Back in 2013, there was a report on how Snapchat had turned down an offer by Facebook worth $3 billion to be acquired by the social media giant. Many were shocked because let’s face it, $3 billion is a lot of money, not to mention having it possibly integrated with Facebook could take Snapchat to ever greater heights. Back then it was not mentioned officially, but many speculated that the reason behind the turn down was because Snapchat thought that they were worth a lot more, and now according to an interview with Forbes, Snapchat’s CEO, Evan Spiegel, revealed why the company decided to turn down Facebook’s offer.
According to Spiegel, the reason he declined Facebook’s offer was because he felt that the monetary gains would be considered short-term and not worth trading for the experience that comes with being able to build a business like that. “There are very few people in the world who get to build a business like this […] I think trading that for some short-term gain isn’t very interesting.” According to Forbes’ calculations, Spiegel and Snapchat’s co-founder, Bobby Murphy, stood to have gained $750 million each if they had gone ahead with the sale to Facebook.
Spiegel also states that the reason they turned down Facebook’s offer was because they had also sensed weakness and opportunity when Facebook made their first offer in 2012, which they refused, which then resulted in Facebook’s failed Poke app. Facebook approached them again in 2013, which by that time Snapchat felt that they had the edge. Facebook has since launched Instagram Direct which is sort of like Snapchat, but whether it will take off the way Snapchat has remains to be seen.
Will Snapchat’s decision pay off in the long-run? Perhaps, perhaps not, but for now they have at least gained notoriety as the company who turned down Facebook’s $3 billion offer.