Why Is Snap Calling Itself a Camera Company?

Ever since Snapchat—sorry, Snap Inc.—filed for its initial public offering, last week, it has been all that anyone in Silicon Valley can talk about. In the documentation that it sent to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Los Angeles-based company reported that it had achieved a sixfold increase in revenue in 2016, and that its hundred and fifty-eight million daily users were generating more than 2.5 billion Snaps per day. When Snap goes public, in March, it may be valued at as much as twenty-five billion dollars. Much of the tech-world buzz centered, as it has for months, on the question of the company’s future potential, given that larger and more established platforms such as Facebook and Instagram have already proved themselves adept at mimicking Snapchat’s features. As the S.E.C. filing acknowledges, “We face significant competition in almost every aspect of our business.” But hidden in the opening pages of that filing is a more interesting declaration. It appears in emphatic black lettering against Snapchat’s signature yellow: “Snap Inc. is a camera company.”

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