Who created Instagram. Why did Facebook buy Instagram? And was the service worth a billion? Who founded Instagram?
Hello, dear readers of the blog site. This is my first mobile app review. However, it is worth it, because in terms of popularity and the number of users involved in its network, this mixture of a photo editor and a social network can rival other super-popular social services in the world. The mere fact that about a year ago Facebook bought it for an insane sum, close to a billion dollars, speaks of the exclusivity of this mobile application.
I don’t think that there can be discrepancies here, because there are probably no other options that fit the given description. I'm talking, of course, about instagram. What is this and why, in a year and a half, a common application for iPhone(currently supported Android), with a team of a dozen people behind it, forced the largest social network in the world to shell out such a fantastic amount? Well, let's see.
What is Instagram?
What is Instagram? Probably, this is primarily a social network, which already has one hundred million active users. Slightly less than the population in Russia. On the other side, Instagram is An intuitive and easy-to-use photo editor for mobile devices.
Instagram saves you from this dilemma - you take a photo and immediately post it (all in one application). Moreover, modern mobile phones provide quite digestible quality of the pictures taken, at least such that you won’t be ashamed to post them on a social network, which will be viewed mostly from the same mobile phones, where the flaws and wretchedness of the camera will not be visible.
However, when viewing the online version of Instagram from a computer, some flaws in photos taken on a smartphone may still appear, but that was the genius of the developers, that before sending photos taken with a mobile phone, they offer literally one click put a professional filter on it, which will turn your mediocre and not very high-quality photo into something similar to an artistic photograph.
Only a few are puzzled by the question of how to use Instagram - open the application, take a photo (or take it out of your album on your mobile phone) and apply a filter in the mobile editor. Next, we call the picture and send it to our feed, where the pictures can be viewed, searched, liked and commented on by all users of this unique social network. Everything ingenious should be simple. In addition, the interface of this mobile application and online version is almost completely translated into Russian, which is good news.
This whole orgy began with the fact that in the fall of 2010 the first version of the application was released exclusively for Apple phones, it received a resounding success there and a couple of years later Android users were happy with it, and in the near future it is planned to release a version of Instagram for devices based on Windows Phone (large Some modern Nokia smartphones work on it).
It turns out very unique social network(with a focus on photography, as well as on the now gaining popularity or), but for almost everyone, because smartphones even based on Android (their Chinese variations are sold with might and main by mobile operators for very little money) are already owned by many inhabitants of the globe (a slightly smaller share iPhones and iPads).
And not only the economic component plays a role. Some people are heavily hooked on Blackberry, others (like me, for example) use Nokia on Symbian because of their love for physical, not drawn, buttons. It turns out some discrimination, which probably only fuels interest in the upstart.
In this regard, many people are interested in the possibility register on Instagram from a computer and use it from it like a regular social network. Unfortunately, it is not yet possible to fully implement this, but there is a trick with ears that allows you to install it on your own, which is called BlueStacks.
This emulator is quite convenient and you will have practically no boundaries between Android and Windows (shared clipboard, mouse, keyboard, file system and network connections). BlueStacks can be installed both on a regular desktop computer (controlled with the mouse) and on Windows tablets (controlled by moving your finger across the screen).
Actually, Instagram is already installed from BlueStacks, like a regular Android application, after which you can register in this application without using a smartphone, directly from your computer, laptop, netbook or tablet. But we’ll talk about this in a little more detail below.
Registration and login to Instagram via a mobile device based on iOS (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch) or Android
So, registration on instagram whether from a smartphone on Android or iOS, or from a computer using the BlueStacks emulator will look approximately the same. It is clear that first you need to download and install this application by logging into your mobile device or App Store, either in Google Play. Actually, no one is stopping you from typing “Instagram” in the search bar and initiating the installation of this application.
I just don’t understand how, with such monstrous payments from Facebook, the developers didn’t bother to make versions adapted to the screen size of the iPad. You can only install on this “bloated smartphone” (iPad) the version designed and tailored for the iPhone, and it looks pretty poor on the tablet - either a small program window, or blurry and unclear elements and fonts. It’s kind of a mess, although maybe the bourgeoisie have their own reasons not to do this (by the way, I merge the screenshots for this article from the iPad via cloud storage, a very convenient thing).
