If there's any doubt as to how millenial Evan Spiegel is, it should be gone by now as the Snapchat CEO appeared in Columbia University on Monday for the school's #StartupColumbia summit.


His apperance in the summit was first announced as early as April 4 on social media accounts of the university and other Columbia organizations.

Mayank Mahajan, a student in the New York City university, interviewed the 25-year old businessman onstage about his experiences in building the company that is Snapchat today. The crowd, made up of a mix of students, professors, entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts, listened intently as the former Stanford student recalled the early days of his company, News Everyday reported.


Known for being reclusive around media outlets, Spiegel came to the program wearing casual clothes reminiscent of fellow tech pioneers Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg.

When asked about balancing schoolwork and business, he gave an unconventional advice.


"If you're OK with getting bad grades, then it doesn't really matter," Spiegel said.


Snapchat was first conceived as a requirement for Spiegel's product design class at Stanford University. Snapchat was founded in September 2011 though as early as July that year, the app was already released to the public under the name "Picaboo."
It took a while before Snapchat began hitting the mainstream. In fact, the app only released its Android version a full year after it first made the initial iOS version public, according to International Business Times.


Now, more than 100 million daily active users utilize Snapchat to communicate with friends and family members, with 60 percent of smartphone users between the lucrative 13-34 tech demographic use the app.

Topics Columbia University, Snapchat