, or why the company has so captivated users and mystified Wall Street, you must read Billy Gallagher's penetrating portrait of the company's early days and the rise of its imperious founder, Evan Spiegel." — Brad Stone, author of The Everything Store and The Upstarts
"An intimate and entertaining look at one of the world's most misunderstood tech companies, told in a way that, amazingly, will resonate with both Snapchat devotees and those who have never used the app." — Blake J. Harris, author of Console Wars
Billy Gallagher
BILLY GALLAGHER is an MBA candidate at Stanford's Business School. Previously, he was a writer at TechCrunch,which he joined as a Stanford sophomore, writing a profile of a popular startup on campus: Snapchat. Billy wrote over a dozen exclusive pieces on Snapchat. His writing has appeared in the New York Times and Playboy; he has been interviewed by New York Magazine and Wired. As a Stanford undergraduate, Billy was the student body president and the editor in chief of the school newspaper.
Related to How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars
Related audiobooks
No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Working Together: Why Great Partnerships Succeed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anatomy of Greed: The Unshredded Truth from an Enron Insider Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Never Lost Again: The Google Mapping Revolution That Sparked New Industries and Augmented Our Reality Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Only Have to Be Right Once: The Unprecedented Rise of the Instant Tech Billionaires Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Valley of the Gods: A Silicon Valley Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Were Yahoo!: From Internet Pioneer to the Trillion Dollar Loss of Google and Facebook Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chaos Monkeys Revised Edition: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Startupland: How Three Guys Risked Everything to Turn an Idea into a Global Business Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bezonomics: How Amazon Is Changing Our Lives and What the World's Best Companies Are Learning from It Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Quench Your Own Thirst: Business Lessons Learned Over a Beer or Two Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Big Vape: The Incendiary Rise of Juul Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Troublemakers: Silicon Valley's Coming of Age Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Alibaba: The House that Jack Ma Built Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cable Cowboy: John Malone and the Rise of the Modern Cable Business Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Industries For You
Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of "The View" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All You Need to Know About the Music Business: 11th Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pharma: Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mind Your Mindset: The Science That Shows Success Starts with Your Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sam Walton: Made in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Burn Book: A Tech Love Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5NFTs Are a Scam / NFTs Are the Future: The Early Years: 2020-2023 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Presto!: How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and Other Magical Tales Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Strip Tees: A Memoir of Millennial Los Angeles Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Secret Formula: The Inside Story of How Coca-Cola Became the Best-Known Brand in the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Be Our Guest: Perfecting the Art of Customer Service Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To Pixar and Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Kingdom of Prep: The Inside Story of the Rise and (Near) Fall of J.Crew Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Artpreneur: The Step-by-Step Guide to Making a Sustainable Living From Your Creativity Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Excellence Wins: A No-Nonsense Guide to Becoming the Best in a World of Compromise Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Lego Story: How a Little Toy Sparked the World’s Imagination Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Setting the Table Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How Star Wars Conquered the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of a Multibillion Dollar Franchise Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars
11 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5great audio book help me a lot thinking from different prospective
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It was captivating from beginning to end. Not a lot of books give an in depth tutorial on how companies got to where they are today.