There are, however, applications for iPad (for example, Instapad) that use the API of this social network and allow you to view feeds, search for images, like and comment on photos. Just as there are similar online Instagrams(for example, web.stagram.com), which allow you to be socially active on that network, but do not allow you to upload your own photos. But more on that later.
The main thing is to come up with a login that is not already taken by others, a strong password (you can store it in , later), indicate your Email and name, and, if desired, also your phone number:
Next, you will be asked to immediately find on Instagram all your friends whom you managed to make on Facebook (apparently this was the whole point of the purchase, however, the price of a billion US dollars seems too high - in my opinion, by three orders of magnitude, for sure, although, again, who will understand these bourgeois). They explain this quite logically - it would be better to immediately follow your friends, so that you have someone to follow and what to watch.
Well, according to tradition, you will be asked to subscribe to the feeds of those who are now very popular on Instagram. In general, they are trying to immediately show all the charm of this social network so that you don’t jump off the hook. But in my opinion, you should first look around, and only then subscribe.
Next, you will be offered to receive various messages about events that have taken place, and they will also offer to give this application access to photos stored on your phone, so that you can then publish them in your feed:
Well, that’s all, registration is complete. Now you can use this application.
How to use Instagram - photo processing (effects, filters) and social network features
How to use Instagram? Almost like Twitter, in fact, but instead of text messages, photos rule here. At the bottom of the screen you will find five tabs:
- View new photos from the feeds of those users you follow. You can like the image you like with a double finger, or using the “Like” button. You can also leave a comment there - everything is the same as with people, i.e. in other social networks.
- The third button is the most interesting, because it allows you to:
In any case, then you will be asked to carry out a simple but quite effective processing of the photograph taken or selected.
For this purpose Instagram has:
After this, you will be taken to your feed on the Instagram social network, where you can see the masterpiece you just added and, if desired, can be deleted or do some other actions with it by simply tapping the button with three dots and selecting the desired option from the context menu:
- The fourth button of the main Instagram program window will show you the news that happened to your feed - who subscribed to it, who liked it, what comments appeared, etc.
Search window or of people on this social network, or photos( which the user assigns to the photo he uploads):
When you realize that one of the authors of the photos you found is so interesting to you that you are ready to subscribe to his feed, then do this by clicking on his login above the photo and clicking on the corresponding button on his account page:
Well, the fifth button will allow you to see and, if necessary, edit your Instagram profile.
When editing your profile, you will be able to set your photo, for example, by photographing yourself from the front camera of your phone, as well as add a description to your account and indicate your website, well, you can also block the viewing of photos from your feed for all Instagram users (including Only your subscribers will have access). Some of these settings can be made in the online version of this social network.
You will find the application settings on the same tab behind the gear icon. There you can find friends on Facebook, if you haven’t already done so, see all the photos that you liked (that you liked), read Russian-language help for the Instagram application.
What will seem useful to many, you can set up automatic cross-posting(send) your new photos from Instagram to other social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr. This is done in the settings in the “Preferences” - “Publishing Settings” area. To communicate with yours, you can use the appropriate applications for the latter. By the way, for delayed posts on Instagram you can.
Recently, this social network has been actively used by businessmen to sell or attract attention to their goods and services. This works with a bang (true, true -), but for sales you need to increase traffic, and therefore the question comes first - . I described one of these solutions at the link provided - suddenly you decide to earn extra money in this network.
It is possible that earlier, when Instagram did not yet speak Russian, some problems could have arisen with its use, but now it is unlikely, as you probably yourself understood from the above description. The strong point of this photo editor and social network is extreme simplicity and transparency.
Instagram for computer using BlueStacks - download and install an Android emulator for Windows for registration
As I already mentioned, not everyone who wants to start communicating and sharing photos on Instagram is happy to acquire an iPhone or an Android smartphone for this purpose. There can be many reasons for such reluctance, and money does not always play a decisive role here. In the end, buying an expensive gadget and being disappointed in this social network would also not be very pleasant.
However, there is a way to give Instagram a try by registering directly from your computer or laptop and posting the photos you have to this social network as a trial balloon. It takes place to be quite advanced and well made Android operating environment emulator for computer running Windows and MacOS, which is called BlueStacks.
Moreover, it works like any program on your computer, i.e. can be launched in a window, you can use the mouse and keyboard, you can copy data from Windows to Android via the clipboard or through a shared file system. Well, of course, BlueStacks sees your computer’s network connections and successfully uses them.
