Snapchat chief ‘mortified’ over profane emails

Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel apologised for profanity- laced emails that he sent during his college days that celebrated getting drunk and convincing women to perform sexual acts.

The emails were published by Gawker Media LLC’s Valleywag blog and mostly related to Spiegel organising Stanford University fraternity parties for Kappa Sigma in 2009 and 2010.

In one missive, Spiegel recounts being so drunk he urinated on a woman in bed with him. In the emails he calls women “sororisluts,” and discusses “shooting lazers [sic] at fat girls”.

“I’m obviously mortified and embarrassed that my idiotic emails during my fraternity days were made public,” Spiegel said in an emailed statement. “I have no excuse. I’m sorry I wrote them at the time and I was a jerk to have written them. They in no way reflect who I am today or my views towards women.”

The disclosure of the messages are the latest growing pain faced by Spiegel, 23, whose Los Angeles-based company makes a mobile application for disappearing photo messages.

Spiegel last year turned down an acquisition offer from Facebook for about $3bn (€2.2bn) and has been working to build the business. Yet he has encountered problems since, including apologising in January for a data breach. He also became embroiled in a back-and-forth over his public statements about meetings with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Earlier this month, Snapchat settled claims by the US Federal Trade Commission that it deceived users by falsely promising its photo messages disappeared.

Spiegel has hired an executive from Google to take charge of security issues, as well as a lobbyist to educate policymakers about his firm. Snapchat’s popularity has continued to grow, with people now sending over 700m disappearing “snaps” a day and more than 500m stories viewed daily, the company has said.

Spiegel isn’t the only technology executive to have to respond to actions from months or years back.

Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich stepped down in April after being criticised for donating money to an anti- gay-marriage group in 2008. That same month, RadiumOne chief Gurbaksh Chahal was fired after he pleaded guilty to two mis-demeanour battery counts against his girlfriend from an incident eight months earlier.