Snapchat CEO shares the ‘presentation test’ he has for news hires on Day 1

Snapchat founder and CEO Evan Spiegel has a controversial approach to onboarding new employees: deliberately setting them up to fail. In a recent podcast interview, Spiegel revealed that new designers at Snapchat are required to pitch a brand-new idea on their first day, with no prior context or preparation.
"When you have no context for what the company is working on, how on earth are you supposed to come up with a great idea? I mean, it's almost impossible," Spiegel admitted on The Diary of a CEO podcast. Despite the seemingly harsh approach, the tech billionaire believes this method is crucial for fostering innovation.
Spiegel argues that failure is an essential part of creativity, stating, "99% of ideas are not good — but 1% is. And the best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas." This philosophy is rooted in his belief that embracing failure can liberate employees from creative constraints.
The Snap CEO emphasizes that kindness is the "essential ingredient" in creating a culture where unconventional ideas can flourish. "We learned over time that actually, wow, kindness is the essential ingredient if you want to have a creative culture," he explained.
While the strategy might seem intimidating, especially for Gen Z workers entering an increasingly performance-measured workplace, Spiegel remains committed to his method. "All feedback is good feedback," he notes. "What you do with it is what matters."