埃文·斯皮格爾：“閱后即焚”之王

2015-04-29 00:00:00FromBloombergNews譯/宋怡秋

新東方英語 2015年10期

他出生于富裕家庭，父母是事業有成的律師;他從小衣食無憂，是別人眼中的紈绔子弟;15歲時，為完成任務，他專門到周圍的社區向企業兜售廣告，展露出自己的商業才華;之后，他在紅牛飲料公司無薪實習，學會了營銷;他在斯坦福大學商學院上課時，認識了財捷集團的創始人斯科特·庫克，并向其求得一份工作;讀大學期間，他與好友推出了Snapchat （閱后即焚）軟件，從此一炮而紅。2014年，時年24歲的他成為世界上最年輕的億萬美元富翁。他就是照片分享社交網絡Snapchat的聯合創始人和首席執行官，目前風頭正勁的互聯網新貴埃文·斯皮格爾。

Evan Spiegel is the co-founder， chief executive and enfant terrible1） behind Snapchat， one of the largest and fastest-growing social networks on the internet. At 24， he runs a start-up with 330 employees and a valuation north of2） US$15 billion that claims more than 100 million mostly young users. He’s also incredibly secretive.

Now he is ready to talk about a major turning point for his company. More than three years after Mr Spiegel founded Snapchat at Stanford with his fraternity brother Bobby Murphy， 26， he is trying to turn it into a real business.

“When Snapchat started out， I thought it seemed trivial. I was completely wrong，” says Chamath Palihapitiya， a former Facebook executive and high-tech investor who has not backed3） Snapchat but watches it closely. “I don’t think anyone saw coming what they are building. At worst， they are the next-generation MTV4）. At best， they are the next-generation Viacom5）.”

Snapchat’s ascent has been rocky. The company pioneered a new genre of online messages that disappear seconds after being opened. It suffered a series of public relations crises caused， ironically， by the publication of internal deliberations and embarrassing old emails.

In late 2013， Business Insider posted leaked video depositions6） of Mr Spiegel and Mr Murphy in a lawsuit， since settled， filed by a former Stanford classmate who had the original idea for messages that disappear and felt unfairly cut out of the company. Then there were the bawdy7） emails Mr Spiegel had sent as a student to his fraternity at Stanford， leaked to Gawker and published online last May. Finally there were the emails that came out in December in the hack of Sony’s computer systems， which exposed secret deliberations about business strategy among Mr Spiegel and Snapchat board members， including Michael Lynton， the chief executive of Sony Entertainment.

It all combined to give Mr Spiegel a reputation as a cocky Los Angeles rich kid with entitlement issues. On top of that， he was considered egotistical and foolish for turning down a more than $3bn all-cash acquisition offer from Facebook in late 2013， when Snapchat’s revenue was zero dollars a year.

Now Mr Spiegel is eager to set the record straight8）. Over the course of a 90-minute interview， he leaves an overall impression of an independent thinker who is taking the opposite path of many of his rivals not because he is full of himself， but because he believes that young internet users are not well served by other for-profit social networks. He eschews9） data in decision-making， ignores design conventions with his app and has placed his headquarters near the Muscle Beach10） in California made famous in the 1970s by Arnold Schwarzenegger， among others.

And his unconventional attitudes extend to advertising. “A lot of people look at internet advertising as a tax on the system，” he says. “That’s sort of discouraging if you care about making new products and especially discouraging if you feel like you can solve problems.”

Snapchat’s office， a two-storey loft， is one of about a dozen buildings the company leases in Venice， a block from the skateboard parks and T-shirt vendors that line the Pacific Ocean. A glass enclosure visible from the lobby is Mr Spiegel’s office， and although he declines to offer a tour， a portrait of Steve Jobs is visible on the wall inside.

In person， Mr Spiegel is a lot like Snapchat—earnest， raw， and unpredictable. He is occasionally modest （“everyone here is way smarter than me”）， while also prone to bouts of inadvertent smugness （“I literally just invented this in my head，” he says， drawing a chart on a paper demonstrating the basic elements of the service）. And he can be irritable. When asked a tedious question—What’s your long-term vision for the company？—he replied： “These are the kinds of questions I hate， dude.”

