UPDATE: With regards to the surprising aforementioned headline and the details of the lawsuit underneath, a Snap spokesperson has sent the following statement to The Tech Portal:
This is ridiculous. Obviously, Snapchat is for everyone! It’s available worldwide to download for free.
Further, the spokesperson further continued to mention that Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel has always been quite supportive of the spirit of entrepreneurship in India and other emerging nations. He even visited the nation back in 2015 to talk about growth of the internet and mobile penetration in the country (which is now increasing rapidly, thanks to Reliance Jio and its competitors).
As for the lawsuit filed by former employee Anthony Pampliano, Snap has provided us access to the notice (PDF attached) by their attorneys which led to the unsealing of documents (see below for more details on these). It was further added,
Snap did not give investors misstated user metrics back in 2015; nor did Snap employees commit any of the panoply of alleged bad acts that litter Pompliano’s complaint. Snap will demonstrate as much at the appropriate time in the appropriate forum.
PREVIOUSLY: Snapchat’s IPO came and went by and it is now performing quite decently, but the parent company Snap Inc still has the axe of a lawsuit hanging over its head.
I guess you may not remember but the company was slapped with a lawsuit in January by its former employee, Anthony Pampliano. He had then presented several redacted documents and claimed that Snap Inc. was inflating key metrics to make their service more desirable to investors for its upcoming public offering.
He alleged that the company was outright lying about its future growth metrics. But, the company has given up on its efforts to keep secrets under a wrap and has been oh-so-grateful to make an unredacted version of these documents public earlier this week. The revelations in this document will definitely be shocking (and hurtful for you — if you’re a Snapchat user from an emerging nation).
Pampliano had earlier alleged Snap Inc. only of advertising its bloated growth metrics, but the lawsuit has another twist as new allegations have been reported in the lawsuit which was filed with the L.A Superior Court. The most eye-popping, as well as shocking allegation, will have to be the one that made the grim headline.
In the lawsuit, Pampliano, who had been brought in from Facebook to foster user engagement and growth, has described a meeting organised to discuss just that. He states that the discussion took a full 360 degree turn when he voice his concerns about the lacking user adoption of their ephemeral chat platform in international markets. But, Pampliano alleges, before he was able to put across his viewpoint, Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel interrupted him and shared the following wise (read shocking) words:
This app is only for rich people. I don’t want to expand into poor countries like India and Spain.
Just pause there. This may have come as a hard shcok for you but we’d suggest you take the allegations with a grain of salt as there is currently no evidence that Snap’s CEO actually said such a thing – and why would he. Spiegel is currently aware that Snapchat is now facing intense competition from the likes of Facebook and Instagram, who are taking over its user base and wizzing past it.
But, the conversation dates back to the year 2015 and it is completely possible the CEO actually said that because there was no tough competitor back then, but still who is the judge here. Also, now Snapchat, who’s user base is stagnating, cannot ignore the emerging markets with huge populations. India, Spain or even Brazil could be their next big market and they’re aloof of the same.
An update to this dragging lawsuit has come about three months after the initial lawsuit filing. Pampliano had been absent from the scene for the whole time period and has now returned with an abundance of other allegations in tow. Snap has termed him as just a disgruntled employee fired for his poor performance. Snap’s attorneys have released the following statement with respect to the new allegations:
Pompliano now resurfaces after three months of inactivity with new attorneys but the same publicity-hungry game plan. In his latest dramatic installment, Pompliano doubles down on the main canard from his complaint — that Snap gave investors misstated user metrics back in 2015 — by asserting that Snap is currently misleading investors. Both halves of that remarkable claim are false. And they regrettably show that the thirstier Pompliano grows for attention, the more he starves his filings of truth and common sense.
For those unaware, the lawsuit stems from the said firing, where Pampalino is claiming that Snapchat removed him because he denied becoming a part of their plan to advertise bloated metrics. And it has led to a huge blot in this resume and made it difficult for him to tap new opportunities. He’s looking for monetary compensation for damages caused to him, but Snap Inc. thinks that all his allegations are completely fabricated.
The Snapchat parent had previously been worried about trade secrets contained in the redacted documents but the attorneys have now said that the company has nothing to hide. Thus, the documents were made public and it reveals that Pampliano was not lying when talking about the daily user count.
The former Snapchat employee revealed that the company was claiming 100 million DAUs at the time, but analytics platforms — Flurry counted only 97 million and Blizzard recorded 95 million. Also, he alleges that the growth numbers, which he studied for the past nine months, were reported to be in double digits when the user base moved only by a meager one to four percent. He has taken the veil off several other metrics, which he believes are being bloated.
To this, Snap’s attorneys add,
The simple fact is that he [Pampliano] knows exactly nothing about Snap’s current metrics. He and his lawyers are — not to put too fine a point on matters — just making things up.
With regards to this, Snap’s attorneys are currently pushing for arbitration outside of court, reports Variety. Pampliano’s attorney is seeing this as a victory because he believes that Snapchat made the documents public because the executives knew they are going to lose the lawsuit. What are your views on the allegedly surprising statement by Spiegel? Comment your thoughts down below.