So, first you will need download BlueStacks and install it on your computer as a regular program:
True, you won’t be able to choose the installation location for this emulator, but this is not so important. Once the installation is complete, a green shortcut will appear on your desktop, by clicking on which you can open the BlueStacks window, and in the tray you will see an icon from the context menu of which you can restart Android in this emulator, if there is a reason for that:
If BlueStacks full-screen mode is inconvenient for you, then click on the corresponding button at the bottom of the emulator window (located on the right). You can delve into the settings of this program using the gear-shaped button.
However, at the moment we are primarily interested in Instagram installation and registration in this social network from your computer, so let’s use the search icon on the main BlueStacks tab and enter “instagram” into the form:
The application you are looking for will be first in the resulting list and all you have to do is click on the “Install” button:
Since the Android operating system is the development of the great and terrible Google (read about this good corporation), to download Instagram you will first have to log into your Google account (well, or):
I have a Google account with two-step authentication, so I first had to create my own password for this emulator and only then use it to log into my account. It is clear that with regular authentication these difficulties will not occur, but the mailbox will not be secure either (read more in the article about Google mail, the link to which is given just above).
After logging in with your Google Play username and password:
You will be able to download Instagram from any Android store convenient for you from those that are integrated into the BlueStacks emulator:
The BlueStacks emulator can also synchronize the data of your Android phone, which can be useful. But we won’t be distracted by this, because our goal is to install Instagram on your computer and register with it.
After installation, all you need to do is go to the “My Applications” tab from the BlueStacks home page and launch Instagram.
After this, you will be asked to register or log in.
Actually, the further registration process on a computer will not be any different from the registration process described above on a mobile device, so I consider it unnecessary to repeat.
Instagram online - options for viewing the social network not from a mobile phone, but from a computer via a browser
Well, such an opportunity seems to arise, because a phone is a phone, but most of us also spend a very decent amount of time at the computer. I would like to have access to this social network through a browser. Actually, such a possibility exists, but with some restrictions.
You can view the profile of any member of this social network on the website knowing his login:
Http://instagram.com/login
On official online profile page on Instagram there is a header typed in the form of a dynamic one, the number of photos added by this person, the number of his subscribers and his subscriptions are indicated.
For example, this way you can look online profile of a comedy resident. The profile contains a list of all photographs added by the author and there is the ability to view them in full size and read comments left on them.
You can only like, subscribe or leave a comment after logging into your account.
Also after logging into Instagram:
Here, perhaps, are all the possibilities of the official website for online access to the social network Instagram. Something is missing, right? Well, for example, opportunities upload photos directly from your computer. Unfortunately, this is not implemented at this stage of service development, even in the Api.
But it also lacks the ability to search by hashtags and usernames or view trending topics. But the Api allows you to do this and there are many online services (sites) and even programs that implement all this disgrace.
Let's look at one such online service called Webstagram.
This and similar online services use Instagram API and therefore registration on such sites occurs precisely through its login form. If you have already logged in to the website instagram.com in the same browser, then data about your login will be taken from browser cookies:
- You can follow the feeds of those people you follow (in fact, the official website instagram.com allows you to do this)
- You can like and comment on photos (the official resource supports the same thing)
- You can subscribe and unsubscribe from other users’ feeds (also not unique)
- Receive information about those who have subscribed and unsubscribed from your feed
- Browse popular photos, tags and users, with the ability to also search according to them (this is what the official website was missing)
True, you get blocks as a load, but it shouldn’t be any other way, because advertising is the engine of progress.
You can find the photos you added at this address:
Http://instagram.com/n/login
The founder of the Instagram network, Kevin Systrom, was born in 1983 in San Diego, California. He is the son of Diane Pelz, a marketer for Zipcar who also worked for Monster and Swapit. His father is Douglas Systrom, vice president of human resources at TJX. The biography of Instagram creator Kevin Systrom is not very rich in interesting events - in general, he is a typical representative of the “golden youth” who achieved success thanks to creative thinking and good organizational skills.
early years
Systrom attended Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts, where he was introduced to computer programming. His childhood interest in programming grew from playing Doom 2 to creating his own levels in the game. We can say that at that moment his future was predetermined.