Mr Spiegel says that in the beginning， Snapchat was less about disappearing selfies and more about letting people capture a moment that they can share freely online with whomever they want without considering broader consequences. In a world where everything on Facebook or Twitter could become part of their permanent internet persona， impermanence had value to young users.

“Before that， most of social media stuff， you take a picture and give [it] to everyone on Earth，” he says. “Our idea was not that grandiose. It was simple. Let’s just take a shot at11） restoring some context to the pictures we exchange online with friends. ”

Mr Spiegel and his colleagues then took that basic idea and riffed12） on it. Users can illustrate their snaps with playful graphical flourishes and make them available to groups of friends by posting them to a daily story， a kind of visual diary of their day. Snapchat also culls from those stories to create compilations13） of snaps from college campuses and major cities around the world. Even those vanish after 24 hours.

That is not the only way Snapchat is different. The service is not accessible on the conventional web， only through smartphones， and a central tenet14） of the company is that video and photos should take up the entire smartphone screen.

While Facebook and Google focus on technologies that advance material based on what is popular or useful， Mr Spiegel feels he has a responsibility to show Snapchat’s impressionable young audience things that are meaningful， not just popular. Instead of software decoding a user’s interests from search terms， clicks and shares， he has placed a bet on traditional media and old-fashioned editors. Earlier this year he signed up 11 media brands， including CNN， Comedy Central and People magazine， and invited them to contribute daily channels of videos and articles that disappear every night at midnight. “There’s a sort of weird obsession with the idea that data can solve anything，” Mr Spiegel says. “I really haven’t seen data deliver the results that I’ve seen a great editor deliver.”

Mr Spiegel is averse to most kinds of online advertising. He finds targeted advertising creepy， especially the experience of shopping for a certain product on one site only to later see advertisements for it on another. He has also ruled out advertisements on Snapchat that accompany private one-to-one messages between users， judging it too invasive.

Instead， Snapchat started inserting full-screen video ads from such brands as Coca-Cola， McDonald’s and Samsung into feeds in the media channels and in various stories from cities and college campuses.

Now Mr Spiegel must combat continual scepticism about his leadership. Can a 24-year-old with a few blunders in his past lead a hot social start-up through its next stage of growth and beyond， towards an initial public offering？（At a tech conference in northern California Mr Spiegel said Snapchat would eventually go public， but he declined to say when.）

Some users criticise Mr Spiegel for developing a service that is difficult to use and remains somewhat mystifying to anyone born before 1985. For example， there are no intuitive buttons， just cryptic15） icons and swipe gestures that trigger different functions. It is nearly impossible to search for other users unless you know their Snapchat names or mobile numbers. He says the company could simplify the service and develop such features as a user directory， but he is more interested in innovating—70 per cent of the company’s engineers are working on new products.

Naturally， he will not elaborate on these， but it is not that hard to guess—anything that young people want to share， interact with， and talk about， such as games， products to buy， and other kinds of media， such as music and movies.

In the end， Mr Spiegel shies away from saying Snapchat’s mission is to change a culture that seems bent on16） exposing everything.

“We don’t have the skills to solve that yet，” he says. “I am 24 years old. We have been doing this for four years. I’m not going to stand up and make a statement that is that ludicrous. We just don’t have the capability to solve that. I’m sorry. We help people share pictures.”

1. enfant terrible：讓人頭痛的人物;肆無忌憚者

2. north of：（數目、費用等）高于，多于

埃文·斯皮格爾是互聯網上規模最大和成長最快的社交網絡之一Snapchat的聯合創始人和首席執行官，也是個讓人頭痛的人物。他年僅24歲，就掌管著一家有著330名員工、市值超過150億美元的初創公司。這家公司擁有超過一億名用戶，其中絕大多數是年輕人。而且，他行事風格極為隱秘。

現在，他愿意開口談論公司當前面臨的重大轉折點了。與兄弟會的好友、現年26歲的鮑比·墨菲于斯坦福大學共同創辦Snapchat三年多之后，他正努力把這家公司變成實實在在的生意。

“在Snapchat創辦之初，我覺得它微不足道。我完全想錯了?！盕acebook前執行官、高科技產業投資人查瑪斯·帕里哈皮迪亞說道。他雖未對Snapchat投資，卻一直密切關注著它?！拔蚁胝l都沒有預見到他們現在的發展。最壞的結果，他們可能是下一個全球音樂電視網。最好的結果，他們可能是下一個維亞康姆集團?！?/p>

