How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars, Billy Gallagher
How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars, Billy Gallagher
5 Rating(s)
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How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars
The Snapchat Story

Author: Billy Gallagher

Narrator: Billy Gallagher

Unabridged: 7 hr 57 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/13/2018


Synopsis

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

About 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.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Tim

Evidence that we're starting to run out of compelling titles for compelling books. If I was Billy Gallagher, I would have toyed with calling my book Ghosted, as that's what Evan Spiegel did to our poor author. And, well, you know--the Snapchat mascot is a ghost. The story of Snap Inc. is pretty simpl......more

Goodreads review by Zak

Decent coverage on the birth and growth of Snapchat right up to its IPO. The first half was fascinating as we learn how the idea of "ephemerality" as a direct counter to then-prevailing social media's permanence came about and was given form by the young and driven founders. I had always assumed peo......more

Shockingly good “When everyone is tired and the night is over, who stays and helps out? Because those are your true friends. Those are the hard workers, the people that believe that working hard is the right thing to do.” I didn't know I needed to read the story of Snapshot until I started reading t......more

Goodreads review by Maran

The word “ephemeral”, comes up very often in Billy Gallagher’s “How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars: The Snapchat Story”, because just as Facebook honed in to the human need to connect and socialize and capitalized on it, Snapchat gets relevant as it became increasingly clear what is posted on today'......more