Snap CEO 谈 Spectacles、AI 与计算的未来

Snap CEO on Spectacles, AI, and the Future of Computing

埃文·斯皮格尔 Evan Spiegel · Cheeky Pint · 2026-04-27 · 约 64 分钟 · 原视频 ↗

打开互动全文版(中英对照 + 朗读 + 问答)→

本期速览 · Overview

Snap CEO 讨论达到十亿用户、实现净利润盈利,以及经过 12 年开发后即将面向消费者推出的 Spectacles,展望眼镜取代屏幕、实现共享体验的未来。

Snap CEO discusses reaching a billion users, net income profitability, and the upcoming consumer launch of Spectacles after 12 years of development, envisioning a future where glasses replace screens for shared experiences.

要点 · TL;DR

核心观点 · Key points

反共识 · Contrarian takes

本期章节 · Chapters(共 37)

全文 · Full transcript(中英对照)

开场与Snap 2026更新 Opening and Snap 2026 update

Host

在酒吧下棋挺有意思的。干杯。干杯。很高兴见到你。

This is pretty funny playing chess in the pub. Cheers. Cheers. Good to see you.

Evan Spiegel

很高兴见到你。谢谢。

Great to see you. Thanks.

Host

那么,给我讲讲 Snap 2026 的更新吧。产品、业务,你每天都在想些什么?

So, give me the Snap 2026 update. Product, business, just what do you spend your days thinking about?

Evan Spiegel

嗯,我们把它描述为“熔炉时刻”。实际上,我们在 2025 年底就这样描述了,而现在它正在以重大方式被证明是正确的,原因有几个。第一,我们即将达到 10 亿月活跃用户,这对我们来说意义重大。我们对核心 Snapchat 业务的进展感到非常兴奋。第二,我们即将实现净利润盈利,这非常令人兴奋,尤其是我们还在大力投资硬件和我们的 Spectacles 眼镜项目。最后一点是,Spectacles 将在今年晚些时候首次面向消费者推出。所以,经过 12 年在眼镜和下一代计算上的投资,以及让计算更人性化的努力,它终于要来了。这对 Snap 来说是一个极端的时期,我们在做所有这些事情的同时,还在用 AI 改造业务。所以,这是一个非常紧张的时刻。

Well, we've described it as the crucible moment. Actually, we described it as that towards the end of 2025, and it is just proving to be true in a major way for a couple reasons. One, we're about to reach a billion monthly active users, which is a big deal for us. We're really excited about the progress in the core Snapchat business. We're also on the verge of net income profitability which is really exciting for us especially as we invest really meaningfully in hardware and our specs glasses effort. And that maybe brings me to the last point which is that specs are coming to consumers for the first time later this year. So after 12 years of investment in glasses and the next generation of computing and trying to make computing more human, it's actually coming. So, it's a pretty extreme time at Snap and then we're doing all of that while transforming the business with AI. So, it's a pretty full-on moment.

规格难做对的原因 Why specs have been hard to get right

Host

为什么 Spectacles 一直难以做好?我觉得你们的愿景已经存在一段时间了。你知道,有像 Google Glass 这样的先驱,实际上,它是先驱吗,还是你们在那之前就有 Spectacles?

Why have specs been hard to get right? Like the vision you guys have had for a while, I think, has generally existed for a while. You know, there were precursors like Google Glass and actually, was it a precursor or did you guys have specs before that?

Evan Spiegel

我们大概从 2014 年就开始研发 Spectacles 了。我记得 Glass 是在 2013 年推出的。

We've been working on specs probably since 2014. I think Glass came out in 2013, I want to say.

Host

好的。所以不管怎样,你们很早就开始研发 Spectacles 了。描述一些技术挑战吧,因为看起来技术难度很大。有很多军事化方面的挑战,但也许给我们一个概述,为什么 Spectacles 难以实现。

Okay. So anyway, similar times you guys have been working on spec since very early on. Describe some of the technical challenges because it seems technically challenging. There's a lot of militarization challenges, but maybe give us an overview of why specs are hard to make work.

Evan Spiegel

是的,技术挑战非常巨大。我的意思是,我认为 Spectacles 的承诺是,你把人们在透视 VR 中体验到的能力,放到一个透明的眼镜形态中。而今天这个领域是空白的。基本上,你有能力很低的智能眼镜或 AI 眼镜,它们有点像带摄像头的 AirPods。然后你有能力很高的虚拟现实设备,比如 Vision Pro。我认为今年晚些时候推出的 Spectacles 的甜蜜点是普通眼镜的可穿戴性,但具备像 Vision Pro 那样的真正空间计算能力。这个想法,以及我认为眼镜的承诺,或者说我喜欢眼镜的地方,是它实际上把计算带入了世界。我认为计算已经遭受了很长时间的困扰:它本质上就是孤立的。我小时候,热爱电脑。我自己组装了电脑,但要用电脑,你必须在午餐时间去电脑实验室,而那时你所有的朋友都在操场上。我认为手机延续了这种趋势,把人们拉进屏幕,而不是把人们带入世界,帮助人们与朋友分享体验。所以,透明眼镜的承诺是,你和我可以面对面坐着,下一盘棋,设计东西,建造东西,一起看东西,这完全不同于今天存在的任何计算体验。

Yeah, the technical challenges are extraordinary. I mean, I think the promise of specs is that you take the capability that people have experienced in sort of pass-through VR, right, but put it into a see-through glasses form factor. And that's the space that's unoccupied today, right? You basically have very low capability smart glasses or AI glasses which are kind of like AirPods with a camera sort of thing. And then you have very high capability virtual reality devices like the Vision Pro. And I think the sweet spot for specs coming later this year is the wearability of normal glasses, but the capability of a true spatial computer like something like a Vision Pro. The idea and I think the promise of glasses, or at least what I love about glasses, is that it actually brings computing into the world. I mean, I think this is something that computing has suffered for a very long time: it just by its nature has been isolating, right? When I was growing up, I loved computers. I built my own computer, but to use a computer, you had to be in the computer lab at lunch when all your friends were on the schoolyard. And I think phones have continued that trend of pulling people into the screen rather than bringing people into the world, helping people share experiences together with their friends. And so, the promise of see-through glasses is like you and I can sit across from each other, play a game of chess, design something, build something, watch something together that's totally unlike any computing experience that exists today.

未来10-15年计算组合 Future of computing mix in 10-15 years

Host

你认为在 10 或 15 年后,计算组合会是什么样子?你知道,会有一些眼镜,但智能手表还会有位置吗,还是眼镜会取代它?我的意思是,也许手腕测量还是有用的。你也会有像 Amazon Alexa 那样的 AI 音箱吗?如果有的话,会有多少?但我只是好奇,当你考虑移动时,你描述的是超越智能手机。你认为那个新平衡点是什么样子?

What do you think in say 10 or 15 years time that computing mix looks like? You know, this is going to be some amount of glasses like will smart watches still have a place or will the glasses do that? I mean, maybe it's useful for the wrist measurements. Do you also have like an Amazon Alexa style AI speaker? And how many with you if so? But I'm just curious as you think about moving, you're describing moving beyond the smartphone. What do you think that new equilibrium looks like?

Evan Spiegel

我不一定认为我们会超越智能手机。我认为智能手机实际上可能会扮演最重要的遗留角色。

I don't necessarily think we're going to move beyond the smartphone. I think the smartphone's actually going to play maybe the most important role of legacy.

Host

超越仅仅是一个智能手机。

Move beyond solely a smartphone.

Evan Spiegel

啊,是的。所以我的意思是,如果你看看眼镜的能力,至少就 Spectacles 而言,对吧?我实际上估计,很多大屏幕用例会首先迁移。所以,如果你想想 Spectacles 的特别之处,你可以随身携带一个巨大的电视,几乎在任何地方都有一个巨大的屏幕。为什么你要花几千美元在家里放两三台电视,而你可以通过轻量级眼镜获得任何尺寸的屏幕?我认为桌面显示器或笔记本电脑也是如此。当然,我认为这在旅行时非常有价值。我的意思是,对我来说,有一个小小的笔记本电脑工作站非常令人沮丧。

Ah, yeah. So I mean I think if you look at the capability of glasses at least when it comes to specs, right? What I actually would estimate is that a lot of the large screen use cases are the first to move. So, if you think about what's so interesting about specs, you can have a huge TV right with you almost anywhere, a giant screen with you almost anywhere. Why would you pay thousands of dollars to put two or three TVs in your home when you can have any size screen through lightweight glasses? I think the same goes for a desktop display or a laptop. And I think that's really valuable when you're traveling, of course. I mean, it's super frustrating for me to have a tiny laptop battle station.

Host

是的,完全正确。而且你知道,尤其是如果有人在你背后看,我觉得在路上很难完成工作。

Yeah, exactly. And you know, especially if someone's looking over your shoulder, you know, I think it's really hard to get things done on the road.

Host

好的。所以,眼镜最早取代的事情之一是,比如,在飞机上符合人体工学地工作,而不是像驼背一样蜷缩在笔记本电脑前。但还有什么会迁移?另外,你认为还有哪些设备会参与其中?

Okay. So, one of the earliest things that glasses take is say, yeah, working ergonomically on a flight where you're not kind of hunched over your laptop, hunchback style. But what else moves? And also, what other devices do you think are in the mix?

Evan Spiegel

所以,我认为当你考虑用例迁移时,我确实认为基于屏幕的用例可能是最好的例子。但我更感兴趣的是,也是我们投入大部分时间的地方,实际上是那些以前不存在的新体验,对吧?我认为这正是手机如此有意义的原因。我的意思是,桌面仍然是文字处理的最佳工具,仍然是信息检索和完成工作的最佳工具。手机在移动通信方面很棒。而眼镜真正卓越的地方在于体验,对吧?我认为这非常重要。这在人们现在想要与世界互动的方式上也很重要。我的意思是,年轻人普遍想要体验,这不是秘密。人们想要体验。他们想一起做事。他们想以新的方式看世界。而这正是眼镜提供的。所以对我来说,令人兴奋的不一定是取代墙上的电视。而是用眼镜和我的孩子们在外面玩激光枪战,在后院放恐龙,和他们一起搭乐高。我认为这些是那种向人们展示计算机实际上可以把人们聚集在现实世界中的体验,而不是让我们都盯着一个小屏幕。

So, I think when you think about use cases moving, I do think the screen-based use cases certainly are probably the best example of that. What I'm more interested in though and where we're investing most of our time is actually on the net new experiences that didn't exist before, right? And I think that actually is what made the phone so meaningful. I mean the desktop is still the best for word processing, right? It's still the best for information retrieval and getting things done. The phone is amazing for mobile communication. Where glasses are really going to be extraordinary are experiences, right? And I think that's a really big deal. It's a big deal in terms of the way that people also want to engage with the world now. I mean, young people in general, it's not a secret. Folks want experiences. They want to do things together. They want to see the world in a new way. And that's actually what glasses provide. So to me, what's so exciting is not necessarily replacing the television on your wall. It's playing laser tag with my kids outside in the glasses, putting dinosaurs in the backyard, building Lego with them together. I think those are the sorts of experiences that show people that computers can actually bring folks together in the real world rather than have us all staring down at a little screen.

AGI与智能体监控 AGI and agent monitoring

Host

是的。也许还有用,AGI 证明,你知道未来就是你在科切拉戴着你的 Snap 眼镜,而 Claude 在你的桌面上忙着做实际工作。

Yes. Maybe also usefully AGI proof where you know the future is that you are at Coachella with your Snap spectacles and meanwhile Claude is off working on your desktop and doing the actual work.

Evan Spiegel

这太搞笑了。我的意思是,开发者已经通过眼镜来监控他们的智能体在做什么,你只需查看一下,然后继续你的一天。我认为这在旧金山很常见。人们会随身带着笔记本电脑。他们在酒吧里,会快速打开它,看看进度,然后就像那个笑话:职位越高,屏幕越小——开发者用两个并排的显示器,而老板则用 iPhone 发消息。现在每个人都这样,每个人都能从眼镜上监控智能体的进度。

Well this is hilarious. I mean developers have already built ways to just through specs monitor what your agents are doing and you can just check in and kind of go on with your day. I think it's like commonplace here in San Francisco. People will just carry their laptop around. They're at the bar, they'll quickly open it up, see check on the progress and then it's like the joke about the more senior people are in the or the smaller the screen where like the developer has like the two parallel monitors and meanwhile the boss is like sent from my iPhone. And it's kind of that but for everyone is that everyone will be able to just monitor the agents progress from the specs.

Host

我确实认为这是计算机正在改变的一个很酷的方式。我也认为我们必须整天操作电脑的范式正在消失,我认为这是非常积极的。

I do think that's one of the really cool ways that computers are changing. And I do think the paradigm that we all have to operate our computers all day long is going away and I think that's hugely positive.

Evan Spiegel

是的。是的。

Yeah. Yeah.

Spectacles开发挑战 Challenges in developing Spectacles

Host

那么,在眼镜的开发中,哪些方面比较困难,比如电池、屏幕、晕动症?人们在 AR 和 VR 的背景下谈论所有这些事情,我很好奇,作为一线从业者,你们破解了哪些挑战?或者你们构建的 Snap 知识产权在防御性方面体现在哪里?

And so what has been hard in the development of specs like battery, screens, motion sickness? There's all these things people talk about in the context of AR and VR and I'm curious as you're at the coal face. What has been a challenge to crack or where does some of the Snap IP come in in terms of defensibility you guys have built?

