The banana republic of Snapchat

摘要

For what is likely be the largest IPO in years, the Snapchat filing has been swamped in secrecy. Snapchat founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy aimed to raise at least $3 billion in March after recently releasing their S-1 document. Like any company issuing risk factors, Snapchat has many questions to answer. Dig under the hood and the issues pile up quickly. Snapchat has had significant operating losses in its six-year history, and the future doesn't look profitable anytime soon. Its competition is accelerating, and Facebook's (FB) monetization of Instagram (Snapchat's closest rival) is just getting started.