Snapchat

Snapchat parent company Snap Inc. is going public, and CEO Evan Spiegel’s salary is going down to $1. His salary will do a huge jump down from $500,000 per year. In place of a salary, Spiegel will receive company stock. That will make Spiegel worth millions, and even possibly of billions if Snap’s valuation goes high enough.

His reliance on stock is most likely a demonstration of confidence in the company. Spiegel owns 22% of Snap’s Class A stock. Snap is estimated to be worth between $20 billion and $25 billion, which could instantly make Spiegel’s shares worth $5.5 billion. Spiegel’s current contract entitles him to an annual $1 million bonus, but he will probably forgo that money as well. He is not the first tech CEO to pursue such a strategy. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, took a one dollar salary when his company went public.

Facebook’s IPO was considered the biggest and technology at the time. Additionally, Larry Page and Sergey Brin did the same on the occasion of Google’s IPO. At the time of its IPO, google was second only to Apple.

Currently, Snap Inc. is not turning a profit, and it is possible that they never will, but their filing claims they have an average of 158 million daily users of the photo and video messaging service, and that their company’s revenue grew by almost 600% in 2016. Additionally, the company reports that over 2.5 billion Snaps are created each day.