Evan Spiegel

嗯,天哪。我的意思是,我几乎想说把一台电脑装进一副眼镜里,每件事都很难。但我可以谈谈我们平台的不同部分以及我们是如何思考的。让眼镜如此独特的一点是,我们实际上拥有整个技术栈的每一部分,对吧?从名为 Lens Studio 的开发者工具,到名为 Lens Core 的渲染引擎——我们在手机上打磨了十多年,尤其是低端手机,这在管理小型设备的功耗和散热时非常重要。还有我们自己的操作系统,以及我们自己的光学引擎,即波导——你眼前的那块玻璃——和投影仪本身,以及其他一些我们尚未公布的炫酷东西。所有这些部分协同工作,才能将完整的沉浸式计算体验装进一副眼镜里。所有这些都非常困难。我的意思是,在 Linux 上从头构建一个操作系统非常困难,但它比试图改造 Android 性能好得多,对吧?我们学到的是,不要用 Android,要自己构建操作系统。

Yeah. Gosh. Well, I mean, I'd almost want to say everything is hard about fitting a computer into a pair of glasses. But I can sort of talk through the different pieces of our platform and how we've thought about it. One of the things that makes specs so unique is we actually own every single piece of the stack, right? So everything from the developer tools called Lens Studio to the rendering engine called Lens Core, which we've now honed over a decade on mobile phones, especially low-end mobile phones, which is important when you're trying to manage power and thermal on a small device like that. But also our own operating system, as well, our own optical engine, so the waveguide, which is the piece of glass there in front of your eye, and the projector itself, some other fancy stuff that we haven't announced yet. But all of these pieces really work together to be able to fit a full-fledged immersive computing experience into a pair of glasses. And all of those things are very hard. I mean, building a ground-up operating system on Linux was really difficult to do, but it's way more performant than trying to repurpose Android, right? We learn you don't use Android, you build your own OS for it.

Host

是的,Android 太臃肿了,无法在眼镜上有效运行。我认为这就是为什么最新的 Google 实验项目 Aura 有一个巨大的计算包,对吧?我们只是认为让人们随身携带一个计算包来使用眼镜是不现实的。

Yeah, Android is way too bloated to work effectively on a pair of glasses. I mean I think that's why you see the most recent Google experiment project Aura has a huge compute pack right? We just don't think it's realistic for people to carry around a compute pack to use glasses.

Snap的AI软件开发 AI in software development at Snap

Host

最新的编码模型非常擅长处理 Linux,因为它们有大量相关训练数据。你有没有发现 Claude Code 或 Codex 在这种环境下开发很有用?这种环境与人们设想的标准 Claude Code 项目截然不同。

The latest coding models are very good at working with Linux like they have a lot of training data for that. Have you found Claude Code or Codex useful for developing in this environment which is pretty different to what people envisage the standard kind of Claude Code project?

Evan Spiegel

我的意思是,Claude 正在彻底改变 Snap 的软件开发,在我们组织的每个部分都是如此。所以是的。

I mean Claude is transforming software development full stop at Snap in every part of our organization. So yeah.

Host

你能再描述一下具体是什么样子吗?

Can you describe that a little more what that looks like?

Evan Spiegel

是的,我认为这非常了不起。现在 Snap 超过三分之二的新代码是由 AI 编写的。这发生得非常非常快。我认为这些模型改进的速度简直惊人。所以对我们来说,我们非常兴奋,因为我们很幸运地处于一个具有网络效应的软件业务中。谢天谢地。所以我们有一个连接人们的服务,但本质上它核心是一个软件业务。因此,我们编写软件、运营业务的方式正在发生巨大变化,同时我认为我们免受其他软件业务的一些影响,这些业务正在被 AI 迅速蚕食。

Yeah, I mean I think it's extraordinary. Now more than two-thirds of new code is written by AI at Snap. That's happened really really quickly. I think the rate at which these models are getting better is just extraordinary. So I think for us we're really excited because we're so fortunate to be in a software business that has network effects. Thank god. So we've got a service that connects people to one another but fundamentally at its core it's a software business. So the way that we write software, run our business is changing so dramatically and at the same time I think we're insulated from some of the effects of other software businesses that I think are being cannibalized very quickly by AI.

对AR形态的信心 Conviction in AR form factor

Host

在很长一段时间里,你比我所知的几乎任何人都更相信 AR 形态。是什么让你坚信这是正确的形态?

You have been much more of a believer in the AR form factor than almost anyone I know for a very long time. What gave you the conviction that this is the right form factor?

Evan Spiegel

我们所做的很多事情,实际上所有事情都始于人性,对吧?计算需要服务于人性。最终是人类决定技术如何被采用,对吧?我认为在科技行业,我们常常过于关注技术优先而不是人优先,我认为这是一个巨大的错误。所以当你从人出发时,眼镜就变得显而易见,对吧?它们已经被数十亿人佩戴,它们就在你的眼前,能够提供计算体验,你可以免提操作。对人类来说,这很重要。我们用手做很多事情。所以把计算放进一副眼镜里,我认为更适合我们的日常生活。当然,把它们放在眼睛和耳朵的高度,让眼镜能很好地理解你周围的世界,这非常重要,如果你想让计算更人性化,想让计算机理解世界和人,我们认为这对于获得计算的好处至关重要,同时也是为了把人们聚集在一起。

So much of what we do, actually everything we do starts with humanity, right? And computing needs to be in service of humanity. Ultimately humans are the ones that decide how technology is adopted, right? And I think too often in a technology industry we're focused on technology first rather than people first, and I think that's a huge mistake. So I think when you start with people first, it becomes so obvious: glasses, right? They're already worn by billions of people, they sit right in front of your eyes in terms of being able to deliver a computing experience, you can operate them hands-free. When as humans, it's a big deal. We do a lot with our hands. So having computing in a pair of glasses, I think is a better fit for our day-to-day lives. And then of course having them at eye level and ear level gives glasses a really good understanding of the world around you, which is so important if you want to make computing more human, if you want to have computers understand the world and people, which we think is so key for getting the benefits of computing, but again also for bringing people together.

Host

所以这本质上是低头与抬头的问题吗?你认为低头看智能手机的方式本质上有点反社交,而抬头是一种更投入、更连接的存在方式吗?

So is it fundamentally a heads down versus heads up thing? Do you think the heads down smartphone way of being is fundamentally a bit antisocial and heads up is a more engaged, connected way of being?

Evan Spiegel

我认为这是其中的一部分。但我也认为,如果你想构建或设计一台真正理解你周围世界的计算机,它本质上必须从你的口袋里拿出来,对吧?理想情况下,对吧?因为我们人类理解世界的大部分传感器都在我们的头上。我认为这对我们的眼镜技术来说非常合适,也让我们能够构建一台真正将人们聚集在一起、更好地融入他们生活的计算机。

I think that's one part of it. But I also think if you want to build a computer or design a computer that actually understands the world around you, fundamentally it has to be out of your pocket, right? And ideally, right? Because all of our most of our human sensors for understanding the world are on our head. I think that to me is a really good fit for our glasses technology and in terms of the way that we can architect a computer that actually brings people together and fits better into their lives.

Host

我觉得在新技术范式的早期阶段,有时会发生的一件事是存在大量异质性,人们认为会有很多专业化,然后一切都崩溃了。

I feel like one thing that sometimes happens in the early stages of a new tech paradigm is that there's a lot of heterogeneity and people think there'll be a lot of specialization and then it all collapses.

手机进化vs眼镜形态 Smartphone evolution vs. glasses form factor

Host

在智能手机的早期,比如回到 05、06 年,你会看到黑莓带键盘,适合大量处理邮件的人;还有诺基亚 N-Gage,几乎就像 PlayStation PSP 那样的游戏平台。当时人们认为应该有各种不同类型的智能手机,但最后一切都收敛到单一的 iPhone/Android 形态——就是一块大触摸屏,仅此而已。那是唯一的交互方式。你觉得眼镜会不会发生类似的事情?现在有完整的 VR,像你说的,有智能眼镜,非常轻量的版本,还有你的眼镜,正好介于两者之间。你认为像 Apple Vision Pro 这样的完整 VR 在五年或十年后还有一席之地吗?还是说一切都会收敛到这种形态?

And so in the very early days of smartphones, like you go back to 05, 06, it's like, oh, you'll have the Blackberry with the keyboard for people doing a lot of emailing, and you remember the Nokia N-Gage that was almost like a PlayStation PSP type gaming platform. And then there was this view that you should have all these different types of smartphones, and then everything collapsed into just the single iPhone/Android form factor, just a big touchscreen and that's it. That's the only modality. Do you think something similar happens with specs, where right now there's full VR, as you say, there's smart glasses, the very lightweight version, and then there's your specs exactly, which are kind of between those two? Do you think full VR like Apple Vision Pro has a place in five or 10 years, or do you think everything just collapses into this form factor?

Evan Spiegel

VR 可能有一个专门的用途,比如更沉浸式的训练环境之类——外科医生、飞行模拟器等等。

VR may have a specialized role, you know, for more immersive training environments or things like that—surgeons and flight simulators and stuff.

Host

是的。

Yeah.

Evan Spiegel

但即便如此,我认为人们还是希望能够戴着眼镜一起工作,对吧?我的意思是,在虚拟座舱里,你肯定想看到你的副驾驶,对吧?所以我认为眼镜更适合人类做的大部分事情,因为归根结底,我们是高度社会化的物种,对吧?这是让人类如此特别的原因之一。所以,我认为那种让我们完全与世隔绝,或者通过屏幕看世界的技术——我觉得这不现实。

But even then, I think folks really are going to want to be able to wear glasses and work together, right? I mean, you're going to want to be able to see your co-pilot when you're in your virtual cockpit, right? And so, I think glasses are a better fit for most things that humans do, because at the end of the day, we're a very social species, right? That's one of the things that makes humanity so special. So, I think the idea that we're going to use technology that fully shuts us off from the world or results in us looking at the world through a screen—I just don't think that's realistic.

Host

是的。是的。嗯,我的意思是,Apple 的 Vision Pro 确实有透视功能,但本质上你在物理上还是有点被隔绝。

Yes. Yes. Well, I mean, Apple does have with Vision Pro the kind of the look-through feature, but yeah, it's fundamentally you're a little blocked off kind of physically.

Evan Spiegel

是的,那是透视 VR,他们把世界重新投射到屏幕上,但我无法想象一大群人想通过屏幕与世界互动。我觉得这不适合我们作为物种的本质。

Yeah, that's pass-through VR where they repro the world on the screen, but I can't imagine a huge swath of humanity wanting to interact with the world through a screen. I just don't think that's a fit for who we are as a species.

Host

是的。是的。你觉得眼镜的普及会是什么样子?我什么时候能在街上看到很多?

Yeah. Yeah. What do you think the ramp-up of specs looks like? So when should I expect to be seeing a lot of them out on the street?

Evan Spiegel

当然,今年晚些时候我们会推出。我认为早期用户会是那些对技术充满热情的早期采用者。我的意思是,大家可能不记得 1984 年的 Macintosh 售价 8000 美元吧?我清楚地记得我小时候,教父给我们带来了第一台 Macintosh,他对计算和计算的潜力充满热情——那真的改变了我的人生。我记得玩 Kid Pix。所以当我想到早期采用者时,我就会想到我的教父。我想的是那些真正想体验计算下一步的人,我认为眼镜最初会吸引他们。当然不会卖 8000 美元——那有点贵——但我认为吸引这群人非常重要,尤其是当你看到技术如何在社会中传播时。我认为对这项技术最热情的人也会成为布道者,他们会展示给家人和朋友,会构建新的镜头。我们已经有很多开发者在为眼镜构建镜头,创造新体验。几乎每天都有新镜头发布。

Certainly later this year we'll make them available. I think the early audience will be early adopters, folks who are really passionate about technology. I mean, I don't think folks remember the Macintosh in 1984 was $8,000, right? I remember vividly my godfather bringing us our first Macintosh when I was young, and he was so passionate about computing, the possibility for computing—that really changed my life. I remember playing around with Kid Pix. So I think when I think of early adopters, I think of my godfather, right? I think of folks who really want to experience what's next in computing, and I think that's who specs are going to appeal to initially. They certainly won't be $8,000—that's a little pricey—but I do think it's really important to engage that group of folks, especially as you look at how technology diffuses through society. I think the folks who are most passionate about this technology are also the ones who are going to become evangelists, who are going to show their family and friends, who are going to build new lenses. We already have so many developers building lenses for specs, creating new experiences. Almost every day there's a new lens that's published.

Host

在我看来,到目前为止智能眼镜的成功,很多在某种程度上像是 GoPro 的竞争对手,对吧?比如,我玩过智能眼镜,几年前我用过非常早期的版本,滑雪或者做其他免提活动时很有趣。这是一个有趣的市场吗?你可能会说,“哦,这是个利基市场。”但实际上,很多人喜欢做这些活动并分享。它和你业务的主要部分很契合。所以,我很好奇,这对你来说是随便一个利基市场,还是件大事?那种 GoPro 替代品。

As I think about the smart glasses success that has existed so far, a lot of it is sort of the GoPro competitor in a way, right? Where it's like, and even when I've played with smart glasses, and I had a super early version of the prior specs which was many years ago at this stage, it's fun for skiing or again doing some kind of cool hands-free activity. Is that an interesting market? You could say, "Oh, it's a niche." But actually, lots of people like doing these activities and sharing them. It pairs nicely with the main part of your business. And so, I'm curious, is that like a random niche for you or a big deal? The kind of GoPro substitute.

