Robert Cornelius Murphy is an American Internet entrepreneur and software engineer, known as the co-founder and the Chief Technology Officer of the social media company Snap Inc.
Early life and education
Bob Murphy was born on July 19, 1988, in Berkeley, California. Murphy is the son of Richard Cornelius Murphy Jr., a US-born father and Rosie L. Go-Murphy, a Filipino-born mother. Both of Murphy’s parents are government employees in California. Murphy’s mother was raised in the Philippines and immigrated to the US.
Murphy attended at the School of the Madeleine, a private Roman Catholic grade school. Murphy earned his secondary education at Saint Mary’s College High School, also a private Catholic high school in Berkeley. In 2010, Murphy earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematical and Computational Science from Stanford University in Stanford, California. Murphy, along with Evan Spiegel and Reggie Brown, was also a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity.
Career
Evan Spiegel recruited Murphy after they finished working on a failed startup called Future Freshman, a website that helped high school kids receive advice when applying to colleges. After graduating from Stanford, Murphy spent a year at Revel Systems working as a software engineer.
Snapchat
According to records and deposition reports, Reggie Brown made the idea for a disappearing pictures application to Evan Spiegel because of his previous business experience. The two then pulled in Murphy to the group for his programming experience. The three worked together for several months, and on July 8, 2011, launched Snapchat on the iOS operating system as Picaboo. A few months after the launching, Brown got ousted from the company.
They relaunched the app as Snapchat in September 2011. Rather than branding efforts, the team focused on usability and technical aspects. One exception was the decision to retain a mascot called Ghostface Chillah, which Brown designed.
On May 8, 2012, during their senior year at Stanford, Brown emailed Spiegel in which he attempted to renegotiate his equitable share regarding ownership of the company. Lawyers for Snapchat countered by emphasizing that he had never had any creative connection to the product. The lawyers also cited Brown of charging fraud against Murphy and Spiegel by falsely declaring to be a product inventor. On behalf of their clients, the law decided that Brown had done no participation of worth or value, and was hence entitled to a share of nothing. In September 2014, Brown settled with Murphy and Spiegel for $157.5 million and was recognized as one of the original Snapchat’s authors.
On October 29, 2012, Snapchat was released as an Android app. In June 2013, Snapchat version 5.0 was released for iOS, dubbed Banquo. In September 2016, Snapchat Inc. changed its name to Snap Inc. to correspond with the introduction of the company’s original hardware product, Spectacles, smartglasses with a built-in camera that can record 10 seconds of video at a time.
Funding Rounds
In 2012, Barry Eggers, Lightspeed Ventures’ managing director, discovers from his teenage daughter that the three most popular apps among her friends are Instagram, Angry Birds, and Snapchat. Eggers’ partner at the firm, Liew, seeks Snapchat and agrees to fund $485,000 in the company. Investors appear to include Benchmark Capital, one of Instagram’s investors. In February 2013, Snapchat raised a $13.5 million in a Series A, led by Mitch Lasky of Benchmark Capital, with a post-money valuation between $60 million and $70 million.
In June 2013, Snapchat raised an $80 million in a Series B round, led by Institutional Venture Partners, and earlier investors Lightspeed Ventures and Benchmark Capital also invested at a valuation of about $800 million. Other investors included SV Angel and General Catalyst Partners. In December 2013, Snapchat raised $50 million in a Series C funding from Coatue Management.
In December 2014, Snapchat announced that it raised $485 million in a Series D round from 23 investors at a valuation of at least $10 billion. In March 2015, Snapchat raised $200 million in a Series E funding round, led by Alibaba Group at a valuation of about $15 billion. Other investors for this round include Kingdom Holding Company and Access Technology Ventures.
In May 2016, Snapchat raised $1.8 billion in a Series F funding round. Investors in this round include Sequoia Capital, General Atlantic, Lone Pine, T. Rowe Price, Coatue Management, Glade Brook Capital, IVP, and Fidelity, among others. The funds were gathered over a long span of time. TechCrunch reports that $1.158 billion of the $1.8 billion were raised since January 2016 ($650 million previously raised in 2015 starts up the rest of the $1.8 billion), and also reports a leaked pitch deck with revenue and projections and userbase numbers. The $1.8 billion total includes a $175 million raised from Fidelity.
In February 2017, Snapchat confirmed their plans for an IPO in 2017 and it’s expected to raise $3 billion. In March 2017, the company went public with an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange on March 2.
IPO
In February 2017, Snapchat confirmed their plans for an IPO in 2017 and it’s expected to raise $3 billion. In March 2017, the company went public with an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange on March 2.
At Snapchat, Murphy has managed the research teams and engineering. Murphy has also served with Snapchat’s Snap Labs team, which produced Spectacles camera glasses in 2018. Murphy and Spiegel secured over 45% of the company’s total stock at the time of Snapchat’s IPO in 2017. They also secured more than 70% of the voting power.
Personal life
Robert Cornelius Murphy is a native of California. In 2014, Murphy was cited as one of the 100 Most Influential People by Time. In 2015, Murphy was listed as the 1,250th-richest person in the world, by Forbes Magazine; and ranked as the 15th U.S. Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40. As of 2016, Murphy was ranked 374th on the Forbes 400.