Bobby Murphy

Bobby Murphy
Murphy in January 2013
Bobby Murphy
Born	Robert Cornelius Murphy 19 7, 1988
Birthplace	Berkeley, California, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Software engineer, entrepreneur
Title	Chief Technology Officer of Snap Inc.
Employer	Snap Inc.
Known for	Co-founder of Snap Inc.
Education	Stanford University (BS)
Spouse(s)	Kelsey Bateman
Awards	Time 100 Most Influential People (2014)

Robert Cornelius Murphy (born July 19, 1988) is an American Internet entrepreneur and software engineer who serves as the co-founder and chief technology officer (CTO) of Snap Inc., the parent company of the multimedia messaging application Snapchat. Murphy co-created Snapchat alongside Evan Spiegel and Reggie Brown while the three were students at Stanford University, launching the application in 2011. The platform, originally known for its ephemeral photo and video messages that disappear after being viewed, grew rapidly to become one of the most widely used social media services in the world. As CTO, Murphy has overseen the technical architecture and engineering development of Snap Inc.'s products, including Snapchat, Spectacles, and related technologies. In 2014, Time named Murphy one of its 100 most influential people in the world. The following year, Forbes listed Murphy as the second-youngest billionaire in the world on its annual billionaires ranking. Murphy's technical contributions were instrumental in transforming Snapchat from a Stanford class project into a multinational technology company that went public in 2017 in one of the largest technology initial public offerings in years.

Early Life

Robert Cornelius Murphy was born on July 19, 1988, in Berkeley, California. He is of Filipino American heritage. His mother is a Filipina immigrant, a background that received attention in Philippine media when Murphy rose to prominence as one of the youngest billionaires in the world.

Murphy grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and attended Saint Mary's College High School in Berkeley. During his formative years, Murphy developed an interest in mathematics and computer science. He was known among peers and teachers as a strong student with particular aptitude in technical subjects.

Murphy's upbringing in the Bay Area — a region synonymous with technological innovation and the broader Silicon Valley ecosystem — placed him in proximity to the culture of entrepreneurship and software development that would later define his career. His Filipino American heritage also connected him to a significant immigrant community in the region, and his rise to billionaire status was later highlighted as a notable achievement within the Filipino American community.

Education

After graduating from Saint Mary's College High School, Murphy enrolled at Stanford University, one of the leading research universities in the United States and a well-known incubator for technology startups. At Stanford, Murphy pursued a degree in mathematical and computational science, a multidisciplinary program that combined elements of mathematics, computer science, and statistics. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the university.

It was during his time at Stanford that Murphy met Evan Spiegel, who would become his business partner and co-founder of Snapchat. Murphy also met Reggie Brown at Stanford. The three students would collaborate on the project that became Snapchat, with Murphy's technical skills in software engineering forming a critical complement to Spiegel's product vision and business acumen. Stanford's environment — with its emphasis on interdisciplinary thinking and entrepreneurial culture — provided the setting in which the idea for Snapchat was conceived, developed, and ultimately launched.

Career

Founding of Snapchat

The concept that would become Snapchat originated during Murphy's time at Stanford University. The idea for a mobile application centered on ephemeral, self-deleting photo messages was initially proposed by Reggie Brown, who brought the concept to Evan Spiegel. Spiegel then recruited Murphy to build the application due to his software engineering skills. Murphy served as the primary engineer and coder for the early versions of the app, which was initially called "Picaboo" before being renamed Snapchat.

The application launched in 2011 and was built on the novel premise that photographs and messages sent between users would automatically disappear after a short period, distinguishing it from other social media and messaging platforms where content persisted indefinitely. This concept resonated with a young demographic, particularly high school and college students, and Snapchat experienced rapid user growth in its early months and years.

Murphy's role as the technical co-founder was essential during this period. He was responsible for writing the code that powered the app's core functionality, including the ephemeral messaging system, the user interface, and the underlying server infrastructure needed to handle the growing volume of messages. While Spiegel served as the public face of the company and oversaw business strategy, Murphy worked behind the scenes on the engineering and technical development of the platform.

The founding of Snapchat was not without controversy. Reggie Brown, the third co-founder who had originally proposed the disappearing-photo concept, was eventually pushed out of the company. Brown later filed a lawsuit against Spiegel and Murphy, claiming he had been unfairly excluded from the venture and denied credit and compensation for his contributions. The dispute was settled in 2014 for a reported $157.5 million, and Brown was subsequently acknowledged as one of the original co-founders of Snapchat.

Growth of Snapchat and Role as CTO

As Snapchat grew from a startup into a major social media platform, Murphy's responsibilities expanded significantly. He assumed the title of chief technology officer (CTO), overseeing the company's engineering teams and the development of new features and products.

Under Murphy's technical leadership, Snapchat introduced a series of features that became defining elements of the platform and, in many cases, influenced the broader social media landscape. These included Stories — a feature allowing users to post photos and videos viewable for 24 hours — as well as geofilters, augmented reality lenses, and the Discover section for media content. Murphy led the engineering efforts behind these innovations, which helped Snapchat maintain its appeal among younger users even as competing platforms attempted to replicate its features.

Murphy's approach to his role was notably low-profile compared to Spiegel's. While Spiegel regularly appeared at public events and in media interviews as the company's CEO, Murphy preferred to focus on the technical side of the business and rarely gave public interviews or made media appearances. A 2017 profile in the Los Angeles Times described Murphy as the quieter of the two co-founders, deeply involved in the engineering and product development work that underpinned Snapchat's continued evolution.

Snap Inc. and Initial Public Offering

In September 2016, Snapchat Inc. was renamed Snap Inc. to reflect the company's broader ambitions beyond the Snapchat messaging application. The rebranding coincided with the launch of Spectacles, a pair of camera-equipped sunglasses that allowed users to record short videos and upload them to Snapchat. Murphy oversaw the technical development of Spectacles, which represented Snap Inc.'s first foray into hardware products.