Evan Spiegel

你知道,对我们来说,问题在于它违反了我们制造新产品的基本原则之一。那就是——你看,我们是通过惨痛教训学到的,因为我们大概十多年前就做过相机眼镜。所以我们吃了苦头。我们也看到了很多机会。我们觉得这很酷:把相机从口袋里拿出来,放在可以免提录制的地方,比如划皮划艇的时候。天哪,有第一人称视角视频不是很酷吗?问题在于它没有比次优替代品——手机——好上 10 倍。我们在产品设计或投资新产品、新想法时的规则是,如果它不比次优替代品好 10 倍,那就没有投资的必要。我认为我们看到的另一个问题是,市场规模也很小,支付意愿很低。对吧?所以你看现在的相机眼镜,几百美元,大概 150 到 200 美元就能买到。我认为有趣的是,如果你往前推,相机眼镜的问题在于,即使你非常成功——你实际上也无法建立一个平台,因为它们没有操作系统,不理解世界,不能运行应用程序,因此你的价格会很快被压低。所以彩虹尽头的奖品,我认为非常小,客户收益也可以忽略不计,因为你在划皮划艇时完全可以掏出手机拍一段很棒的视频,或者如果你真的很硬核,把 GoPro 戴在头上。所以我认为我们看不到它成为 10 倍好产品的路径。

You know, the problem for us is it violates one of our fundamental principles for making new products. Which is—and look, we learned that the hard way because we built camera glasses more than a decade ago, I guess. So we learned it the hard way. We also saw a lot of opportunity. We thought it was really cool: get the camera out of your pocket, put the camera at a place where you can record hands-free, if you're kayaking or something. Gosh, wouldn't that be cool to have point-of-view video? The problem is it's not 10 times better than the next best alternative, which is the phone. And the rule for us in product design or when we're investing in a new product, investing in a new idea, if it's not 10 times better than the next best alternative, then there's no point in investing in it. And I think one of the other problems that we see is as a result the market size is also quite small and the willingness to pay is very low. Right? So if you look at camera glasses today, in the low hundreds of dollars, maybe $150, $200 to buy camera glasses. And I think what's fascinating is if you play that forward, the problem with camera glasses if you're really successful—you really won't have been able to build a platform because they don't have an operating system, they don't understand the world, they don't run applications, and therefore you're going to get undercut on price very quickly. And so the prize at the end of that rainbow, I think, is very small, and the customer benefit is also negligible when you can just pull out your phone when you're kayaking and make a great video, or if you're really hardcore, put the GoPro on your head. So I think we just didn't see a path to that being a 10 times better product.

Host

好的。所以这不是正确的市场。那么我思考新平台的方式是,通常客户会因为一个杀手级应用而购买,然后获得安装基础,接着他们会发现还有很多其他用途。所以你知道,你还记得个人电脑和早期 PC 的初期采用情况。

Okay. So it's not the right market. And so then the way I think about new platforms is often times customers buy them for a killer app and then that gets an install base and then they discover there's lots of other things that they'll use them for. And so you know you remember the initial adoption of personal computers and early PCs.

杀手应用vs定制平台 Killer app vs platform for bespoke software

Host

一家企业可能会说:“好,我想要一台能跑电子表格的电脑,我买这个电子表格盒子,它是一块屏幕、一台电脑、一个键盘,专门用来跑电子表格。”然后你发现它还能做别的事,比如“哦,对,不错。”后来你开始用它做其他事情,但它最初就是那个跑电子表格的东西。你觉得智能眼镜的采用模式会类似吗?人们因为某个关键用途购买它,比如随时随地获得全尺寸屏幕,然后发现上面有游戏和其他功能?还是说人们会为了各种各样的用例去采用它?

A business might say, "Okay, I want a computer that can run a spreadsheet, and I'm buying this spreadsheet box, and it's a screen and a computer and a keyboard and everything for running spreadsheets." You realize it can do other things like, "Oh, yeah, okay, cool." Later on you start doing other things with it, but it really started as the thing running the spreadsheet. Do you think there's a similar adoption pattern for specs where there's one key use case, like people buy it because you can get a full-size screen anywhere, and then they realize there's games on it and other things they can do? Or do you think people will be adopting it for a broad variety of use cases?

Evan Spiegel

在今天这个时代,我认为杀手级应用这个概念坦白说有点像海市蜃楼。所以相反,我觉得……

In today's day and age, I think the killer app concept is a little bit of a mirage, frankly. And so instead, I think...

Host

你这么说,我的想法全错了,开发智能眼镜的直觉太差了。这很好,我学到了很多。

You're talking, all my ideas are wrong, terrible instincts for developing specs. This is good, I'm learning a lot.

Evan Spiegel

不,我理解人们为什么会这么看。我只是觉得在今天,尤其是软件开发变得如此容易的情况下,更重要的是打造一个平台,让人们能够追求许多与他们高度相关、高度有价值的用例。我认为你在企业软件中已经看到了这一点。比如,我们有一款叫 Saturn 的日历应用,非常酷。它实际上是围绕你的朋友和家人构建的,专为移动端设计。团队之前使用一个企业级服务来处理 bug 报告之类的事情,每年大概花费 10 万美元。今天,他们用一天时间就构建了一个替代品,省下了 10 万美元,但更重要的是,他们说:“这对我们来说是一个好得多的工具。它是为我量身定制的。”我喜欢这个工具。所以我认为我们处在 2026 年,这与以往根本不同,人们将拥有定制软件,他们能够想象、构建并快速创造,从中获得巨大价值。因此,一刀切的软件理念,我认为在这个新世界里不再那么重要了。

No, I understand why people see it that way. I just think that today, especially with how easy it is to develop software, what's actually more important is to develop a platform where people can go after lots of different use cases that are highly relevant and highly valuable to them. I think you're already seeing that today in enterprise software, for example. I mean, we have a calendar app called Saturn, which is really cool. It's actually built around your friends and your family, built for mobile. And the team was using an enterprise service for bug reports and this kind of thing, probably costing like $100,000 a year. Today, they built a replacement for it in a day, saved $100,000, but more importantly, they were like, "This is a way better tool for us. It's built bespoke for me." I love this tool. And so where I think we're at in 2026, which is fundamentally really different, is that there's literally going to be bespoke software for people that they're going to be able to imagine, build, and create really quickly, and get an enormous amount of value from. So this idea of one-size-fits-all software, I don't think is as relevant in this new world.

Host

哦,所以你对智能眼镜的愿景是,你有一个新平台,然后进入定制软件时代,你想让眼镜做什么,它们就能做什么。

Oh, so your vision for specs is you have a new platform and you just have the era of custom software where you think up of what you want your specs to do and they can do them.

Evan Spiegel

而且通过 Lens Studio,我的意思是 Lens Studio 正变得越来越智能体化。我不想破坏今年晚些时候我们将带来的所有惊喜,但我认为这个平台承诺的令人兴奋之处在于,任何人都可以几乎构建任何东西,并极其快速地在现实世界中看到它。所以这与游戏主机的工作方式有很大不同,游戏主机确实需要那款杀手级软件。我认为未来有趣的地方,也是智能眼镜的不同之处,在于人们将构建最适合自己的软件,也许他们会与朋友或全世界分享。但因为现在构建软件如此容易,这是一个根本性的范式转变。

And with Lens Studio, I mean Lens Studio is becoming more and more agentic. I don't want to ruin all the surprises that we have coming later this year, but I think what's so exciting about the promise of this platform is that anyone could build almost anything and see it in the real world incredibly quickly. And so that's a big change from the way a gaming console works where you really need that killer piece of software. I think what's so interesting about the future and what's so different about specs is that people are going to build software that's best for them, and maybe they'll share it with friends or the world. But because building software is so easy now, it's a fundamental paradigm shift.

Host

你有没有用 vibe coding 做过任何 Lens Studio 项目,或者你自己的项目?能分享一下你做了什么,或者 Snap 的人做了什么吗?

Have you vibe coded any Lens Studio or any of your own? Can you share what you've done or some of that stuff, or what people at Snap have done?

Evan Spiegel

几乎每天都有人在智能眼镜上摆弄和构建新东西,摆弄和构建令人难以置信的新工具。我的意思是,它可以像一个小飞机游戏一样简单,比如拖动手在云层中驾驶飞机,或者有些人也在使用那个用例,看看你的智能体在做什么,并能够与它们协作。那也是用智能体构建的。所以我认为整个工程范式,即现在构建软件的方式,使得对智能眼镜和我们的平台有了完全不同的思考方式,并且坦率地说,克服了我们面临的最大障碍,即应用商店的锁定和护城河。我的意思是,人们一直对新计算平台提出的最大问题就是:你如何克服应用商店里那 100 万或 200 万个被锁定在苹果生态系统中的应用?今天,编写软件变得如此容易。你看我最喜欢的图表,iOS 应用提交图表,之前一直平缓,现在正向右爆炸式增长。

Almost daily people are playing around and building new things in specs, playing around building incredible new tools. I mean, it can be everything as silly as a little airplane game, like drag your hand around and fly an airplane through the clouds, or some folks are also using that use case of seeing what your agents are up to and being able to work together with them. That was also built with agents. So I think the entire engineering paradigm, the way that software is built now, enables a totally different way of thinking about specs and about our platform, and frankly overcomes the biggest hurdle that we were facing, which was the app store lock-in and moat. I mean, that's always been the biggest question people have asked about a new computing platform: how are you going to overcome the 1 million apps or 2 million apps on the app store that are locked into the Apple ecosystem? Today, it's so easy to write software. You see my favorite graph, the iOS app submission graph, which was bumbling along flat and now is just exploding to the right.

Host

图表显示,你可以想象,在 Stripe 也类似,新业务创建率正在大幅飙升。

Chart says, as you can imagine, at Stripe are similar to that where the rate of new business creation is just massively spiking.

Evan Spiegel

这太不可思议了。所以这对我来说非常令人兴奋,我认为这开启了对智能眼镜、我们的操作系统、Lens Studio 等的全新思考方式。

It's unbelievable. So that to me is super exciting and I think that unlocks a whole new way of thinking about specs and our operating system, Lens Studio, etc.

Stripe广告:全球创作者支付 Stripe ad: global creator payouts

Host

把我的王后移回后面。我认输。好的。世界上最成功的创作者平台正变得越来越像全球金融网络。它们将资金从数百万粉丝转移到数百万个独立创作者手中。但传统的支付轨道并非为支持这种跨境资金持续流动而建。借助 Stripe,平台可以即时、以更低成本进行跨境美元稳定币支付。这意味着世界另一端的创作者可以与隔壁的主播一样快速、无缝地获得报酬。所以,如果你需要向全球创作者或卖家支付报酬,Stripe 可以帮你实现稳定币支付。

Move my king to back. I resign. Okay. The world's most successful creator platforms are becoming more and more like global financial networks. They move money from millions of fans to millions of individual creators. But traditional payment rails weren't built to support this constant flow of funds across borders. With Stripe, platforms can send USD stable coin payouts across borders instantly and at much lower cost. It means a creator on one side of the world can get paid just as quickly and seamlessly as the streamer next door. So, if you need to pay out a global base of creators or sellers, Stripe is here to help with stable coin payouts.

竞争对手:消息服务与相机 Competitors: messaging services and camera

Host

我想谈谈你的核心业务。你的竞争对手是谁?是狭义上与其他移动优先的社交应用竞争,还是与其他娱乐形式竞争,比如 Netflix 实际上也是竞争对手,因为它也是你消磨时间的一种方式。我只是好奇你如何看待你的竞争对手群体。

I want to talk about your core business a bit. Who do you compete with? Is it you narrowly compete with other mobile first social apps, or is it you're competing with other entertainment forms like Netflix is actually a competitor because it's also a thing that you could do with your time. I'm just curious how you think about the set of competitors that you have.

Evan Spiegel

我认为我们的竞争对手主要是消息服务。所以我认为服务的核心是消息。当我们推出 Snapchat 时,它除了消息之外没有任何社交功能。我的意思是,这始终推动着服务的增长。其次是相机。所以如果你面前有一个瞬间,你会选择使用哪个相机?是用 Snap 相机还是你的锁屏相机?我认为这是我们经常思考的另一件事。我认为人们没有意识到自拍的数量规模,例如。这很有趣。我记得苹果去年宣布,今年 iPhone 上拍摄了 5000 亿张自拍,或者类似的数据。

I think our competitors are primarily messaging services. So I think that's the core of the service is messaging. When we launched Snapchat it had no social features beyond messaging. I mean that's always driven the growth of the service. And then secondarily the camera as well. So if there's a moment happening in front of you, which camera do you choose to use? Do you capture with the Snap camera or your lock screen camera? And I think that's another thing that we think a lot about. I don't think people realize the scale of the number of selfies, for example. It was so funny. I think Apple announced last year they were like there's been 500 billion selfies captured on iPhone this year or something like that.

Snapchat相机参与规模 Scale of Snapchat camera engagement

Evan Spiegel

我给团队发了条消息,我说,这对我来说看起来太小了。你知道,这有多奇怪?果然,他们回复说,哦,Snapchat 上已经拍摄了超过一万亿张自拍。所以我认为,当你看看同一时期的数据……

And I sent a message to our team. I was like, that seems so small to me. You know, how weird is that? And sure enough, they came back and they were like, oh well, over a trillion selfies have been captured on Snapchat. And so I think when you look at that over the same period...

