On a late afternoon, after a long, drawn-out game of phone tag, Michael Lynton put off his family dinner for just a while longer to talk. The former CEO of Sony Pictures has been notoriously press shy since hackers calling themselves "Guardians of Peace" leaked a trove of confidential -- and sometimes embarrassing -- data plucked from the studio's servers.

And, since taking over in 2016 as chairman of Santa Monica-based Snap Inc., he's chosen to stay mostly out of the media's glare. In his first wide-ranging interview in years, Lynton did not hold back: "I will be a little controversial here."