As a teenager, the guy worked at Boston Beat, a vinyl store in Boston, while attending high school. At school he was a typical outcast: he had problem skin, had a slight stutter, and often walked around with an unwashed hair. It was also difficult to call him a diligent student. However, he had one passion: video games. He played them all day and night, immersing himself in the game world and completely forgetting about real life. In the games, he, a modest, scruffy boy, was a superhero and arbiter of destinies. But the career of a professional gamer did not appeal to young Systrom - he wanted to be a demiurge creating his own worlds. In the future, when he creates an entire universe called Instagram, he will have the opportunity to fully simulate the surrounding reality. He will even be able to correct his own appearance, turning from a downtrodden nerd into a handsome handsome man.
After school, the future entrepreneur studied at Stanford University and won a prestigious scholarship, which allowed him to develop his programming skills and get acquainted with the first startups in his life, and even earn a certain amount of money from it. Systrom’s parents supported him in everything and helped him financially; fortunately, his family could afford it.
After graduating from Stanford, Systrom joined Google, working on Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs, Spreadsheets and other projects. He spent two years at Google as a marketer. Kevin Systrom left the company due to his disappointment at not being accepted into the Associate Product Manager program.
Burbn
He decided to leave Google and develop his own app, Burbn. After 2 weeks the profit was already coming. It was the development of the Burbn platform that ultimately led to the creation of the social network Instagram. A month after its launch, the network included almost one million users, which was an amazing result for such a young project. Just a year later, Instagram gained more than 10 million users, and this social network was talked about all over the world.
In 2010, Instagram creator Kevin Systrom took Mike Krieger, an engineer from San Francisco, as his partner. Krieger is rightly considered the co-founder of this project, since young people developed the ability to post photos and videos, mark their places of stay and import all this into other social networks. The name Instagram comes from the words instant and telegram.
The history of this social network is quite ornate. Instagram began in San Francisco when Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger decided to focus their multifaceted project, originally intended for HTML5 registration, on photos taken with a mobile phone. As Krieger said, their project at a certain point became too similar to Foursquare, and both programmers realized that they had gone too far and clearly turned somewhere in the wrong direction. They then decided to focus on the photo app. This is how the “Instagram” that we all know well appeared.
Kevin Systrom published the first photo on his network on July 16, 2010. This photograph showed a stray dog from Mexico and the legs of a Systrom girl. The photo was modified using the X-PRO2 filter from Instagram.
Financial achievements
On April 3, 2012, Instagram was released for phones running Android software. This version of the popular app was downloaded more than a million times in less than one day. This was another major success, more than doubling the network's audience. Today, the number of users using Instagram for Android exceeds the number of users using other software.
According to data released in late 2011, the deal, concluded just before the planned merger with Facebook, would cost about a quarter of the latter's cash. In the end, that's what happened, but according to Zuckerberg, the deal was worth it. Systrom earned four hundred million US dollars from it, and Zuckerberg became rich thanks to his new social network, which became an excellent addition to Facebook. The exact purchase price was $300 million in cash and 23 million shares. The profit received thanks to Instagram in the next two years exceeded the purchase amount many times over.
In 2012, a version of this popular application was released for Internet browsers so that users could open it through a computer. The web version of Instagram initially lacked a search bar, news feed, and the ability to upload photos. In February 2013, the web version of Instagram was updated to include a full-fledged news feed, and in June 2015, the website was changed to allow for the ability to upload more photos. Photos of Kevin Systrom became the first files uploaded to the social network.
Further changes
Since the app's launch, it has used Foursquare's API technology to display the locations where a particular photo was taken. In March 2014, Instagram began testing the transition to Facebook Places technology.
In March 2016, very serious changes were made to Instagram, which caused a storm of protest and indignation from users devoted to the social network. The changes affected mostly the display of news and updates in user subscriptions. Many “opinion leaders” on Instagram called for a boycott of the social network, and the boycott campaign lasted more than a month. The official developers of the application justified the adjustments by saying that since the social network is constantly expanding, it needs qualitatively new functionality that can display a larger number of photos, videos and news. Despite the outrage from users, Systrom refused to change anything in the latest updates to the social network.
On May 11, 2016, Instagram updated its design, adding a black and white theme for the app and a more abstract, "modern" and colorful icon. Rumors about the redesign first began circulating in April, when The Verge received a screenshot from anonymous insiders. At the same time, an official representative of Instagram assured the publication that this was only a test design.