Host

真是太多了。

It's so many.

Evan Spiegel

真是太多了。是的。而且我们公开宣布的数字还打了折扣。所以我觉得有趣的是……抱歉,那是每个 MAU 一生一千张。如果一年内有一万亿张自拍,那差不多是十亿月活用户。是的。所以我认为那很多。但我觉得人们没有意识到 Snapchat 相机的规模和参与度。

It's so many. Yeah. And we lowballed what we announced publicly. So I think what's funny is... sorry, that's a thousand per MAU per lifetime. If there's been a trillion selfies over a year period, almost a billion monthly active users. Yeah. So I think that's a lot. But I think people don't realize the scale and the engagement in the Snapchat camera.

收入来源:广告与直接收入 Revenue streams: advertising and direct revenue

Host

好的。所以消息服务与竞争对手。那么业务是如何运作的?我其实不太了解业务运作方式。你们接近十亿 MAU,然后变现主要是广告吗?还是你们的收入来源如何划分?

Okay. So messaging services with the competitor. And then how does the business work? I actually don't know that much about how the business works. So you're approaching a billion MAUs and then monetization is mostly advertising for them or how do your different revenue streams break down?

Evan Spiegel

我们有两大收入来源。一个是广告,另一个是直接收入。直接收入业务对我们来说相对较新。在过去两三年里,我们刚刚宣布达到了 2500 万 Snapchat Plus 订阅用户,直接收入业务年化收入超过 10 亿。所以这对我们来说增长非常好。然后当然是广告,无论是在地图上,我们有一个叫 Promoted Places 的产品,并且围绕它有非常强大的闭环衡量。所以现在很多人关心如何将人们吸引到他们的零售地点,而 Promoted Places 在这方面发挥了巨大作用。

We've got two major revenue streams. One is advertising, the other is direct revenue. The direct revenue business is relatively new for us. I think over the last two or three years, we just announced we hit 25 million Snapchat Plus subscribers, over a billion run rate on the direct revenue business. So that's been growing really nicely for us. And then advertising of course, whether that's on the map, we've got a product called Promoted Places, and actually really powerful closed-loop measurement around that. So a lot of folks care right now about driving folks into their retail locations and Promoted Places plays a huge role in doing that.

AI与计算成本驱动直接收入增长 Direct revenue growth with AI and compute costs

Host

我认为有一个普遍趋势,企业直接变现,比如让他们的直接收入与 AI 更相关,因为推理成本是真实的。如果你看前一代公司,它们非常依赖广告,而如果你看 ChatGPT 或 Claude 之类的,它们必须有不同层次的订阅,每月 20 美元和每月 200 美元,因为你可能只用少量算力或大量算力。那么你是否看到类似地,直接收入在未来对 Snap 变得更重要,因为你将拥有更多计算密集型产品?如果你使用大量计算密集型的 Lens Studio 内容,作为 Snap 用户,你可能会消耗大量算力。

There's been a general trend, I think, of businesses directly monetizing, like having their equivalent of direct revenue be more relevant with AI because the inference costs are real. So if you look at the prior generation of companies, they were very heavily ad dominant, whereas if you look at ChatGPT or Claude or something like that, they have to have the various tiers of subscriptions, $20 a month and $200 a month, because you can just use a small amount of compute or a lot of compute. So do you see similarly direct revenue becoming a bigger deal for Snap in future because you're just going to have more computationally expensive products? If you're using a lot of computationally expensive Lens Studio stuff, you can potentially burn a lot of compute as a user of Snap.

Evan Spiegel

是的,这对我们来说是一个考虑因素。当然,我们的订阅服务有一个 Lens Plus 层级,可以让你使用更多 AI 工具和编辑工具。我认为人们没有意识到 Snapchat 相机是世界上最大的图像和视频生成平台之一,仅就参与频率而言。我们变现的方式之一就是通过 Lens Plus 产品。但对我们来说,如果我看我们的订阅业务,它实际上非常符合我们公司的理念和我们的核心技能。如果你想想 Snapchat 在过去十年里擅长什么,那就是制作人们真正喜欢的产品。所以我们总是收到客户的邮件,要求新功能、不同的功能、更定制化的功能,比如应用主题,而我们从来没有资源去做。我们想,哦天哪,我们不能为社区的一小部分人构建东西,即使他们对产品和我们的创作充满热情。所以我认为 Snapchat Plus 的乐趣在于,我们能够投入资源来构建这一长串功能,这些功能是我们最热情的 Snapchatter 真正想要并愿意付费的。所以它非常符合我们喜欢做的事情和我们最擅长的事情,那就是与我们的社区一起制作他们想要的酷炫新产品,也就是来自我们的更定制化功能。

Yeah, I mean that's one consideration for us. And of course we have a Lens Plus tier of our subscription service which gives you access to more of our AI tools and editing tools. I don't think people realize that the Snapchat camera is one of the largest image and video generation platforms in the world, just given the frequency of engagement. And one of the ways we monetize that is with the Lens Plus product. But for us, if I look at our subscription business, it actually just really aligns with our company's ethos and also our core skill set. If you think about what Snapchat has been good at over the past decade, it's been making products that people really love. And so we would always get emails from customers asking for new features, different features, more bespoke features like app themes, for example, and we never had the resources to work on it. We were like, oh gosh, we can't build something for a tiny subset of our community, even though they're so passionate about the product and about what we're creating. And so I think what's been so fun about Snapchat Plus is that we've been able to dedicate the resources to build this long list of features that our most passionate Snapchatters really want and are willing to pay for. And so it really aligns with what we love to do and what we do best, which is making cool new products with our community and what they want, which are more bespoke features from us.

付费与免费客户请求 Paid vs free customer requests

Host

抱歉,付费客户通常想要的和免费客户通常想要的有什么区别吗?

And sorry, is there a difference between what your paid customers tend to want versus what your free customers tend to want?

Evan Spiegel

不一定,但我认为最热情的 Snapchatter 总是有关于如何让产品更好的请求。我们无法总是为所有请求提供资源。但现在有了 Snapchat Plus,我们有了一个渠道,那些对服务充满热情的人想要一个新功能,他们告诉我们,我们可以为订阅者构建它。我认为这非常令人兴奋。

Not necessarily, but I think the most passionate Snapchatters always have requests for how we can make the product better. We can't always resource all those requests. But now with Snapchat Plus, we have an avenue where folks are really passionate about the service, they want a new feature, they let us know, we can build that for our subscribers. And I think that's been really exciting.

Host

人们有好主意吗?一般来说,人们有很棒的主意,而且有无数很棒的主意。

Do people have good ideas? Generally, people have great ideas and an endless number of great ideas.

Evan Spiegel

无数很棒的主意。

Endless number of great ideas.

接触社区产品创意 Exposure to community product ideas

Host

你如何接触来自社区的产品创意?

How do you expose yourself to product ideas from the community?

Evan Spiegel

嗯,我的邮箱是 evan@snap.com。所以我收到了不少客户的好邮件。但你知道,还有在线评论。每次我发布视频,都会收到评论,人们告诉我我们应该做什么不同的事情。所以我认为这是与社区互动的好处之一。

Well, my email is evan@snap.com. So I get my fair share of great customer emails. But you know, online on comments. Every time I post a video, I'm getting comments with people telling me what we should do differently. So I think that's one of the great things about engaging with our community.

社交网络的网络效应与规模不经济 Network effects and diseconomies of scale in social networks

Host

人们认为社交网络和消息应用是网络效应业务,规模越大,产品和业务效果越好,因为你的朋友在那里。它们是商学院讨论网络效应时使用的教科书例子。但作为社交网络,也存在反效应和规模不经济。一个是随着你越来越受欢迎,欺诈和垃圾邮件问题会增多。但还有一个问题,就是社交网络的本质是什么。所以也许使用产品的青少年不一定希望他们的叔叔阿姨在上面,因为氛围完全不对。或者也许硅谷内部人士更喜欢 Quora。你还记得 Quora 在我们刚开始时存在,它最初是一个非常硅谷内部人士的产品,而现在它是一个更广泛的产品。所以当我想到 Snap 时,你们做得好的事情之一是保持了酷感,避免了感觉太庞大而令人反感,而其他社交网络有时会遇到这个问题。也许你可以评论一下这个现象,以及你通常如何看待这种风险。

People think of social networks and messaging apps as network effects businesses where the bigger they are, the better they work as products and businesses because your friends are there. They are the textbook example used in business school discussions of network effects. But there's also an element where you have anti-effects and diseconomies of scale as a social network. One is as you get more popular, there's more fraud and spam problems. But there's also a question of what is the id of the social network. So maybe teens using a product don't necessarily want their aunts and uncles on it because the vibe is all wrong. Or maybe Silicon Valley insiders preferred Quora. You remember Quora was around when we were first starting out and it was originally a very Silicon Valley insider product, and now it's a much broader product. So as I think about Snap, one of the things you've done well is you've kept it cool and you've avoided the ick of it feeling like it's too big, which again sometimes social networks run into. Maybe you can comment on that phenomenon and how you think about the risk in general.

Evan Spiegel

这很有趣,因为你触及了社交领域中两个最重要的理念,或者至少是我们发现的两个最重要的结论。

It's fascinating because you've tapped into two of the most important ideas in social, or at least two of the most important findings that we've had.

网络规模vs密友 Network size vs. close friends

Evan Spiegel

第一个,我认为可能是最重要的,就是当我们创立 Snapchat 时,你说得对,当时的信念是网络越大越有价值,人们对此有一套完整的模型。Snapchat 证明的其实是:关键不在于你的网络规模或你能联系多少人,而在于你实际和谁交流。那往往是一个比潜在网络总规模甚至你的好友总数小得多的群体。事实上,我猜你每天的大部分对话都是和你的妻子,也许和一些密友,也许和最亲密的同事,但你最常交谈的人其实非常少。这打破了社交媒体的模型——朋友越多,参与越多,价值越大。而我们当时说这听起来不对。我认为人们大部分时间都在和最重要的人交谈。所以如果我们设计一个服务,完全围绕与你最重要的人——你的密友——交流,并且把它做得非常非常好,你可能不会整天给你第 400 个好友发快照,但对我来说,我很喜欢看我们两岁孩子一天在做什么,我妻子会给我发小快照,这让我很开心。这是我一天中最美好的部分,看到他在做什么。所以我们真的建立了一个对密友很好的服务,这不一定意味着你需要最大的网络。你只需要里面最重要的人。所以我认为这是 Snapchat 能够成长的原因之一,因为我们刚开始时,所有人都说‘你永远无法与 Meta 竞争,不可能,因为他们的网络更大。’

The first one, which I think is maybe the most important, was that when we were starting Snapchat, you're right, the belief was that the bigger the network was, the more valuable it was. And folks had a whole model for how they thought about it. What Snapchat proved was actually that it's not about the size of your network or the number of people you can contact on your network. It's about who you actually talk to. And that tends to be a much smaller group than the total size of the potential network or even your total number of friends. In fact, most of your conversations, I would guess, on a daily basis are with your wife, maybe with some of your close friends, maybe some of your closest co-workers, but it's actually a very small group of people that you talk to the most. And that broke the model of social media, which was the more friends you have, the more engagement you have, the more value there is. And we actually said that doesn't sound right. I think people spend most of their time talking to the folks who are most important to them. So if we design a service that's all about talking to the people who are most important to you, your close friends, and we design a service that's really, really great at that, you may not send snaps all day to your 400th friend, but certainly for me, I love seeing what our 2-year-old is up to throughout the day, and my wife sends me little snaps, and it makes my day. It's the best part of my day, seeing what he's doing and what he's up to. And so we really built a service that's great for your close friends, and that doesn't necessarily mean you need the largest possible network. You just need the most important people in it. And so I think that was one of the reasons why Snapchat was able to grow because when we were first getting started, we just heard from everyone, 'You're never going to be able to compete with Meta, there's no way because they've got a bigger network.'

添加过多好友的问题 The problem of adding too many friends

Evan Spiegel

然后第二个教训是随之而来的。我们发现的另一件事是,随着 Facebook 和 Instagram 的增长,添加更多好友的压力非常大,因为如果你回想当年,他们的整个业务都基于信息流。为了在信息流中有内容,你需要有好友。所以为了有更多内容,你需要添加越来越多好友,以便信息流中有更多帖子,从而有更多广告机会。这造成了一个非常危险的问题,因为我认为人们发现,在添加了一定数量的好友后,他们实际上不知道自己在 Facebook 上和谁是朋友。他们不知道谁会看到他们的内容。这就像压垮骆驼的最后一根稻草,抑制了发帖,这是非常危险的。人们发帖时感到非常不自在。这反过来加速了对公共内容的需求,不再是好友内容。很快,社交网络就变成了更多关于 BuzzFeed 或其他新闻提供商的帖子,而不是关于你朋友的内容。所以我认为这是我们随时间积累的另一个关键经验,也是 Snapchat 成为更私密服务的原因之一。你在 Snapchat 上不会被你的阿姨尴尬,因为你的故事上没有公开评论。你可以和朋友们分享,感觉很自在,没有尴尬的风险。由于服务围绕密友,我们没有公共信息流的那些挑战。

And then I think the second lesson is sort of a follow-on from that. The other thing that we found is that as Facebook grew and Instagram grew, there was so much pressure to add more friends because if you remember back in the day, their entire business was based on the newsfeed. In order to have content in the newsfeed, you needed to have friends. So in order to have more content, you needed to add more and more friends to have a newsfeed that had more posts and therefore more advertising opportunities. That created a really precarious problem because I think what folks found is after they added a certain number of friends, they got to a place where they actually didn't know who they were friends with on Facebook. They didn't know who was going to see their content. There's a straw that broke the camel's back type phenomenon where then it inhibits posting, which is very dangerous. And people felt really uncomfortable posting. That then accelerated, I think, this need to bring in public content, no longer friend content. And very quickly, the social network morphed into something that was much more about posts from BuzzFeed or something like that or other news providers than it was content about your friends. And so I think that's been another one of our sort of key learnings over time and one of the reasons why Snapchat is a much more private service. You can't be embarrassed by your aunt on Snapchat because there are no public comments on your story. You can share with your friends and feel comfortable doing that without the risk of being embarrassed. And because the service is oriented around close friends, we don't have those same challenges with a public news feed.

