The attack of the hacker group Guardians of Peace on Sony Pictures Entertainment continues to spiral out of control, with Snapchat being the latest victim.
Emails discussing the confidential business plans of Snapchat have been leaked, including a music feature, the acquisition of Vergence Labs and a possible partnership with Twitter. The emails were extracted from the account of Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton, who is a member of the board of Snapchat.
Back in June 5, Evan Spiegel, the CEO of Snapchat, had a meeting with Dennis Kooker, the president of global digital business for Sony. Spiegel wanted to launch a music label for Snapchat, according to an email that Kooker sent to Lynton.
According to Kooker's email to Lynton, Spiegel does not intend to build a music service, but rather a music label that will allow Snapchat to focus on the artists that Spiegel wants to utilize the platform for promotion. Spiegel also wanted to capitalize on the success created by promoting the artists on Snapchat.
Kooker thought that Spiegel's ideas could be considered, and that Spiegel was attempting to sign Sony up for the project.
Another batch of extracted emails by the hackers was between Lynton and Mitch Lasky, another board member of Snapchat. The messages revealed two startups that Snapchat acquired.
The first company that Snapchat acquired was Vergence Labs, which is a company that specializes in smart eyewear. Snapchat purchased the startup for a cash price of $11 million and stocks worth $4 million. The second company was Scan.me, a startup focusing on QR scanning technology, which Snapchat bought for a cash price of $14 million, restricted stock units worth $3 million and Class B common stocks for $33 million.
The third batch of extracted emails showed that Dick Costolo, the CEO of Twitter, had a meeting with Spiegel back in January for the discussion of a potential partnership for the two platforms in social media.
While the current status of the leaked plans of Snapchat is not clear, the release of these plans to the public has made Spiegel "angry" and "devastated."
Spiegel issued a memo to Snapchat's employees through a Tweet, detailing the emotions going through him after he found out that the company's plans were leaked.
"I've been feeling a lot of things since our business plans were made public last night. Definitely angry. Definitely devastated," Spiegel began.
Spiegel laments about the secrets of Snapchat being revealed, in an action that he said violated and exposed the work of Snapchat's employees. The CEO said that it is fine for the company to feel mad, angry and upset over the incident.
"When we're done being mad and angry and upset, we're going to keep doing exactly what we are doing. And when we're going to do it 10 times better," Spiegel said.
"We're going to change the world because this is not the one that we want to live in," Spiegel ended.