In February 2017, Snap Inc. filed its S-1 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, announcing its intention to go public. The filing revealed that Murphy and Spiegel together held the vast majority of the company's voting power through a Class C share structure. The initial public offering (IPO) took place on March 2, 2017, on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol SNAP. The company was valued at approximately $24 billion at the time of its IPO, making it one of the largest technology IPOs since Facebook's in 2012.

As part of the IPO process, Snap Inc. also announced the creation of the Snap Foundation, a philanthropic initiative to which Murphy and Spiegel pledged shares of the company. The foundation was established to support arts, education, and youth-related causes.

Post-IPO Technical Leadership

Following the IPO, Murphy continued to serve as CTO of Snap Inc., guiding the company's technical strategy through a period of intense competition and market challenges. Major competitors, particularly Instagram (owned by Meta Platforms), replicated several of Snapchat's signature features, including the Stories format, which Instagram launched in 2016. Murphy and the Snap engineering teams responded by continuing to invest in augmented reality (AR) technology, which became a key differentiator for the Snapchat platform.

Murphy also oversaw the development of subsequent generations of Spectacles hardware. The second iteration of Spectacles, released in 2018, featured improved camera capabilities and a more refined design. The hardware products represented Snap Inc.'s strategic bet on wearable technology and augmented reality as future computing platforms, with Murphy's engineering teams working to integrate hardware and software experiences.

As of 2025, Murphy continues to hold the CTO position at Snap Inc. and remains one of the company's largest shareholders. The Los Angeles Business Journal listed Murphy among its notable business figures, citing his role as co-founder and CTO of the social media platform he helped create in 2011.

Personal Life

Murphy is married to Kelsey Bateman. The couple has maintained a relatively private personal life, consistent with Murphy's general aversion to public attention and media coverage.

In 2018, Murphy purchased a home in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, as reported by the Los Angeles Times. The purchase reflected his establishment in the Los Angeles area, where Snap Inc. is headquartered in the Venice neighborhood.

Murphy's Filipino American heritage has been a point of pride for the Filipino community in the United States and in the Philippines. Philippine media covered his rise to billionaire status extensively, noting that his mother is a Filipino immigrant and highlighting his achievement as a source of inspiration for the Filipino diaspora.

Despite his considerable wealth, Murphy has generally avoided the high-profile social activities and public appearances common among technology billionaires. He has been described as preferring to focus his attention on engineering and product work at Snap Inc. rather than on public-facing activities.

Recognition

Murphy's contributions to technology and entrepreneurship have been recognized through several prominent listings and awards.

In 2014, Time named both Murphy and Spiegel to its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, placing them in the "Pioneers" category. The selection reflected Snapchat's rapid rise and its impact on how people, particularly younger demographics, communicated through mobile devices.

In March 2015, Forbes released its 29th annual World's Billionaires list, on which Murphy appeared for the first time. At that time, he was identified as the second-youngest billionaire in the world, a distinction that drew significant media attention. His inclusion on the list was particularly notable given his age — he was 26 at the time — and the fact that his wealth derived primarily from his equity stake in a company that had not yet gone public. The Forbes listing further cemented Murphy's status as one of the most successful young entrepreneurs in the technology sector.

Murphy's recognition has also extended to his Filipino American background. ABS-CBN, one of the largest media networks in the Philippines, profiled Murphy following his appearance on the Forbes billionaires list, highlighting how a Filipino American had achieved such a distinction at a young age.

Saint Mary's College High School, Murphy's alma mater in Berkeley, has also acknowledged his achievements as a notable alumnus.

Philanthropy

In connection with Snap Inc.'s IPO in 2017, Murphy and co-founder Evan Spiegel established the Snap Foundation. The foundation was created to support education, arts, and youth programs. As disclosed in Snap Inc.'s S-1 filing with the SEC, Murphy and Spiegel committed to donating shares of Snap Inc. stock to the foundation and to non-profit organizations over time.

The creation of the Snap Foundation aligned with a broader trend among technology entrepreneurs of establishing philanthropic vehicles in conjunction with IPOs, following examples set by companies such as Google and Salesforce. The foundation's stated focus on arts and education reflected Murphy and Spiegel's interest in supporting creative and educational opportunities for young people.

Legacy

Bobby Murphy's role in the creation and development of Snapchat has had a lasting impact on the technology industry and on the way people communicate through mobile devices. Snapchat introduced the concept of ephemeral messaging to the mainstream, fundamentally altering expectations about digital communication and privacy. The platform's Stories feature, which Murphy's engineering teams developed and launched, became so influential that it was adopted by nearly every major social media platform, including Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, and Twitter (now X).

As a co-founder and the technical architect behind Snapchat, Murphy played a central role in building a product that redefined social media for a generation of users who came of age in the smartphone era. The application's emphasis on visual communication — through photos, videos, and augmented reality — prefigured broader shifts in social media toward visual and ephemeral content formats.

Snap Inc.'s investment in augmented reality technology, overseen by Murphy as CTO, has positioned the company as one of the leading developers of consumer-facing AR experiences. The company's AR lenses, used by hundreds of millions of Snapchat users, demonstrated the commercial viability of augmented reality in everyday consumer applications and influenced the development of AR features across the technology industry.

Murphy's career trajectory — from a Stanford student coding an app in his dorm to the CTO of a publicly traded multinational technology company — also serves as a notable example of the entrepreneurial pathway that Stanford University and the broader Silicon Valley ecosystem have produced. His Filipino American heritage has added an additional dimension to his public significance, as his success has been recognized within the Filipino diaspora as a notable achievement.