Snapchat的崛起之路并不平坦。這家公司開創性地推出了一種新型在線消息，消息在打開數秒后即消失不見。不過具有諷刺意味的是，該公司遭遇的一連串公關危機，都是因一些內部談話和令人尷尬的舊電子郵件被曝光而引起的。

2013年底，Business Insider網站發布了一段遭泄露的視頻，視頻內容是斯皮格爾和墨菲在一起訴訟案中作證詞。提起訴訟的是兩人在斯坦福大學的昔日同窗，此人最先想出“閱后即焚”的創意，他覺得自己被不公正地排擠出了公司。案件后來以和解告終。接下來被曝光的是斯皮格爾在斯坦福大學讀書時發給兄弟會成員的含有淫穢內容的郵件，這些電子郵件被泄露給Gawker網站，并于去年5月在網上發布。最后是隨著黑客入侵索尼公司的電腦系統而于12月外流的一批電子郵件，郵件披露了斯皮格爾和包括索尼娛樂總裁邁克爾·林頓在內的Snapchat董事會成員之間就經營策略所進行的秘密商談的內容。

所有這些加在一起給斯皮格爾帶來了這樣的名聲：一個狂妄自大的洛杉磯富家子弟，覺得做什么都是自己的權利。除此之外，他還被貼上了自負和愚蠢的標簽，因為他在2013年底拒絕了Facebook提出的超過30億美元的現金收購要約，而當時Snapchat的年度收益為零。

現在，斯皮格爾迫切希望澄清人們對他的誤解。在90分鐘的采訪期間，他給人的總體印象是一個有獨立思想的人，他之所以采取跟許多競爭對手相反的路線不是因為他自以為是，而是因為他認為那些以營利為目的的社交網站沒有為年輕的網絡用戶提供令人滿意的服務。他做決策時不看統計數據，他的app設計不落俗套，他把公司總部設在加州的肌肉海灘附近——那片海灘在上世紀70年代因為阿諾德·施瓦辛格等人而遠近聞名。

他這種特立獨行的態度也延伸到了廣告方面?！昂芏嗳税鸦ヂ摼W廣告看做網絡的負擔，”他說，“如果你對開發新產品有興趣，這種看法多少會令人沮喪;如果你認為自己能夠解決問題，這種看法就特別讓人泄氣了?！?/p>

Snapchat的辦公室是一個兩層的大開間，是該公司在加州的威尼斯海灘租用的十來座建筑中的一座，距離辦公室一個街區之外就是太平洋沿岸的滑板公園和在海邊做生意的T恤攤販。斯皮格爾的辦公室是一個玻璃隔間，從大廳就能看到，雖然他謝絕參觀，但還是能看到他辦公室的墻上掛著一幅史蒂夫·喬布斯的照片。

斯皮格爾本人跟Snapchat很像——誠懇、青澀、難以預測。他時而謙遜（“這里每一個人都比我聰明得多”），但也常會在不經意間一次次表現出自鳴得意（“這真的就是我想出來的，”他一邊說著，一邊在紙上畫出一張圖表，展示他們的服務的各項基本要素）。他也會變得急躁易怒。當被問及一個乏味的問題時——對于公司，你的長期愿景是什么？—他回答道：“我討厭這類問題，老兄。”

斯皮格爾說，最初推出Snapchat，與其說是為了讓那些自拍照消失于無形，不如說是為了讓人們捕捉到他們能在線與人自由分享的一刻—這一刻，他們想跟誰分享就跟誰分享，而不必考慮更長遠的后果。Facebook和Twitter上的所有內容都可能成為人們永久的網絡形象的一部分，在這樣的一個世界里，短暫性對年輕用戶而言自有其價值。

“之前，在大多數社交媒體上，你拍一張照片，全世界的人都能看見，”他說，“我們的想法沒那么宏大。我們想得很簡單，只是嘗試著重新給我們在網上與朋友分享的那些照片添上背景說明而已。”

