In January 2017 The Wall Street Journal reported that after the predicted March 2017 IPO for Snap Inc., Murphy and Evan Spiegel would hold over '70% of the voting power' in the company, and own around 45% of the total stock. Their mission is to 'develop pathways to the creative economy for underrepresented youths in Los Angeles.' Recently they have donated $3 million to people affected by COVID-19. They have created the Snap Foundation which is a non-profit organization targeted to help in these areas. In February 2017, Spiegel and Murphy pledged to donate upwards of 13,000,000 shares of Class A common stock over the next 15–20 years to an arts, education and youth non-profit. By the end of 2012, Spiegel's Snapchat app had reached 1 million daily active users. The app's popularity grew significantly and in 2012, Evan left Stanford to focus on Snapchat shortly before completing his degree. Later that year, Spiegel worked with fellow Stanford classmates Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown to launch a prototype of this concept called 'Picaboo', which they later renamed as Snapchat.
In April 2011, Spiegel proposed an app with ephemeral messaging as a product design class project. Spiegel at the 7th Annual Crunchies Awards on February 10th, 2014 in San Francisco.