Fil-Am is world's second youngest billionaire

Snapchat co-founders Bobby Murphy (right) and Evan Spiegel (Screenshot from the Snapchat video introducing the company members)

By Lara Tan, 9News Online

One 26-year-old Filipino-American is worth $1.5 billion and is one of the world's youngest billionaires under 40 this 2015.

Bobby Murphy, the Fil-Am co-founder of app Snapchat, was named as the world's second youngest billionaire with a net worth of $1.5 billion, based on Forbes' The World's Youngest Billionaires 2015 list released last March 2.

The first on the list is his Snapchat co-founder 24-year-old Evan Spiegel, also with $1.5 billion net worth.

Also in the list are Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, Airbnb CEO  Brian Chesky, and 'Minecraft' creator Markus "Notch" Persson.

Photo messaging app Snapchat became a hit for its unique capability of letting users take control of their messaging settings, such as sending multimedia messages that will be deleted in the recipient's device and from Snapchat's servers in 10 seconds or less.

The company, which was valued at $10 billion in 2014, was reported in February 2015 to have received offers to nearly double that valuation to $19 billion. Forbes estimated Murphy's ownership in the company at over 15%.

Murphy, who majored in mathematical and computational science in Stanford University, oversees Snapchat’s engineering and product development.

Murphy's mother emigrated from the Philippines. His parents are both California state employees.

Murphy is currently ranked 1250th in Forbes' list of world billionaires.

In 2014, he was also featured in Forbes' list of "30 Under 30: Technology."