Snap CEO Evan Spiegel Jokingly Lists Himself as Meta VP of Product in Direct Jab at Rival

Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap Inc., recently updated his LinkedIn profile to humorously include the title "VP Product @ Meta," a move widely interpreted as a direct jab at Meta Platforms Inc.'s long-standing practice of replicating Snapchat's features. This "gag," as described by Spiegel in a Bloomberg interview, highlights the intense and often contentious rivalry between the two social media giants. The update quickly garnered significant attention across social media and news outlets, underscoring the ongoing competitive dynamics in the tech industry.

Spiegel's LinkedIn profile, which also lists him as "Loving husband, father of four boys," temporarily featured the Meta product role, a clear reference to the numerous features Meta's platforms, including Instagram and Facebook, have adopted from Snapchat. The most prominent example is Instagram Stories, launched in 2016, which mirrored Snapchat's ephemeral photo and video sharing format pioneered in 2013. Meta later extended this feature to Facebook and WhatsApp.

The history of feature imitation extends beyond Stories, encompassing disappearing direct messages and augmented reality filters. Meta's approach has been defended by its executives, with former Instagram VP of product Kevin Weil stating in 2017 that it would be "silly to not touch a good idea just because it was used elsewhere." This perspective contrasts with Spiegel's past remarks, where he expressed a mixed sentiment, noting in 2018 that it was "the best feeling to design something that is so simple and so elegant that the only thing competitors can do is copy it exactly."

The rivalry also traces back to Meta's (then Facebook's) multiple attempts to acquire Snapchat, including a reported $3 billion offer in 2013, which Spiegel famously declined. This rejection solidified Snapchat's independence but also intensified the competition, with Meta subsequently focusing on building similar functionalities within its own ecosystem. Spiegel's recent LinkedIn update serves as a public, albeit lighthearted, commentary on these persistent competitive dynamics and Meta's "copy-paste strategy."