Merger of two giants
In April 2012, Instagram was sold to Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook Corporation for $1 billion (both cash and stock). Thirteen employees who previously worked for Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger also moved to Facebook. According to some reports, the deal brought Systrom four hundred million US dollars based on his share of the project. A little later, Mark Zuckerberg, the new owner of Instagram, said that Facebook was “committed to improving and growing the Instagram network,” so Systrom was allowed to continue working on the social network.
As a result, from a free entrepreneur, Kevin Systrom voluntarily became a subordinate of Mark Zuckerberg. In an interview with Bloomberg, Systrom said that Facebook has many advantages, and therefore he does not regret his action. He once stated, “I realized that we need to team up with a huge company that understands how to grow, understands how to build a business, has one of the best, if not the best, management team in the technology industry, and we need to use it to as our resource."
In an interview with Forbes, he stated that "Instagram is a new form of communication that is ideal for iPhone owners who are constantly connected to the modern social world." The social network Instagram is built around photos, allowing people to quickly and easily comment on them, as well as share them on other networks like Twitter and Facebook. Kevin Systrom describes Instagram as a media company that allows large corporations such as Disney, Activision, Lancome, Banana Republic and the CW to roll out their advertising, taking full advantage of their multimillion-dollar audience.
Under Systrom's leadership, Instagram developed unique features for its social network, such as photo filters and short videos. Over time, the Instagram team has introduced features that allow users to upload and filter photos and short videos, follow other users' channels, their friends' locations, and comment on other people's photos and videos. In 2012, the Instagram team developed feature-rich web profiles for its users, a year later allowing them to connect their accounts to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr.
Further development
Systrom hired former Yahoo vice president James Everingham, as well as Kevin Weil, who previously led the development of new features for Twitter, making them senior Instagram executives.
As of October 2015, 40 billion photos have been posted on Instagram.
As of June 2016, the network had over 500 million active users.
In 2016, CNN reported the results of a study that found Snapchat was the most important social network among 14- to 19-year-olds—the first time in two years that Instagram wasn't ranked number one.
Instagram currently has about 450 employees. The app is used by 600 million people per month and 300 million per day. Its competitors Snapchat and Twitter are used by more people with smaller user bases, while Twitter has 3,500 employees with 317 million monthly users. Snapchat, in turn, has 1,500 people working on it, with half of Instagram's daily user base.
In the future, Kevin Systrom is looking to develop Instagram to improve video capabilities and integration with other social networks. He also stated that in a few years the company may participate in projects from the Virtual Reality series.
According to Quartz and the New York Times, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger implemented a system to overcome slow decision-making at the company by scheduling meetings in which all the most important decisions are made by vote. This approach arose from Systrom's interest in academic business theories, particularly the concepts of Clayton M. Christensen in The Innovator's Dilemma.
Possible plagiarism
Instagram has been repeatedly accused of copying various new features from its closest competitor Snapchat. Regarding this issue, Systrom has repeatedly argued that all new services launched by technology companies nowadays are "remakes" of existing products and that "all these ideas are original when you reassemble them with minor specific changes." Systrom also argued that "everyone can trace the roots of any feature that someone introduced into their application somewhere in the history of technology" and that "that's just how Silicon Valley works."
Recognition and interesting facts
Personal life
The young entrepreneur's long-term love is Nicole Systrom, a cleaning manager for one of the large California companies. The couple has been dating for quite some time, and in 2016 the young people sealed their relationship by marriage. They are not planning children yet, apparently believing that at this stage of life they should focus on business, travel and self-development. Nicole, like Kevin, appreciates good food, expensive wines and is interested in high technology, to which her husband devoted his whole life. However, she does not like publicity too much.
Kevin and Nicole are one of the strongest celebrity couples in Silicon Valley.
Conclusion
Systrom is one of the brightest, most talented and creative entrepreneurs of the last decade. It is not for nothing that he is compared with such successful startupers as Mark Zuckerberg and Pavel Durov - he, too, spent his entire life chasing the idea of a functional, convenient and pleasing social network and eventually realized it, simultaneously making himself a billionaire. Many, however, still dispute the advisability of merging Instagram with Facebook, because Systrom, being a good manager and organizer, could well have created his own successful media corporation, capable of competing on equal terms with Zuckerberg’s monumental brainchild. But here, apparently, personal qualities came into play - Systrom, unlike many young innovators, is not ambitious and is quite capable of being content with little. Moreover, as is obvious, he will not have to starve for the rest of his life, because Instagram brings its creator a very solid passive income.
