Long-time Pandora executive Tom Conrad is the latest major recruitment for the company. The move will see the former Pandora CTO report directly to Snapchat’s founder and head honcho, Evan Spiegel. Conrad also served as an Apple engineer, working on the Mac OS in the early nineties.
The Snapchat boss is reportedly extremely hands-on himself when it comes to the app, but Conrad’s hire will free him up to build the product into a business, reports Recode. Despite boasting a user base of 100 million daily active users, Snapchat has set itself some lofty targets for 2016.
Having recently seen its $16 billion valuation remain flat, the company is still aiming for an IPO. Additionally, sources close to the company recently revealed that it is looking to increase its revenue for the year to around $350 million. That’s a whopping seven times higher than 2015. Consequently, Spiegel definitely has a lot on his plate, and that’s why Conrad’s recruitment is so important.
Tech companies have different approaches to the CEO-product head relationship. Facebook, for example, has Zuckerberg at the top with VP Chris Cross managing the day-to-day task of running the product. Meanwhile, Twitter has Jack Dorsey as its CEO, and four product heads beneath him — a hierarchy that some have blamed for the company’s recent financial woes.
Unlike its new VP, Snapchat’s other high-profile hires come from the press, and have editorial backgrounds. Individuals like former Cosmopolitan editor Joanna Coles, who currently sits on the company’s board of directors, marked the app’s transition from a visual messaging platform to a mobile storytelling service. They also helped Snapchat shape its own original content and target more third-party publishers for its Discover feature.
Conrad, who joined Snapchat at the start of this week, will have a broader role; to build a relevant product that will help Snapchat increase its user base.
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