Is Snap Lying About Its Growth? An Ex-Employee Thinks So

Snap, the parent company of the wildly popular Snapchat social media platform, is lying about its growth rate — at least according to a former employee who is suing the company.

According to Recode, Anthony Pompliano joined Snap in 2015 after leaving Facebook Inc FB. He was tasked with working on Snap's growth team but was fired within three weeks.

Lawsuit

A heavily redacted copy of the lawsuit alleges that Pompliano was recruited to Snap's "new user growth and engagement team by falsely representing to him, among other things, the Company's' growth. Throughout the recruiting process, Snapchat represented to Mr. Pompliano that Snapchat [redacted]. Both metrics were false."

The suit added, "Mr. Pompliano's refusal to participate in Snapchat's institutional pandemic of misrepresenting [redacted] to its investors and trading partners led to his unlawful termination by Defendant Snapchat."

Finally, Pompliano alleged that Snap recruiting him from Facebook to gain proprietary information he was privy to at Facebook. When it became clear he had no intention of sharing that information, he was fired.

In a statement to Recode, a Snap spokesperson said that it has "reviewed the complaint" and believes it "has no merit" and the context is "totally made up by a disgruntled former employee."

There is no way to know what metrics Pompliano is referring to. Nevertheless, the timing of the lawsuit comes at an inconvenient time as the social media company is just a few short months away from a planned IPO.