社交网络与消息的回报曲线 Payoff curve of social network vs messaging

Host

所以你的观点是,如果你考虑产品价值相对于好友数量的收益曲线,教科书式的观点是它单调递增,而你说它从零开始,因为没人用就没用,然后快速上升到 10 或 20 人,但可能达到平台期并开始下降。我不知道具体数字是多少。

So your view is that if you think of a payoff curve for how good the product is relative to the number of friends you have, again, the textbook view is that it just kind of goes up monotonically, whereas you're saying it starts off at zero because the product's no use if no one's on it. And then you're saying goes up pretty quickly to, you know, 10 or 20 people, but maybe hits a plateau and starts decreasing. I don't know what are the numbers here.

Evan Spiegel

可能甚至更少。

Potentially even less.

Host

是的。那么什么时候开始,社交网络从增量用户那里开始产生负效用?

Yeah. So when does it start when does a social network start to have anti-utility from the incremental user?

Evan Spiegel

我认为我们必须小心区分社交网络和消息服务。从核心上讲,因为 Snapchat 是一个消息服务,即使只有一个、两个、三个好友,你也能获得绝大部分价值。那些是你最常交谈的人,那种联系对你非常重要。我认为,正如我提到的,社交网络的一大挑战是,为了有足够的内容来驱动足够的参与度以发展广告业务,需要添加越来越多好友,因为信息流非常依赖新内容。所以我们很早做的一件事——我们可以争论执行得如何——但我们很早就认识到,我们需要早早地向非好友内容开放,即发布商内容、创作者内容。这样,与其驱使人们添加好友,他们可以在密友内容看完了之后观看发布商的内容。我们对这些内容进行了审核。我们是最早用 AI 对内容进行排名的公司之一,通过我们的服务 Discover。基本论点是:不要强迫人们添加好友来观看更多内容。我们直接向他们展示发布商或创作者的内容。

And I think we have to be careful to differentiate a social network from a messaging service. So at its core, because Snapchat's a messaging service, you can get the vast majority of the value even by having like one friend, two friends, three friends. Those are the folks you talk to the most and that connection is really, really important to you. I think, as I mentioned, one of the big challenges of social networks was that in order to have enough content to drive enough engagement to grow the advertising business, there was a need to add more and more friends because the news feed was really reliant on new content. So I think one of the things that we did very early on, and we could argue about how well we executed on this, but one of the things we identified very early on was that we needed to open up to non-friend content, publisher content, content from creators, very early on. So rather than driving people to add friends, they could watch content from publishers when they ran out of content from their close friends. And so we moderated that content. We were one of the first companies to actually rank that content with AI, with our service called Discover. And the fundamental thesis was: let's not force people to add friends so they can watch more content. Let's just show them content from publishers or from creators.

区分社交与媒体 Separating social from media

Host

哦,这很有趣。好的。所以你的观点是,错误在于人们应该添加更多人,比如在 LinkedIn 上获得更多连接,这样信息流里才有内容。而你的观点是,应该把你想要互动的人和你在应用里要做的事情分开,这实际上是两个相当独立的问题,混合它们非常危险。

Oh that's very interesting. Okay. So your view is that the mistake would be one should add more people, you should get more connections on LinkedIn so that there is content in your feed, and your view is that you should separate out the people you want to interact with and having stuff to do in the app, and those are actually pretty separate concerns and it's very dangerous to mix them.

Evan Spiegel

而且,我认为回到 2016 或 2017 年,我们说过最重要的事情是把社交和媒体分开。最大的错误是把它们混在一起,这会产生很多不正当的激励。所以相反,只添加对你重要、亲近的朋友,用消息服务与他们交流,如果你想的话,可以用故事等方式分享。

And that, you know, I think back in it may have been 2016, 2017, we said the most important thing you need to do is separate social from media. The biggest mistake was combining them, and it creates a lot of perverse incentives. So instead, just add the friends that are important to you, who are close to you, use a service for messaging, share with them if you want to with stories or things like that.

数字通信的短暂与永久 Ephemerality vs. permanence in digital communication

Host

嗯,这很有意思。好的。不过从产品角度来看,我真正与 Snapchat 联系起来的另一件事显然是持久性——或者说缺乏持久性,即 ephemeral(短暂)的特性。这方面的规范在我一生中已经发生了很大变化。我记得刚开始使用互联网时,规范是不要在互联网上使用真实姓名。互联网是个可怕的地方,把你的真实姓名放在那里会很危险。后来我们接受了这一点。然后进入了一个时代,所有内容都通过社交网络等永久发布。然后我们意识到,也许所有内容都永久发布并不是个好主意。我觉得人们仍在试图弄清楚这个问题。所以我很好奇,你认为长期均衡是什么?你想要一个存储你相机胶卷中所有照片的中央仓库吗?你想要一切都 ephemeral(短暂)吗?如果一切都是短暂的,也许你会希望自己保存了那个生日快照。人们在线上如何推理数据的长期均衡是什么?我们是否需要更细粒度的控制,介于一次性消失的消息和永久保存之间?也许我们需要新的产品发明。

Yeah. That's very interesting. Okay. The other thing though from a product point of view I really associate with Snapchat is obviously persistence or lack thereof, the ephemeral nature. And the norms around this have shifted a lot even over the course of my lifetime. I remember when I started using the internet, the norm was that you do not use your real name on the internet. The internet was a scary place and it would be dangerous for you to have your real name out there. Then we got okay with that. And then there was the era where everything got posted in perpetuity through social networks and everything else. And then we realized, huh, maybe everything being posted in perpetuity is not a great idea. I feel like people are still trying to figure this stuff out. So I'm curious again what you think the long-term equilibrium is. Do you want a central store of all the photos you've ever taken in your camera roll? Do you want everything to be ephemeral? If things were ephemeral, maybe you really wish you'd kept that birthday snap from a while ago. What is the long-term equilibrium online in terms of how people reason about data? Do we need more fine-grained control between a one-off disappearing message and kept forever? Maybe we need new product inventions.

Evan Spiegel

我认为我的总体论点是,它可能会反映我们几千年来一直生活的方式,即绝大多数生活都是 ephemeral(短暂的),然后你保存重要的东西。我的意思是,你不会写下每一个想法。你当然不会记录每一次对话,尽管我们正在录制这次对话。所以对我来说,这很可能就是技术随时间演变的方式。当然,我们在 Snapchat 上看到了这一点。我的意思是,当我们说:“嘿,每个人都永远记录一切对话是没有意义的。”事实上,这会影响人们表达自己和彼此分享的方式。这在当时听起来很疯狂,因为 literally 所有东西都被永远保存了。而我们在 2012 年就谈论隐私的重要性,以及隐私与自我表达之间的关系。人们当时说:“你在说什么?”那时每个人都在说一切都会开放和连接。你会与所有人分享关于自己的一切。而人类几千年来并不是这样生活的。所以我认为向前看,很可能已经发生的事情是,你现在使用的绝大多数通信产品都有保留设置,可以删除你的对话,除非你想保存它们。我认为 Snapchat 在制作 snaps 方面也是如此。你可能只是想给朋友发一些傻乎乎的东西,但如果是一个重要的回忆,或者是我们 2 岁的孩子跑来跑去做一些可爱的事情,我就会保存它。所以我认为人们会以与与世界互动相同的方式与技术互动,即保存重要的东西,丢弃其余的东西。

I think my general thesis would be that it will probably mirror the way that we've been living for thousands of years, which is the vast majority of life is ephemeral and then you save the things that are important. I mean, you don't write down every thought you have. You certainly don't record every conversation you have, although we're recording this one. So I think for me, that's likely how things will evolve over time with technology. Certainly what we've seen with Snapchat. I mean, when we said, "Hey, it doesn't make sense that everyone's recording everything forever in terms of our conversations." And in fact, that has an impact on the way people express themselves and share with one another. That sounded crazy at the time because literally everything was saved forever. And we were talking about things like the importance of privacy, and the relationship between privacy and self-expression, back in 2012. And people were like, "What are you talking about?" This was at the time when everyone was saying that everything is going to be open and connected. You're going to share everything about yourself with everybody. And that's just not how humans have lived for thousands of years. So I think what's very likely looking forward is what's already happened, which is the vast majority of communication products you use now have retention settings that delete your conversations unless you want to save them. I think that's true for Snapchat in terms of making snaps as well. You may just want to send something silly to your friend, but if it's an important memory or if it's our 2-year-old running around doing something cute, I'll just save it. So I think people are going to interact with technology the same way they interact with the world, which is save the things that are important and discard the rest.

消息与通信的未来 Future of messaging and communication

Host

是的。是的。有意思。消息应用会走向何方?

Yes. Yes. Interesting. Where do messaging apps go?

Evan Spiegel

对我来说,我认为我们需要解决的大问题是,在 Spectacles 上沟通的最佳方式是什么?我认为这是我现在真正感兴趣的事情。我认为有趣的是,未来的社交网络实际上是亲自聚在一起,一起使用 Spectacles。所以这就是让我对数字通信的未来感到兴奋的地方。我认为消息应用没问题,但很难与真正与朋友和家人在一起竞争。所以如果我们能构建让这变得有趣的技术,让你获得技术的所有好处,但又能与朋友和家人在一起,我认为这是一个巨大的积极因素。

To me, the big question that I think we need to solve is what is the best way to communicate on specs? I think that's what's really interesting to me right now. And I think what's fascinating is that the social network of the future is actually hanging out together in person and using specs together. So that's what excites me about the future of digital communication. I think messaging is fine but it's hard to compete with actually being together with your friends and your family. So if we can build technology that makes that fun, that gets you all the benefits of technology but with your friends and family, I think that's a huge positive.

儿童屏幕时间与家长判断 Screen time for kids and parental judgment

Host

你不让你的孩子使用屏幕。你觉得你会从什么年龄开始?

You don't let your kids use screens. What age do you think you'll start?

Evan Spiegel

我们 15 岁的孩子已经完全在屏幕上了。那艘船早就开走了。事实上,可能肯定是在共同抚养中。例如,那个 2 岁的宝宝,我们让他理发时看 YouTube。他非常喜欢建筑,所以他喜欢看建筑视频。顺便说一句,这在每个年龄都很棒,但通过一个 2 岁孩子的眼睛去看,太有趣了。令人惊叹。所以他非常喜欢他的建筑视频。然后 6 岁和 7 岁的孩子会时不时看个电影之类的。而且 TVPN 的人给了我那个 mod retro 视频游戏,Game Boy 重制版。所以他们圣诞节得到了那些。他们玩一点那些。

Our 15-year-old is fully on the screen. That ship sailed a long time ago. In fact, probably in co for sure. The baby, for example, the 2-year-old, we let him watch YouTube when he's getting his haircut. He's big into construction, so he likes to watch construction videos. By the way, it's awesome at every age, but to see it through a 2-year-old's eyes is so fun. It's mind-blowing. So he's big into his construction videos. And then the six and seven-year-olds will watch a movie from time to time or something like that. And I got the TVPN guys gave me the mod retro video game, the Game Boy remake thing. So they got those for Christmas. They play those a little bit.

Host

我想我有点想说的是,现在有一个全社会范围的辩论,关于如何处理孩子、青少年,嗯,普遍观点是成年人可以做他们想做的事。当涉及到手机和社交媒体时,你认为正确的政策立场是什么?

I guess what I'm sort of getting at is there's this big society-wide debate right now as to what you do with kids, teens, and well, the general view is adults can kind of do what they want. When it comes to phones and social media, what do you think is the right policy position there?

Evan Spiegel

我认为真正的危险是当每个人都不同时采取一刀切政策。孩子在发育上各不相同。我们的每个孩子在他们发育的阶段、他们热衷的事情、他们的兴趣上都不同。所以我认为无论如何,父母需要努力与孩子培养健康的平衡,并在不同时间对每个孩子做适当的事情。例如,Flynn,我们 15 岁的孩子,他小时候经常在他爸爸家和我们的家之间来回。所以他需要更早地拥有手机。否则不可能协调。那是很重要的事情。那是我和妻子做出的决定,让他比我们可能原本更早地拥有手机。我认为比我小时候拥有手机更早,因为那对他所处的情况很重要。所以我认为作为父母,我们都最了解自己的孩子。所以考虑什么对你的孩子发育合适非常重要。

I think the real danger is blanket policy when everybody is different. Kids are different developmentally. Each of our kids are different in where they are developmentally, what they're passionate about, their interests. So I think no matter what, parents need to work to cultivate a healthy balance with their kids and do what's appropriate for each of their individual kids at different times. Flynn, for example, our 15-year-old, he was going back and forth between his dad's house a lot when he was younger. So he needed a phone earlier. It was otherwise impossible to coordinate. That was something that was important. That was a decision that my wife and I made to give him a phone earlier than maybe we would have otherwise. I think earlier than I got a phone when I was growing up because it was important for where he was at. So I think being a parent, we all know our kids best. So it's really important to think about what's developmentally appropriate for your own kids.

