How Snap Inc. Puts Ethics Into Practice

I recently had the opportunity to draft our code of conduct. As I was drafting the code of conduct, I really hit home for me that the genesis of our ability to consistently weave ethics into our business strategy is very much in line with what I just said. It is not a vision of ourselves as this virtuous company. It is actually that we strongly believe in the truth of enlightened self interest. One area where this came up is Evan's May 2020 letter on George Floyd and racial justice where he said, look, we as there's severe racial injustice in our country that is tied to income inequality. And as businesses, we so often have benefited from income equality and turned a blind eye by not paying taxes. And if we want anything to change, we need to step up and we need to start paying taxes. And then he said what I thought was really the foundation of this, which is many of you will view that this is a short term cost to businesses. And he said maybe in the short term, but they represent long term investments in the people, in the people of our nation and therefore collectively we will reap tremendous long term benefits. So that right there is this enlightened self interest that says I can't. It makes no sense to view, to have this understanding that I could get ahead by disadvantaging others. Right? Because as a business that is deeply involved in the fabric of America, if we continue with this, sooner or later this is going to crumble and negatively impact all of us. We have to start thinking long term. We have to start investing in the fabric of our country and then the ecosystem of which we're all a part. And if we're willing to do that, then we can have sustainable long term businesses. I think it's really that enlightened self interest that drives the ethical stances that SNAP has taken. Our code of conduct reflects that view. So to titled the Guide to Kind Business, our global code of conduct, it is arranged around our stakeholder relationships. So again you can see it really is that mentality of not focusing on ourselves and what wonderful people we are, but really thinking about who are the stakeholders and what impact do we have on them through our actions and behaviors. So our stakeholders are one another, our team members, our community, our online community, our business partners, our investors and the broader world and the communities in which we operate in order to serve those stakeholders effectively, in order to have positive impact, we think in terms of one of our key guiding values, which is being kind. Being kind means acting ways that instill trust. You can see that's an ethical standard that goes above and beyond what the law requires. Trust is a relational concept that says how am I impacting this person with whom I have contact? Second quality Empathy I know that you had a wonderful speaker last session on the key role that empathy needs to play in business, particularly in the tech sector. I could not agree more. It is one of our key guiding values in how we think about our relationships with our stakeholders. Empathy is our superpower because it allows us to place ourselves in our stakeholders shoes and think about the impact of our decisions on real human people as part of our decision making process. Then the third quality is courage. Because ethics is not easy. As I said, it really is about this element of honesty. And honesty means facing tough truths and difficult questions in the world of applied ethics. In the world of really living your principles, there's not always one nice neat answer. But if you are asking the right questions, I believe you will overall have generate an ethical company culture.