“For me specifically, it was important to graduate. In my family, I was...” — Brian Acton Quote

For me specifically, it was important to graduate. In my family, I was one of the first graduates. My mom did not have a college degree. My dad did not have a college degree.

Going public is 18-month process, while an acquisition is a 6-month process. Going public means going under so much scrutiny, regulatory approval, auditing, magnified 10 times. Having the stomach to do that isn't necessarily in my DNA. My DNA is building a product and a service.

It's not 100 per cent clear to me what's working about Snapchat.

My mom started an air-freight company; my grandmother built a golf course. I have a certain degree of entrepreneurial risk-taking in my family history. Maybe that eventually rubbed off on me a little bit.

A college degree can change the trajectory of a student's life.

Coming from a large immigrant family, my parents didn't encourage a lot of 'play' when I was growing up. It was hard to get my Dad to even sit down to watch television with us (he'd watch it standing up, always ready to go do something more productive). Downtime was discouraged, as was any college degree that wasn't law, medicine or business.

If I got hurt or anything, I was going to need a college degree. Nothing was going to stop me from getting that.

Getting a college degree used to be free or low cost because, as a society, we saw providing higher education to young people as an investment - in them and in the future of our own country.