公众情绪与技术平衡 Public Sentiment and Technology Balance

Evan Spiegel

不过总的来说,我最担心的是公众情绪的剧烈摇摆。疫情期间,人们觉得技术拯救了我们,整天用屏幕。现在人们又担心屏幕,完全不使用。生活中任何事情的健康回应都是取得平衡。我们 15 岁的孩子热爱艺术,非常有天赋,喜欢和朋友出去玩,也会想放松一下,在 Netflix 上看点东西,或者和朋友在 Snapchat 上聊天。这没问题。关键在于健康的平衡。我特别关注的是,在人工智能带来如此巨大变革的当下,年轻人需要学习如何使用这些工具。年轻人学会采用这些工具绝对至关重要。年轻人能把自己脑海中的想法快速变成现实,这非常鼓舞人心。所有这些进步都发生在人们对技术极度怀疑、对 AI 感到担忧的时期。行业需要做很多工作来建立信任,确保年轻人采用这些对他们未来至关重要的工具。

Generally speaking, though, what concerns me the most is the massive swings in public sentiment. During the pandemic, it was like technology is saving us all, use screens all day long. Now people are worried about screens and don't use them at all. The healthy response to anything in life is to achieve a balance. Our 15-year-old loves art, he's amazingly talented, he likes hanging out with his friends, and he wants to unwind and watch something on Netflix or chat with friends on Snapchat. No problem. It's all about that healthy balance. What I'm watching with a lot of concern is that in this moment of dramatic change with artificial intelligence, young people need to be learning how to use these tools. It is absolutely imperative that young people learn how to adopt these tools. It's so inspiring for young people to take an idea in their head and see it made real so quickly. All these advancements are happening at a time when people are incredibly skeptical about technology and concerned about AI. The industry has a lot of work to do to build trust and make sure young people are adopting these tools which are vitally important to their future.

澳大利亚社交媒体禁令 Australia's Social Media Ban

Host

与此相关的是,澳大利亚刚刚全面禁止 16 岁以下青少年使用排名前十(或类似数量)的社交媒体应用。禁令实施后,你看到了什么?澳大利亚的孩子们的行为有什么变化?

Relatedly, Australia just blanket banned under 16s from the top 10 or some number of social media apps. What have you seen post the ban and the behavior of kids across Australia?

Evan Spiegel

我认为禁令的实施方式存在很多挑战。如你所说,它只适用于少数应用。如果一个年轻人想继续使用 Snapchat 这样的服务,他们可以用一个不在禁令范围内的克隆服务。已经出现了很多直接克隆的应用。我没有追踪具体数量,但应用商店里有数百万个应用。只对极少数服务实施禁令,而不在操作系统层面执行,这会产生很多问题。你可以使用面部识别扫描或政府身份证,但很多年轻人没有政府身份证。所以在应用层面实施这样的禁令确实存在挑战。家长需要知道的是,他们已经在孩子的手机上通过操作系统进行了配置。苹果有很多很好的设置;我们在家里给 15 岁的孩子用了这些设置。我们可以精确决定他可以使用哪些应用以及使用多长时间。所有这些设置都在操作系统层面提供给家长,这是实施这类政策更可靠的方式。很多噪音和担忧掩盖了一个事实:这些工具已经可供家长使用,而且已经存在很长时间了。我希望政府能花更多时间告诉家长这些工具是可用的,因为在应用层面对少数应用实施禁令真的没什么意义。

I think there are a lot of challenges with the way the ban was implemented. As you mentioned, it only applies to a small number of apps. If you're a young person and want to continue using services like Snapchat, you can just use a clone service that isn't under the ban. A bunch of direct clones have popped up. I haven't followed the exact number, but there are millions of apps in the app store. To only apply the ban to a very small number of services and not implement it at the operating system level creates a lot of challenges. You can use facial ID scans or government IDs, but a lot of young people don't have government IDs. So there are real challenges in implementing a ban like this at the app level. What parents need to know is that they can already configure this on their teen's phone using the operating system. Apple has great settings; we use them at home for our 15-year-old. We can decide exactly what apps he can use and how long he can use them. All these settings are available to parents at the operating system level, which is a much more resilient way to implement this sort of policy. A lot of the noise and concern obfuscates the fact that these tools are already available for parents. They've been available for a very long time. I wish the government would spend more time teaching parents that these tools are available, because the app-level implementation with a handful of apps doesn't really make a lot of sense.

青少年心理健康与产品设计 Teen Mental Health and Product Design

Host

是的,我同意。列出具体应用名单感觉是一个相当笨拙的实施方式。如你所说,应用商店里有很多应用,尤其是消息应用,它们之间具有各种可替代性。这显然会导致人们转向其他应用,而且不清楚这样做的效果是什么。总的来说,关于青少年使用,很多国家都在争论青少年心理健康问题。我从来不太确定如何分析这些数据,因为很多数据依赖于自我报告的心理健康数据,由于报告标准的变化,这是一个很难使用的指标。但与此同时,你可以想象出一些糟糕的参与机制会吸引用户,以及一些糟糕的产品方向。我很好奇你怎么看待这个问题。你认为青少年自己有很多问题,而社交媒体或消息应用很容易成为替罪羊?还是说,你认为存在正确或错误的设计产品的方式,我们花了很多时间思考哪些产品功能不好,因为它们会导致不良后果?你认为在应用层面有什么可以做的,还是说这只是一个方便的把戏?

Yeah, I agree. The list of named apps feels like quite a clumsy implementation. As you say, there are lots of apps in the app store, especially messaging apps, with various substitutability between things. It seems like it will obviously lead to people going to other apps, and it's not clear what you've accomplished. As you think about teen usage in general, there are lots of debates in many countries about teen mental health. I'm never quite sure how to pick through the data, since a lot of it relies on self-reported mental health data, which is a hard index to use because of changes in reporting standards. But at the same time, you can imagine bad engagement wells that draw people in and bad product directions. I'm curious how you think about this. Do you think teens are figuring out a lot and it's easy to pick on social media or messaging apps as a scapegoat? Or do you think there's a right way or wrong way to design these products, and we spend a lot of time thinking about what wouldn't be a great product affordance because it would lead to bad outcomes? Do you think there's stuff to do at the app level, or is it just a convenience geek to it?

Evan Spiegel

我认为首先,我们有巨大的责任去制造一个我们认为能对世界产生积极影响的产品。有趣的是,你提到了更广泛的社交媒体,有很多研究笼统地看待社交媒体,把 Snapchat 和 Instagram 或 TikTok 放在一起。有一些独立的研究——我们没有资助或参与——试图理解不同应用的影响并区分它们。现在大概有三项或更多这样的研究:一项来自澳大利亚,一项来自荷兰,一项来自美国。它们显示 Snapchat 实际上对人们的幸福感和人际关系有积极影响。这与 TikTok 或 Instagram 不同,后者与幸福感负相关。因为 Snapchat 是围绕与朋友和家人的沟通建立的,而人际关系是积极心理健康结果的首要预测因素——关乎你从负面抑郁事件中恢复的能力——所以 Snapchat 围绕真实朋友和与他们联系,当研究人员研究时,它产生积极结果,这并不让我惊讶。我们面临的挑战之一是确保人们理解 Snapchat 的角色,而不是简单地把我们归入社交媒体,因为人们使用 Snapchat 的方式非常不同,主要是作为通讯服务。我们真的想对世界产生积极影响。这对我们来说非常重要。

I think first and foremost we have an enormous responsibility to make a product that we think can have a positive impact on the world. What's really interesting is that you mentioned social media more broadly, and there are a lot of studies that look at social media broadly and include Snapchat together with Instagram or TikTok. There are a small number of independent studies that we have not funded or been involved with that have tried to understand the impacts of different apps and differentiate between them. I think now there have been maybe three or more of them—one out of Australia, one out of the Netherlands, one in the US—that show Snapchat actually has a positive impact on people's well-being and relationships. That's different from TikTok or Instagram, which are negatively associated with well-being. Because Snapchat is built around communication with your friends and family, and relationships are the number one predictor of positive mental health outcomes—about your ability to recover from a negative depressive event—it doesn't surprise me that Snapchat, oriented around your real friends and connecting with them, has positive outcomes when studied by researchers. One of the challenges for us is to make sure people understand Snapchat's role and not just lump us in with social media, because people use Snapchat very differently, primarily as a communications service. We really want to have a positive impact in the world. That's really important to us.

健康平衡与连接感 Healthy balance and connectedness

Evan Spiegel

我们感到自豪的是,独立研究持续表明,对技术过度使用的担忧是有道理的,这就是为什么我认为健康平衡如此重要。我的意思是,过去有很多关于电视的研究,对吧?如果你看太多电视,那与负面健康结果相关。所以我认为好事过头也可能……

We are proud of the fact that independent research continues to show that concerns about overuse of technology are warranted, and that's why I think that healthy balance is so important. I mean, there were plenty of studies back in the day with television, right? If you watch too much television, that's associated with negative health outcomes. So I think too much of a good thing can be...

Host

那么你认为应用存在一个孤独-连接的光谱,你是说如果走向孤独的方向,比如无休止地刷信息流,刷到第四个小时,那可能不是个好结果。而你们试图鼓励的是更偏向连接的方向,你认为这对青少年或其他任何人都会带来相当好的结果?

So do you think there's like a loneliness-connectedness spectrum with apps, and you're saying if you go too far into the loneliness direction where you're kind of going through the endless feed and you're in hour four, that's maybe not a great place to end up. Whereas what you guys are trying to encourage is more in the connectedness direction, and you think that will lead to pretty good outcomes for teens or anyone else?

Evan Spiegel

就我们看到的独立研究而言,我认为 Snapchat 之所以与积极幸福感和积极关系相关联,是因为它连接朋友,对吧?而且是在一个让人们感到可以表达自己、做真实自己、发一张傻照片的环境里,对吧?没有那种在社交媒体上必须看起来完美的压力,或者东西永远保存的压力,你知道?还有公开点赞和评论之类的东西。所以我确实认为这是 Snapchat 的不同之处,而且我认为对我们来说,继续明确我们以不同方式构建服务非常重要。事实上,早期启发 Snapchat 的很多原因是我们不喜欢 Facebook。我们不喜欢社交媒体。我们不喜欢那种巨大的公开好友列表,以及围绕发布酷、流行或漂亮东西的压力。我们伴随着社交媒体长大,我们构建了不同的东西,在很多方面是为了回应——为了有一个可以和朋友们一起使用的有趣东西。

Just in terms of what we've seen with the independent research, I think the reason that Snapchat shows up as being associated with positive well-being and positive relationships is because it's connecting friends, right? And doing so in an environment where people feel like they can express themselves, be their true self, send a silly photo, right? Not feel the pressure to look perfect on social media or not save something forever, you know? And receive public likes and comments and that kind of thing. So I do think that's a difference with Snapchat, and I think it's so important for us to just continue to make clear that we built our service differently. In fact, a lot of what inspired Snapchat in the early days was that we didn't like Facebook. We didn't like social media. We didn't like that you had this huge public friends list and all this pressure around posting things that would be cool and popular or pretty or whatever. We grew up with social media and we built something different, in many ways in response to having something fun that we could use with our friends.

Host

是的。是的。那么你认为是否存在一个问题,当你考虑业务的内容方面时,有一种批评是,一旦你开始进入一个兔子洞,你会被拉得更深,对吧?你知道,如果你开始对主权公民阴谋论感兴趣,你会被拉得更深。如果你从厌食症内容开始,你会被拉得更深。这是你考虑的事情吗?你必须在内容方面平衡人们不被拉得太深?

Yeah. Yeah. Do you think there's an issue with because as you think then about the content side of the business, there's a criticism that if you start down a rabbit hole, you get pulled further down the rabbit hole, right? You know, if you start interested in sovereign citizen conspiracy theories, you'll get pulled further into that. If you start with anorexia content, you'll get pulled further into that. Is that something you think about that you have to balance people not getting pulled too far into rabbit holes on the content side?

Evan Spiegel

我觉得你说的非常有趣的一点是,人们过于关注算法,而对内容本身关注不够,对吧?我认为人们关注算法的部分原因是他们担心触犯第一修正案的保护,对吧,关于你可以在服务上展示什么内容。但自从我们推出 Discover,自从我们在 Snapchat 上提供内容产品以来,我们就一直在审核这些内容。早期这非常困难,因为在人工智能出现之前,人类必须审核所有内容。所以我们只有很少的发布者,这实际上影响了我们的增长能力,因为我们没有庞大的内容库。但今天,我们继续审核内容,所有在 Snapchat 上公开出现的内容。所以我认为这确实需要继续成为重点,以提供安全、负责任的内容体验。

What I think is so fascinating about what you said is that people have focused far too much on the algorithms and not enough on the content itself, right? And I think part of the reason why folks focus on the algorithm is because they're wary of tripping the First Amendment protections, right, around what content you can display on your service. But since we launched Discover, since we ever offered a content product on Snapchat, we have moderated that content. Now, in the early days, it was really hard because human beings had to moderate all the content before the days of artificial intelligence. And so, we only had a very small number of publishers and that actually impacted our ability to grow because we didn't have a huge corpus of content. But now today, we continue to moderate the content, all the content that is appearing publicly on Snapchat. And so I think that really needs to continue to be the focus for delivering a safe and responsible content experience.

