Evan Spiegel is probably having a tougher morning than you right about now. The 26-year-old wunderkind and CEO of Snap Inc., the parent company of disappearing messaging app Snapchat, has seen his net worth drop nearly $1 billion since the underwhelming release of his company’s Q1 earnings report on Wednesday afternoon.
An hour into Wall Street trading on Thursday, shares of Snap are down about 20 percent, falling from a close of $23 on Wednesday to $18.50. At the time of Snap’s initial public offering in March, Spiegel owned nearly 211 million shares of Snap, meaning he’s about $950 million less rich on paper as he eats breakfast this morning.
If misery loves company in this case, Spiegel can find comfort in knowing his co-founder and Snap Chief Technology Officer Bobby Murphy is feeling the pain as well; Murphy owned the same amount of stock as Spiegel did at the company’s IPO, with both men accounting for slightly less than 30 percent of all Snap shares.
Snap’s share price is taking a massive hit after reporting $2.2 billion in Q1 loses — with nearly $2 billion of that figure coming in the form of stock-based compensation to employees. And perhaps more importantly to investors, Snapchat’s user growth is lagging, growing only five percent in Q1 to 166 million daily active users; for comparison, Instagram Stories, its chief rival, recently reported 200 million daily active users.
The company’s earnings call on Wednesday afternoon did little to stem the damage, with it offering no forward guidance on financials and little-to-no information on Snap’s plans for original content, advertising growth or emerging markets.
The good news for Spiegel and Murphy, though, is that they’re still worth about $4 billion, even after this right hook to the chin.
Dani Mathers' Snapchat Scandal and 7 Other Playboy Playmate Controversies (Photos)
Dani Mathers -- the 2015 Playboy Playmate of the Year who's currently under criminal investigation after photographing a nude woman at her gym and posting it on Snapchat -- is the latest Playmate to make shocking headlines, but she's hardly the first.
Read on for TheWrap's history of Playmate controversies.
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After serving as Playboy's 1968 Playmate of the Year using the name Angela Dorian, Victoria Vetri went on to appear in movies such as "Rosemary's Baby" and "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth." Later, she would go on to receive a nine-year sentence for attempted voluntary manslaughter for shooting and wounding her husband during an argument.
Tanya Beyer was Playboy's Miss February 1992. She took a much less glamorous picture for her mug shot years later, after being arrested for trafficking in oxycodone.
The entire public life of Anna Nicole Smith (Playboy's 1993 Playmate of the Year) seemed to be one long controversy, from the battle over her billionaire husband J. Howard Marshall's fortune to her death in 2007 at age 39.
Sibling models Kristina and Karissa Shannon shared Playmate honors in Playboy's combined 2009 "summer issue." However, the two Playmates almost became inmates when they were charged with felony aggravated assault stemming from a fight at a house party. Luckily for them they received probation.
Perhaps not so much a controversy as a tragedy, Playboy's 1980 Playmate of the Year Dorothy Stratten was murdered that same year, at age 20, by her estranged manager/husband Paul Snider. Her story inspired two movies, "Death of a Centerfold: The Dorothy Stratten Story" and "Star 80."
Playboy's 50th anniversary Playmate Colleen Shannon loved her boyfriend so much that she smuggled him into the U.S. from Canada. She was sentenced to four months in prison after pleading guilty.
After scoring Playmate of the Month honors in December 2009, Crystal Hefner (nee Harris) became engaged to Playboy boss Hugh Hefner in 2010. Apparently those wedding bells began to hit some bum notes, and she broke off the engagement in 2011, just days before they were to be wed. The abrupt about-face prompted Playboy to slap stickers reading "Runaway Bride" on the July issue of Playboy, which featured her on the cover. The good news? The pair reunited and married for real in 2012.
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From human smuggling to attempted manslaughter, a history of misdeeds committed by women who’ve appeared in Hugh Hefner’s skin mag
Dani Mathers -- the 2015 Playboy Playmate of the Year who's currently under criminal investigation after photographing a nude woman at her gym and posting it on Snapchat -- is the latest Playmate to make shocking headlines, but she's hardly the first.
Read on for TheWrap's history of Playmate controversies.