于是，斯皮格爾和同事們就采納了這個基本想法，并在其基礎上進行了發揮。用戶可以用好玩的手寫花體在快照上添加注解，上傳到每日故事—一種記錄他們一日生活的視覺日記—以此與朋友群分享。Snapchat還會從這些故事中挑選照片，分別制作成大學校園和世界各大城市的快照匯編。但就連這些內容也會在24小時后消失。

Snapchat的特別之處還不止于此。用戶無法在傳統的網絡上使用此服務，只能通過智能手機使用，而且公司遵循的中心原則是，手機上的視頻和照片都應全屏顯示。

Facebook和Google著重開發的技術是根據流行度和實用性向用戶推送內容的，而斯皮格爾認為自己有責任向Snapchat上那些容易受人影響的年輕用戶展示有意義的事物，而不只是讓他們看一些流行的東西。通過搜索詞條、點擊率和分享情況來破解用戶興趣的軟件，他都沒有使用，而是把賭注押在了傳統的媒體和循規蹈矩的編輯身上。今年早些時候，他與包括美國有線電視新聞網、喜劇中心頻道和《人物》雜志在內的11家媒體簽約，邀請他們在Snapchat上開設線上頻道，每日提供視頻和文章，這些內容將在每晚的午夜時分下線?！坝行┤嗣孕艛祿軌蚪鉀Q所有問題，這實在是不可思議，”斯皮格爾說，“我還真沒見過數據能像一個好編輯那樣管用的呢。”

斯皮格爾厭惡大多數類型的線上廣告。他覺得定向投放廣告讓人覺得很恐怖，特別是你在一個網站買了某件商品，結果后來在另一個網站又看到了那件商品的廣告，這種體驗怪嚇人的。他還禁止在Snapchat用戶一對一的私信中插入廣告，認為這種做法太具侵擾性。

作為替代，Snapchat開始在媒體頻道和各大城市及大學校園的故事匯編版塊中插入可口可樂、麥當勞和三星等品牌的全屏視頻廣告。

現在，斯皮格爾必須與外界對他領導能力的不斷質疑作斗爭。一個24歲的年輕人，過去曾經犯過錯，現在能帶領一家熱門的社交類初創公司度過成長的下一階段，并繼續突破，實現首次公開募股嗎？（在加州北部召開的一次科技會議上，斯皮格爾表示Snapchat最終會上市，但他拒絕透露具體時間。）

一些用戶批評斯皮格爾開發的服務不易使用，而且始終讓1985年之前出生的人有些摸不著頭腦。例如，操作界面上沒有直觀的按鍵，只有含義不明的圖標和滑屏手勢用以啟動不同的功能。除非你知道別人的Snapchat用戶名或手機號碼，否則幾乎不可能搜索到其他用戶。斯皮格爾表示，公司可以簡化這項服務的操作方法，并推出用戶名錄等特色功能，但他更感興趣的是創新—公司70%的軟件工程師都在開發新產品。

當然，對于新產品，他不愿詳談，但這不難猜測—都是年輕人愿意分享、互動和談論的東西，比如游戲、想購買的產品以及音樂和電影等其他類型的媒體。

最后，斯皮格爾不肯表態說Snapchat的使命是改變一種仿佛一門心思要暴露一切的文化。

“我們還沒有能力解決這個問題，”他說，“我今年24歲。我們從事這項工作已經四年了。我不打算站出來發表這樣荒唐的聲明。我們確實沒有能力解決這個問題。抱歉，我們的工作是幫助人們分享照片?！?/p>

3. back [b?k] vt. （以個人權威、幫助或金錢來）支持;資助

4. MTV：全球音樂電視網（Music Television），是一個專門播放音樂錄像帶，尤其是搖滾樂的有線電視網。

5. Viacom：維亞康姆，目前全球最大的傳媒娛樂集團之一，涉足電影、電視、出版及與娛樂相關的其他零售業務，旗下擁有哥倫比亞廣播公司、全球音樂電視網、派拉蒙電影公司、派拉蒙電視等。

6. deposition [?dep??z??（?）n] n. 宣誓作證;證詞

7. bawdy [?b??di] adj. 下流的;色情的

8. set the record straight：陳述真相;澄清是非

9. eschew [?s?t?u?] vt. 避免;避開

10. Muscle Beach：肌肉海灘，位于洛杉磯的威尼斯海灘，是健身圣地。

11. take a shot at：嘗試做，試著做