Host

但人们关注算法,难道不是因为对单个用户来说,算法就是内容吗?比如,一个无趣的内容和一个非常有趣的内容之间,观看量会有几个数量级的差异。所以我对这些应用的亲身感受是,算法定义了我的个人电视频道。

But don't people focus on the algorithm because for an individual user the algorithm is the content? Like there'll be several orders of magnitude difference in the views between an uninteresting piece of content and a really interesting piece of content. And so my lived experience of any of these apps is that the algorithm defines my personal TV channel.

Evan Spiegel

但在我看来,在你举的例子中,厌食症内容的兔子洞,我的观点是,厌食症内容或宣扬厌食症的内容违反了我们的准则,因此不应出现在我们的平台上。

But I think in the example that you use, a rabbit hole of anorexic content, my view would be that anorexic content, or content promoting anorexia, runs afoul of our guidelines, therefore should not appear on our platform.

Host

好的。所以你希望在审核层面、内容层面阻止它。我认为这正是对话需要聚焦的地方。而且你知道,在美国这很难,因为这是第一修正案的问题。所以监管起来要难得多。

Okay. So, you want to stop it at the moderation level, at the content level. And I think that's really where the conversation needs to be. And you know, again, it's hard in the United States of America because that's a First Amendment issue. So, that's much harder to regulate.

Evan Spiegel

是的。是的。有趣。关于审核有什么有趣的说法吗?我的意思是,我猜那只是一个几十年来不断完善的历程。

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Is there anything interesting to say on moderation? I mean I presume that's just been a multi-decade journey of getting that right.

Host

我想说的是,这很重要。我们社区的内容体验非常重要。我们一直有公平一致的内容准则,并与所有人分享,以便他们理解规则,我们的理念是应该有规则。我认为 5 或 10 年前情况不同。现在更多人意识到,对于在线服务上展示的内容类型,应该有更多指导方针。

I guess what I would say is it's important. The content experience that our community has is really important. We've always had fair consistent content guidelines that we share with everybody so that they understand the rules of the road, and our concept has been there should be rules of the road. I think 5 or 10 years ago that was different. I think now more people are appreciating that there should be more guidelines around the types of content displayed on services online.

Evan Spiegel

人们经常谈论这个领域的分发动态,以及你们即将突破 10 亿 MAU 的事实,你们有很多优势,可以在最初因消息功能而流行的现有应用中推广 Discover 内容,但你们的竞争对手也可以利用你们的功能,将其分发给他们的用户群。我只是好奇,目前的分发之战进展如何?

People talk a lot about distribution dynamics in this space and the fact that you guys now that you're soon passing a billion MAUs, there's a lot of advantages you have where you can promote the Discover content in the existing app that first became popular with messaging, but also your competitors can do that with your functionality where you in functionality and they can distribute it to their user bases. I'm just curious how the distribution battle is playing out at the moment.

Host

我想也许这一切中最重要的是,分发在当今时代变得越来越重要。我认为随着用 AI 工具创办公司、构建软件、进行创新变得越来越容易,分发确实变得非常珍贵。我认为人们会将更多资源从软件工程等领域重新分配到分发上,以更快增长。所以我认为分发非常珍贵。如今作为一个品牌,很难获得可见性和吸引力,所以像 Snapchat 这样的地方我认为是任何业务增长的重要组成部分,而且此刻它只会变得更有价值。

I guess perhaps the most important thing in all this is distribution is getting more and more important in this day and age. I think as it becomes easier to build companies, to build software, to innovate using AI tools, I do think there's a real premium on distribution. And I think people are going to reallocate more resources away from things like software engineering, for example, to distribution in order to grow faster. So I think distribution is at a real premium. It's hard as a brand today to get visibility, to get traction, and so places like Snapchat I think are a really important part of growing any business, and that's only becoming more valuable at this moment in time.

Evan Spiegel

所以最终你拥有了分发的防御性,尤其是在其他事情变得更容易的时候。

So you end up having distribution defensibility especially as other things get easier.

Host

我认为这至关重要。

I think it's just critically important.

商业与AI的未来 Future of business and AI

Evan Spiegel

而且我认为,即使对我们来说,在思考业务未来时,我们一直都有大量好主意,比实际执行这些想法所需的资源多得多。所以每次我们讨论“哦,我们有个新应用的点子”时,就会想:“天哪,我觉得我们抽不出 15 个人去开发一个新应用。不可能。”现在,用半个人力、半个团队成员的时间,我们就能构建一个全新的服务,并通过 Snapchat 分发。所以我认为,对我们来说,在思考业务未来和构建多应用策略或更多服务时,这种分发能力加上人工智能的进步,对我们来说意义重大。

And I think even for us as we think about the future of our business, we've always had a ton of great ideas, many more great ideas than resources to actually execute on those ideas. And so every time we kicked around, oh, we got an idea for a new app, it's like, oh gosh, I don't think we can spare 15 people to spin up a new app. No way. Now with half a person's time, half a team member's time, we can build a totally new service and distribute it through Snapchat. And so that I think for us as we think about the future of the business and being able to build out a multi-app strategy or more services, that distribution coupled with these advancements in artificial intelligence are a really big deal for us.

Snap的产品设计流程 Product design process at Snap

Host

我们之前聊到 Snap 如何保持酷,这对一个即时通讯应用或社交网络来说很难。你是如何管理产品的?日常是怎样的?是让设计师来展示东西吗?是你自己想点子吗?还是别人向你推销想法?评审流程是怎样的?你是在评审工作功能还是线框图?我很想听听 Snap 的创意流程是什么样的。

We talked earlier about Snap managing to remain cool which is hard for a messaging app or a social network. How do you run product? Like just what's the day-to-day? Are you having designers come present to stuff? Are you coming up with the ideas? Are people pitching ideas to you? What's the review process? Are you reviewing working features? Are you reviewing wireframes? I would just love to hear what the creative process looks like at Snap.

Evan Spiegel

首先,不酷才是酷。所以我们从不刻意追求酷。我们专注于制作有用、能让我们的社区真正获得价值的东西。我认为这非常重要,北极星是持久价值。我喜欢设计,那真的是我的快乐所在。我每周花几个小时和设计团队在一起,我们只看东西,可以是任何形式:草图、白板上的东西、完整可用的原型、幻灯片等等。但重要的是我们看大量的想法。每周我们大概会看几百个点子,关于如何改进服务或推出新产品。

Well, first of all, it's cool to be uncool. So, we're never trying to focus on cool. We're trying to focus on making things that are useful that our community will really get value from. And I think that's so important that like the northstar is durable value. I love design. That's really my happy place. I spend a couple hours a week with our design team and all we do is look at stuff and it can be really in any form, right? It can be a sketch. It can be something on the whiteboard. It can be a fully functioning prototype. It can be on a slide or whatever. But the important thing is just that we're looking at a huge volume of ideas. So, I mean, I think on a weekly basis, we're probably looking at hundreds of ideas, ways to evolve the service or new product.

Host

这些是概念层面的,是草图。

These are at the concept level. These are sketches.

Evan Spiegel

是的,很多是画图。或者是原型之类的。现在越来越多的设计师直接提交代码,这真的很疯狂。

Yeah. A lot of them are drawings. Yeah. Or prototypes or whatever. Now increasingly our designers are shipping code, which is really wild.

Host

好的。所以 AI 之后,你看到更多可用的演示,因为制作它们变得容易了。

Okay. So, post AI, you're seeing many more working demos just because it's easy to make them.

Evan Spiegel

是的。或者更重要的是,设计师会说:“你知道吗,我对这个功能一直很沮丧,它在待办列表里放了好久。我对此充满热情。这是我的 PR。”我觉得这很棒。

Yeah. Or more importantly, designers are like, you know what, I've just been so frustrated about this feature. It's been in the backlog forever. I'm really passionate about it. Like, here's my PR, you know. And I think that that's pretty awesome.

筛选创意与用户吸收 Down-selecting ideas and user absorption

Host

好的。那么你如何筛选?人们可能每周向你推销大量好主意,超出你的实施能力。而且,我猜你还会受到用户对功能熟悉度的限制。即使你能全部构建出来,也不能把所有功能都塞进应用,因为会使用户不知所措。所以你有两个限制因素:能否构建所有这些功能的好版本,以及用户能吸收的速度。

Okay. And so then how do you down select between people probably come pitch you tons of good ideas in a week, more than you have bandwidth to implement. And also, I presume you're limited a little bit by users have familiarity with functionality. And even if you could build it all, you can't just like throw all this functionality into the app because it'll overwhelm users. So you have two limiting factors: can you build good versions of all this stuff and also what rate can users absorb.

Evan Spiegel

是的。有时一个好主意其实是“我们应该去掉这个东西”。这也是创意过程中非常重要的一部分。

Yeah. And sometimes a great idea is actually we should get rid of this thing. Yeah. Right. Which is also a really important part of the creative process.

Host

那么选择过程是怎样的?

So what does the selection process look like?

Evan Spiegel

这涉及很多辩论,我觉得很有趣。我们的会议,大家一直在笑,我认为这是最重要的事情之一:创意过程必须有趣,对吧?否则我们到底在做什么?我们只是尝试辩论、探索想法,并在彼此的想法上构建。没有过滤过程。如果你有什么想带到设计会议上,那就带来,我们会讨论并尝试。有时我们也会说:“哦,这很有趣。”但也许下次再说,然后两三年后,我们又说:“哦,天哪,还记得我们之前讨论的那个东西吗?也许我们现在应该在此基础上构建。”所以我认为这只是一个迭代探索新想法的过程。

It involves a lot of debate which I think is really fun. I mean our meetings, like everyone's laughing the whole time and that's I think one of the most important things: the creative process has to be fun, right? Otherwise like what are we doing anyways? I think we just try to debate and explore ideas and build on each other's ideas. There's no filter process. Like if you've got something you want to bring to design meeting, have at it and we'll talk about it and play around with it. Sometimes we also are like, 'Oh, that's interesting.' But like, maybe another time and it comes up two years later or three years later, we're like, 'Oh, man. Remember that thing we were kicking around? Like, maybe we should build on that now.' So, I think it's really just an iterative process of exploring new ideas.

连续签到故事 Story of streaks

Host

Brian Armstrong 在这里谈到,当 USDC 的想法被提给他时,他说:“啊,我不确定。听起来有点傻,但好吧,如果你们想做,那就去做吧。”显然这成了 Coinbase 最大的事情之一。你有没有类似的故事,一个你最初不太热衷的想法,但最终却……

Brian Armstrong talked here about how when the USDC idea was pitched to him, he was like, 'Ah, I'm not sure. Sounds kind of silly, but sure. If you guys want to do it, then go for it.' And obviously that's become one of the biggest things out of Coinbase. Do you have a similar story where there was an idea that you initially weren't so hot on, but ended up being...

Evan Spiegel

哦天哪,可能有很多。比如 streaks 就是一个。我不喜欢 streaks 这个想法。不想做。实际上多年来我一直努力想取消 streaks。Snap 一直反对指标。没有指标,谢谢。

Oh gosh, there's probably so many. I mean, streaks are one. I did not like the idea of streaks. Did not want to do it. I actually fought very hard to kill streaks over the years. We've always been anti-metric at Snap. Like no metrics, no thank you.

Host

是指指标还是游戏化?你是说面向用户的……

There metrics or gamification? You mean like user facing...

Evan Spiegel

就是指标?Snapchat 里几乎没有指标。很难找到……

Just metric? Like there's almost no metrics in Snapchat. It's hard to find...

Host

内部还是外部?

Internally or externally?

Evan Spiegel

面向用户的指标。比如大多数社交服务:你有多少朋友?你有多少粉丝?你有多少赞?评论等等,一切都有……

For the user-facing metric. Like most social services: how many friends do you have? How many followers do you have? How many likes do you have? Comment like everything has...

Host

你希望他们的体验是数字化的。

You want their experience to be one of numbers.

Evan Spiegel

看一堆数字。你知道,我们想不碍事,帮助你与朋友交流。所以多年来我一直试图取消 streaks。真正改变我的是了解到人们多么热爱 streaks 作为彼此联系的机会。随着时间的推移,我听到这些故事,人们通过 evanap.com 发邮件说:“你简直不敢相信。我搬到了地球另一端,与最好的朋友分离。我离婚了,换了新工作。但每天我都和最好的朋友保持联系。这改变了我的生活,对我意义重大。”我就想:“哇,好吧。”但有时仅仅是一个沟通的邀请或联系的邀请就如此重要。所以我认为随着时间的推移,我逐渐看到了其中的价值。

Look at a bunch of numbers. You know, we want to get out of the way and help you communicate with your friends. And so I've been over the years just like trying to get rid of streaks. And what really changed for me was learning how much people love streaks as an opportunity to connect with one another. And so over time I would just hear these stories, people again evanap.com people would send these emails of like 'You wouldn't believe it. I moved halfway across the world. I was separated from my best friend. I got a divorce. I got a new job. And every single day I stayed in touch with my best friend. And that changed my life and was so powerful for me.' And I was like, 'Wow, like okay.' But just sometimes having an invitation to communicate or an invitation to connect is so important. And so I think over time I've come around to really seeing the value there.

