AI gives Snap more leverage against its larger rivals

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 37:35

   And so talk a little bit about like what you think AI will do to a company like yours where it seems to be like a design first culture. I think AI is like probably the best thing that's ever happened to Snapchat, which is great. I think the reason why is because we've always had a ton of ideas and a deep connection with our community and our customer, but we've always had very limited resources and we're up against monopolistic companies.

2. 38:01

   And so we've essentially been engaged in like trench warfare with monopolies for 15 years, right? And I think what's so funny, like, you know, you look at the last 15 years, we learned very, very early on that there's no moat in software, which was an incredibly powerful lesson, right? All of our ideas, the things that we invent, people just try to copy right away. And it's easy to do that with software.

3. 38:23

   But what's fascinating about the world today is that it has never been easier. I mean, almost instantly, you can copy nearly any piece of software. And so because we learned that lesson very early on, we've evolved our business to really focus on the things that are hard to copy. A network effects business of people communicating with one another. These platforms, right, like our augmented reality platform or content ecosystem that are not just pieces of software that you can easily copy, but ecosystems of people communicating with one another or creators making content that people are watching or people building augmented reality experiences.

4. 38:56

   All of those sorts of things are very hard to copy. So from, you know, over the last 15 years, we've really honed our business perspective for this moment, right, because we saw how easy it was to copy software. So in terms of our business and the way it meets our customers, I think we are well positioned for the huge transformation that's happening. At the same time, our core business is software development.

5. 39:18

   So we're able to get a lot of the benefits of the extraordinary transformation in software development without the same risk to our core business because we build network effects over time and thought about how to position ourselves for this moment. So, AI is changing every single team at Snap. It's changing the way that everything gets done at Snap. And because our core business is software development, I mean, in the last three months, there's been profound change.

6. 39:45

   But to imagine, I mean, 18 months from now, the way that Snap operates will be completely different than the way it operated last year. There's so many founders, and I don't know how many, almost none of them are saying this on the record, but they tell me. They're like, I'm trying to figure out, I should not. running my company anymore. I'm trying to figure out how to build AI to run my company. They are trying to literally replace themselves. They're like, there's just gonna be so much better than I am at doing this. It should be doing this. I should not be doing this. I think that's certainly true in terms of like the operational lift, but at the same time, right, like that, the vision and creativity and connection to your customer has never been more important. And so I think if anything, it's going to enable founders to run teams that are much more operationally effective

7. 40:29

   and require less of their time to operate the business and instead hopefully, you know, pivot more time towards that sort of creativity and ideation and, you know, meeting customers where they're at. What's one of the most surprising ways that AI has changed how Snap operates internally? I don't necessarily think this is like a surprise per se, but I do think, you know, and I feel like this is old news because everyone in the world has been saying it, but like the change in how software is written And since the beginning of this year is profound for our core business is writing software.

8. 41:02

   And now that these models are good enough to write more and more complex pieces of software on their own, like the job of a software engineer at Snap is like profoundly and forever changed. And I think the more that we can embrace that and make that easier and teach people how to do that really effectively, like it's just transformational for our core business. Because as I mentioned, like we have been up against companies who don't have new ideas, but have infinite resources, right?

9. 41:32

   And we've got lots of new ideas, but very limited resources. And that's been a real challenge. And so it's been hard to see a path forward for Snap up against these giants without AI tools. And now with AI tools, you're like, wow, we basically have an infinite number of engineering resources? Like that's a pretty profound change for Snap. And the rate at which that, I guess I would say the rate at which that has happened has surprised me.

10. 41:56

    You said something very interesting.