When Snapchat turned down a $3 billion buyout offer from Facebook late last year, it was hard to tell if Snapchat (and especially its then 23-year-old CEO, Evan Spiegel) was incredibly confident, unbelievably filled with hubris, implausibly stupid -- or all of the above.

Now, after hackers leaked a ton of in-company emails (among a lot of other newsworthy bits of information) we get a little peak behind the scenes of Snapchat's turndown of that offer most couldn't refuse -- including other offers made, details of Spiegel's prospective cut at the time, and how hard it was to turn down $3 billion.

Oh, and New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell is involved in the whole thing... which seems kind of random.

Behind-The-Scenes of a Big Refusal:

In the emails unearthed from the Sony hacking and parsed by Business Insider, we get a better sense of the drama involved in a billion dollar buyout negotiation that eventually went south and was leaked to the press.

Spiegel's Take Away Might Have Been BIG

For one, we find out how much Spiegel might have gotten out of the buyout, personally. From the looks of it, it was one billion dollars.

(Photo : GifSoup)

No, Dr. Evil -- that's billion with a "B."

Here's the relevant part of the leaked email, written by Snapchat board member Mitch Lasky:

Evan [Spiegel] proposed a new deal today to Tencent and DST [other prospective, eventually failed buy-out options] that includes $40MM in secondary for him and [co-founder] Bobby [Murphy]. Never told me ... in fact told me the exact opposite. When I confronted him about it, he said, "well I just turned down a billion from Zuck." [sic]

Seems Facebook Actually Offered More Than $3 Billion

These leaks aren't official negotiation documents, of course, but from the looks of an email reply to Malcolm Gladwell, ostensibly enquiring about the deal as background for an article (see, not so random, after all), Facebook's offer was, at least at one point, much more than $3 billion.

Here's the tantalizing bit from the leaked email reply written by Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton -- who is also a member of Snapchat's board -- after Gladwell asked if it wasn't just a little bonkers to turn down so much money:

"... if you knew the real number you would book us all a suite at Bellvue. [sic]"

At Least It Was Hard to Turn Down

Spiegel and company clearly weren't insane though, since there is evidence from the Sony leak that it was incredibly hard to turn down Facebook's billion-dollar buyout.

Here's Lasky again, explaining Spiegel's mindset from his perspective:

I've talked to [Spiegel] a couple of times each day since late last week and he's been oscillating back and forth between appearing to want to sell the business and wanting to go long twice a day. It's difficult to know how to help him as I don't know what he wants to do.

I think while he liked the team and idea of Facebook, he's been disappointed with the number he's getting from [Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg], so he's now characterizing his conversations with Facebook as a gambit to scare a higher number out of the Series C investors. 

So there you go. If you thought Snapchat was crazy to turn down $3 billion last year, now we have some insight that it was crazy -- crazy like a fox.