Host

这相当于数字版的“出门”。出门很重要。

Speaks to the digital equivalent of getting out of the house. It's just it's important to get out.

Evan Spiegel

有时你必须走出去……在线也要这样做。好吧,这很有趣。

Sometimes you got to get out of... and you got to do that online as well. Okay. That's interesting.

设计驱动文化 Design-driven culture

Host

那么当我们谈论产品设计流程时,设计师是否类似地处于主导地位?我不知道你是否和 Airbnb 的 Brian 交流过,他们那里有非常注重设计的文化。

And then when we talk about the product design process, are designers kind of in the driver's seat of this similar? I don't know if you've compared notes with Brian at Airbnb where they have like a very design forward culture.

Evan Spiegel

我认为设计非常重要。我们有一种非常注重设计的文化。设计师深度参与产品决策。他们经常推动创意过程,我们鼓励他们对自己热衷的功能负责。

I think design is really important. We have a very design-forward culture. Designers are deeply involved in product decisions. They often drive the creative process, and we encourage them to take ownership of features they're passionate about.

Snap文化与挪威早期推广 Snap's culture and Norway's early traction

Host

Snap 的文化是这样的吗?

Is that how the culture at Snap is?

Evan Spiegel

我觉得 Snap 的文化是设计、工程、产品管理、数据科学等各个职能之间经过深思熟虑的对话。因为对我们来说,业务从一开始就是建立在我和 Bobby 的对话之上的,对吧?他工程背景更强,我偏设计,但他真的很爱设计,而我也很喜欢工程,所以我们能真正地辩论,从不同角度看问题。这始终是帮助业务成长的关键。我们试图以此塑造团队文化——不一定由设计、产品或工程主导,而是所有重要职能之间健康的对话和关系。

You know, I'd say that culture at Snap is like a thoughtfully managed dialogue between design and engineering and product management as well, data science, you name it. Because for us, the business was always built initially on the dialogue between myself and Bobby, right? He has a heavier engineering background. I was more of a design background, but he really loved design and I actually loved engineering, so we were able to really debate things and see things from different angles. That was always something that really helped the business grow. We tried to model that as a team where it's not necessarily design-led or product-led or engineering-led; it's a healthy dialogue and relationship between all these really important functions in our business.

Host

说到数据科学,我想起社交网络常因网络效应产生很强的国家性网络效应,比如 Orkut 是谷歌的社交网络,除了全巴西人很热衷之外,其他地区很久都没人用。所以会有这种有趣的地域效应。有没有哪个国家对 Snap 的喜爱特别不成比例地狂热?

When you talk about data science, one thing I'm reminded of is often in social networks because of the network effects, you get these very strong country network effects where like Orkut was a Google social network that no one really used for a long time except all of Brazil, who were really into it. So you get these funny regional effects. Are there any countries that are just really disproportionately wildly into Snap?

Evan Spiegel

嗯,挪威是 Snapchat 第一个获得用户的地方。我们当时在任何地方都没有起色,包括美国,只有挪威有。实际上在早期,

Well, Norway was the first place that Snapchat got traction. I mean, we had no traction anywhere, not the US. We had no traction anywhere except Norway. In fact, in the very early days,

Host

这我还真不知道。

I did not know this.

Evan Spiegel

哦,那太棒了。早期,大概是我们拿到风投之后,可能第一轮融资后。我们融了 40 万美元左右。在挪威增长非常快,非常迅猛。就像有个加拿大女友一样,我的 app 在挪威很火,相信我。所以我们直接坐飞机去了挪威,然后我们就出名了。简直难以置信。你在 7-Eleven 里,人们会说:“什么?你们在 Snapchat 工作?太疯狂了。”我记得我当时想:“天哪,希望更多地方也能这样。”那是一次奇妙的经历。

Oh, it was a blast. In the early days, I think this was after we had gotten venture funding, maybe after we had gotten our first round. We'd raised $400,000, something like that. And we were really growing in Norway, big time growing in Norway. Like a Canadian girlfriend, you know, my app is big in Norway, trust me. So we literally got on an airplane, flew to Norway, and we were famous. I mean, it was unbelievable. You were in a 7-Eleven. People are like, "What? You guys work at Snapchat? That's crazy." And I remember just being like, "Oh gosh, I hope this happens in more places." It was an amazing experience.

Host

那这是怎么发生的呢?

So, how did it happen?

Evan Spiegel

嗯,我们的一个假设是,挪威既有高端设备,又有价格合理的高速互联网。回想当年的 Snapchat,你真的需要一部 iPhone 才能用。早期很多情况下只有 iPhone 能用,而且网络使用量非常大,因为你一直在发照片和视频,这在 2012 年左右是非常不寻常的。所以引火物足够干燥,Snap 之火才能燎原。后来它在美国也发展起来了,但当时美国不一定有同样的网络能力,甚至 iPhone 的普及率也不够。

Well, I think one of our hypotheses is that Norway had both very high-end devices and great internet connectivity that was affordable for the population. If you think about Snapchat back in the day, you really needed an iPhone to be able to use the service. It was iPhone only in a lot of cases in the early days, and it required very heavy network use because you were sending photos and videos all the time, which was really unusual back in 2012 or whatever it was. So the kindling was dry enough for the Snap fire to really take hold. And then over time it grew in the US, but the US didn't necessarily have the same network capability or even iPhone distribution at that time.

Host

是的。这太有趣了。那现在呢?有没有哪些国家很有趣?挪威仍然是领先者。真不可思议。

Yes. Well, that's so interesting. How about today? Are there any countries that are fun? Norway is still the leader. It's unbelievable.

Evan Spiegel

是的。挪威另一个有趣的地方——我认为这对 Snapchat 整体也适用——是它非常重视亲密的家庭和朋友关系。这对他们来说非常重要。

Yeah. And the other thing that's interesting about Norway, and I think this is true about Snapchat in general, is it's a culture that really prioritizes close family and friend relationships. That's something that's really important to them.

Host

我对挪威的印象是基础设施太好了。这个国家太富了。我觉得他们建基础设施超出了合理的程度。你开车去一个只有 200 人的村庄,会经过 7 公里的地下隧道,而其他方式只能坐渡轮。给你倒吉尼斯黑啤的人都有研究生学历。

My Norway impression was the infrastructure is so good. This country is so rich. I think they build infrastructure beyond what's sensible. You'll be driving to a village that has a population of 200 people and you'll pass through 7 km of underground tunnels to get there when anything else would be a ferry. And the person pouring you a Guinness has a graduate degree.

Evan Spiegel

完全正确。是啊,真是个有趣的国家。

Exactly. Yeah. No, it's a funny country.

Snap领导风格演变 Leadership style evolution at Snap

Host

你在 Snap 这些年的领导风格发生了怎样的变化?

How has your leadership style changed over the years at Snap?

Evan Spiegel

在很多深刻的方面。我认为领导力的一切都关乎人。我爱我们的人,但我一开始并不是学怎么领导人的,我是做产品的。所以从努力做出人们喜欢的东西,到以能激励人的方式去领导,这个转变非常难。我们做的事很难:在消息领域与全球最大的公司竞争,做硬件,再次与全球最大的公司竞争,研究基础模型。看看我们的视频模型和所有工作,我们在尝试做世界上最难的事情之一。这需要激励人们迎接巨大挑战,招募世界上最优秀的人才与我们合作,然后建立一种文化,让这些人能做出他们一生中最好的工作。这在很多方面不同于仅仅做出人们喜欢的产品。但相同的是,它需要大量的同理心,理解人,理解每个人都非常不同,懂得如何激发出每个人最好的一面。这是如今这份工作我最喜欢的挑战之一。

In so many profound ways. I think everything about leadership is about people. I love our people, but I didn't start learning how to lead people. I started building products. So I think the transition from trying to make stuff that people really love to trying to lead in a way that can inspire people is really hard. It's really hard to do what we're doing: competing against the largest companies in the world in the messaging space, building hardware, again competing with the largest companies in the world, working on foundational models. When I look at our video models and everything we're doing, we're trying to do some of the hardest things in the world. That requires inspiring people to take on enormous challenges, recruiting some of the best folks in the world to work together with us, and then building a culture where those people can do the absolute best work of their lives. That's different in many ways than just trying to build a product that people love. But it's the same in that it requires a lot of empathy and understanding people, understanding that people are very different, understanding how to bring out the best in each of them. That's one of the challenges I love most about the job today.

硬件供应链与美国制造 Hardware supply chain and US manufacturing

Host

在做硬件的语境下,我听做硬件的人说,在美国更难,因为供应链动态不同。特别是在深圳,附近就有一家公司可以一夜之间给你做出 V1 版本,然后你说“我们想换这个组件”,他们又能一夜之间换掉组件生产线。你是否发现美国供应链的速度是一个因素?尤其是在我们讨论将大量制造业回流时,美国生产的限制因素往往是你迭代的速度?

In the context of building hardware, one thing I hear from people who do it is that it's harder in the US because of the supply chain dynamics. In particular, if you're making stuff in Shenzhen, there's a company just down the road that can give you the V1 overnight and then you say, "Oh, we want to change this component," and they'll swap out the production line of the component again overnight. Have you found that supply chain speed dynamic in the US a factor, where in particular as we talk about reshoring so much manufacturing, the limiting factor with US production is often how fast you can iterate essentially?

Evan Spiegel

但我觉得人们总是很惊讶地听说,我们在美国和英国制造 Spectacles 的一些最重要组件。我们确实考虑过,将一些最敏感的知识产权组件、最复杂的组件放在美国和英国制造,这样我们可以把它们直接放在研发和工程旁边,从而获得非常快的周期时间和迭代。

But I think people are always stunned to hear that we build some of the most important components for Spectacles in the US and in the UK. We've really thought about building some of the most IP-sensitive components, some of the most sophisticated components in the US and the UK, where we can sit them directly next to R&D and engineering so we can have those really fast cycle times and iterations.

Host

是在内部还是在美国的合同制造商那里?

In house or in the US at contract manufacturers?

Evan Spiegel

是的。这让我们在显示技术上真正领先。

Yes. And that's really allowed us to lead on the display technology.

硬件vs软件保护 Hardware vs Software Protection

Evan Spiegel

我的意思是,即使你看今天的规格,我们波导的分辨率和性能也远远超过竞争对手。而且,我们在这方面拥有大量基础知识产权和专利。这是我喜欢硬件的一点。相比软件,尤其是在当今 AI 时代,保护我们的创新和想法要容易得多。

I mean, even if you look at specs today, the resolution and performance of our waveguides far, far exceeds our competitors. And again, we have a lot of foundational IP and patents in this area. That is one thing I love about hardware. It's way easier to protect our innovations and ideas compared to software, especially today in the age of AI.

Host

是的。我认为这在当今也是一个重要因素。没错。我们要不要试试玩飞镖?来吧。

Yeah. I think that is a huge factor these days as well. Yeah, for sure. Should we try playing a game of darts? Let's do it.

Evan Spiegel

哦,是的,我想试试飞镖。这里太合适了。我们得站起来……

Oh yeah, I want to try darts. That is perfect for here. We're going to have to like get up and...

Host

是的,我们有一个真正的飞镖靶,但我们可以……

Yeah, we have a real dart board, but we can...

Evan Spiegel

是的,我们……Satcha 真的是飞镖第一名吗?

Yeah, let's... Is Satcha really number one on the darts?

Host

是的。不过我们还没和所有人比过。如果你想挑战 Sasha 的记录,我们可以先用 Special 练习一下。

Yes. Now, we haven't played with everyone. If you want to have a go at Sasha's record, we can practice first with Special.

Evan Spiegel

没错。是的。

Exactly. Yeah.

Host

给你。

Here you go.

Evan Spiegel

好的。

Okay.

Host

然后飞镖应该就在这里。拿起来就行。

And then dart should be right here. Just pick them up.

Evan Spiegel

是的。哦,好了。哦,这真有趣。就在实际靶子旁边……好吧,我得了 28 分。那是压哨球。

Yeah. Oh, there we go. Oh, this is really funny. Right next to the actual... Okay, I got 28. That was a buzzer beater.

Host

哦,哇。玩家二赢了。哦,天哪。不错。51 分也是。你想玩吗?当然。好的。你看到信任了吗?

Oh wow. Player two wins. Oh my god. Nice. 51 too. You want to play? Sure. All right. Do you see the trust?

Evan Spiegel

是的,我看到了。就是这部分。太棒了。

Yeah, I do. This is the part. That's awesome.

Host

好了。

There you go.

Evan Spiegel

这真有趣。在酒吧下棋。

This is pretty funny. Playing chess in the pub.

Host

哎呀。

Uh-oh.

Evan Spiegel

Chuck。

Chuck.

Host

说实话,你麻烦大了。哦,哇。不错。

I'm not going to lie, you're in a lot of trouble. Oh, wow. Nice.

Evan Spiegel

这太棒了。

This is awesome.

Host

是的,很有趣。

Yeah, it was fun.

Evan Spiegel

回头见。

See you soon.

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