Many of our readers wonder who are the young geniuses behind some of the biggest Internet sites and mobile applications that have been developed in the last few years.Meet Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, co-founders of Snapchat, the photo-messaging app that I wrote about yesterday. The two entrepreneurs appeared on The Colbert Report to discuss why they designed Snapchat to delete shared photos within 10 seconds after they are received. You get to look at the photos and then they disappear, no ownership. One-hundred-and-fifty million photos are shared every day. The inventors are obviously on to something big.

If they are, though, you would never have known it by their interview. Colbert was trying to make sense out of why anyone would want to receive a photo or video and then have it disappear on them. The founders couldn’t explain it. Colbert’s objective was not to discredit their creation. He just wanted to get a few laughs. But, personally, I don’t think these two youngsters articulated what their company is all about and why it has become so popular. 

You probably have to be a teen to fully understand the purpose. My guess is that Snapchat allows me to take a picture of some parts of me that the sun never sees, email it to a friend, and before they can do any damage like forwarding it to someone else, the photo is automatically eliminated. Spiegel and Murphy can never admit this particular use of their app because they have come under heavy criticism for being in the business of promoting soft porn.

The other part of this interview that frustrated me so is that these young businessmen all use the same sound bites to explain why they are not making any money. “Our investors are in it for the long term.” The unspoken translation of that is, “We are in no hurry. Our enablers have deep pockets.” Once again, I regret being born forty years too early. I would have buffaloed a few star-struck investors myself along the way. That is a business all unto itself.