Meet In-N-Out Burger heiress Lynsi Snyder, who worked kitchen shifts at the chain as a teen because she didn’t want ‘special treatment’ – then became one of the youngest female billionaires in the US

Apr 14 , 2024

In-N-Out Burger heiress Lynsi Snyder started out working kitchen shifts at her family’s fast food chain as a teen. Photo: Getty Images

Billionaire In-N-Out Burger heiress Lynsi Snyder said she started out working shifts at the cult West Coast burger chain as a teenager because she wanted to be respected.

“I think that there’s a stigma that can come with being, you know, the owner’s kid, and just wanting to be respected, like others, doing it the right way, and not having the special treatment,” Snyder told NBC’s Today of her application to work at one of the chain’s restaurants in Redding, California.

An outlet of In-N-Out Burger chain in the US. Photo: Getty Images

Snyder started working at In-N-Out as an associate in 1999, the year she turned 17. Her roles included serving customers and prepping food, she wrote in her book, The Ins-N-Outs of In-N-Out Burger. By the time she was 24, Snyder was working as a manager at the chain, she told Orange Coast Magazine.

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Snyder became president of the privately run family business in 2010 aged 27, and she gained full control of the company in 2017. With this, Snyder became one of the youngest female billionaires in the country. Forbes put her net worth at US$6.7 billion as of April.

In-N-Out Burger billionaire heiress Lynsi Snyder. Photo: @ethanpines/Instagram

Some of the world’s biggest companies remain controlled by their founders’ families, leading to recent discourse about “nepo babies”. Bernard Arnault, for example, has given his children important roles at his luxury conglomerate LVMH. His eldest child, Delphine Arnault, is the CEO of Dior. But some business leaders have made it clear that their kids won’t automatically inherit their parents’ empires and success.

Mark Smucker, the CEO of J. M. Smucker, recently told Fortune that he had to earn his role and that members of the family wanting to work at the food company need to have experience working at another company “no matter what”.

How did Lynsi Snyder become the CEO of In-N-Out Burger?

Lynsi Snyder and her current husband Sean Ellingson. Photo: Getty Images

Lynsi became leader of the company following a series of deaths in the family. Her grandparents, Harry and Esther Snyder, opened the first In-N-Out location as a burger stand in Baldwin Park, Los Angeles County, in 1948. The restaurant’s two-way speaker drive-through system was seen as pioneering at the time.

“My grandparents, y’know, came from very humble beginnings,” Lynsi told Today.

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After Harry died in 1976, his son – and Lynsi’s uncle – Rich Snyder took over the company until he died in a plane crash alongside another In-N-Out executive in 1993. Guy Snyder, father of Lynsi, then took charge until his death from a prescription drug overdose in 1999. His death made Lynsi, then 17, the only direct blood relative left.

Sharon Stone, Kelly Stone, Sean Ellingson and Lynsi Snyder attend Steven Tyler’s second annual Grammy Awards viewing party to benefit Janie’s Fund presented by Live Nation at Raleigh Studios, in February 2019. Photo: Getty Images

Business Insider reported that Lynsi’s rapid rise to the top was largely caused by the series of deaths and internal legal drama at the company. Since she became In-N-Out’s president in 2010, she has brought the chain to new states, but has changed almost nothing about the brand and its menu.

In-N-Out now has just over 400 restaurants across eight states: California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Texas, Oregon, Colorado and Idaho. It’s announced plans to expand to Washington state, New Mexico and Tennessee.

This article originally appeared on Business Insider.

Millionaires and billionaires

Snyder became one of the youngest female billionaires in the US when she was promoted to president of the family business in 2010 aged 27, before gaining full control of the fast food chain in 2017
The 41-year-old’s rapid rise through In-N-Out, which was founded by her grandparents, was largely due to a series of deaths and internal legal drama – today the chain has plans to expand to more states