The service for sharing photos and videos is familiar to every smartphone user. But not everyone knows who created it. Read who created Instagram in this article.
History of the creators
Two people participated in the development of the application - Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger.
Kevin was born in Holliston, Massachusetts in 1983. Graduated from school with in-depth study of computer programming.
He graduated from Stanford University and received a Master's degree in management in 2006. He completed an internship at Odeo, where he developed programs together with Jack Dorsey, the future founder of Twitter and the company Square, which accepts and processes electronic payments.
Good to know: Shout on Instagram - what is it?
While studying at the university, Systrom met Mike.
Second Instagram founder born in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 1986. He spent his entire childhood in his hometown. After graduating from school, he moved to the United States and entered Stanford University.
The guys became friends and started developing an application, although they studied in different courses. At first, each of them had their own project. Krieger created Meebo communication service, and Systrom - social network Burbn, which was used by 1 thousand people. Since the last project was already popular, it was decided to do just that.
After reflection and meetings with investors, they decided to simplify the application and make it a service for publishing photos. The program was then called Codename.
Now you know what the history of the creation of the popular Instagram service is and who invented it.
In the summer of 2010, Instagram creator Kevin Systrom was so busy thinking through the concept of his brainchild that he completely forgot to rest. In an effort to rectify the situation - and to make amends to his girlfriend, Nicole Schutz, to whom he had long promised a trip together - Systrom organized a trip to the Mexican village of Todos Santos. During an evening promenade, Nicole suddenly told Kevin that she would not use the application he was working on. The reason was very prosaic: the girl believed that she would never be able to take photographs as cool as one of their mutual friends. Systrom clarified: “You know why he takes such cool photos?” “He's just a good photographer. Naturally,” Nicole insisted. “Nah, he runs his pictures through filters,” Kevin retorted. “Then, guys, you need filters,” the girl noted. “Hmm, this is an idea...” Systrom said thoughtfully. Two years later, this retrospective idea made Systrom a multimillionaire.
The explosive growth of Instagram is a classic tale born in Silicon
(or Silicone if you prefer) valley, the amazing story of a company that has gained stunning momentum over the course of
several months. The initial development of the application before launching on iOS took only eight weeks, and after about a year and a half, Facebook acquired Instagram for a billion dollars in cash and shares. And - like all interesting fairy tales - this story had many plot twists.
Instagram is a free visual content sharing application that allows users to do almost everything from photos, videos, instant stories and live broadcasts, and share the results of their creativity on Instagram itself and a number of other social networks. At the time of writing the longread (January 2016) There are more than 600 million service users worldwide.
The magic of Instagram filters gives your phone photos a stylish look.
One touch on the screen turns a banal sunset into a postcard from the tropics, makes a half-eaten hamburger touching, or evokes nostalgia from a photo of an old bicycle. Kevin Systrom was one of the first to prove the thesis that the digital economy in our time is developing much faster and generates much greater profits than the real sector. But there are always hundreds of prerequisites for this. “Imagine a “Make Interesting” button on Twitter and a “Make Smart” button on Tumblr. In the past, most photo apps asked you some questions. They offered you to be a producer and an actor. Instagram took over the preparation of the magic sauce.”
Systrom:
“Imagine a “Make Interesting” button on Twitter and a “Make Smart” button on Tumblr. In the past, most photo apps asked you some questions. They offered you to be a producer and an actor. Instagram took over the preparation of the magic sauce.”
Stanford dude
Kevin was born in December 1983 in Holliston, Massachusetts. He's a classic WASP - (“white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant”)– generations of his ancestors lived in the northeastern United States and worked in large corporations. His father, Douglas, worked at a regional bank in New England as a human resources specialist at the time of his son's birth, and before that, as vice president of HR at the fashion and home goods retailer TJX. Mother Diana has been involved in marketing for the last 30 years: first she took part in the creation of one of the world's largest job and personnel search sites Monster.com, and then moved to the car sharing service Zipcar.
The family was quite wealthy, and the parents were able to place Kevin for $46 thousand a year in a prestigious (only 375 students are enrolled) private school in Middlesex (not the county in England, but the county in Massachusetts - the tenth largest in the United States millionaires). At another time, Pulitzer winner Conrad Aiken, actor Steve Carell and a couple of candidates for US vice president, Henry Cabot Lodge and William Weld, graduated from the same school.
Kevin's background and studies also had a strong influence on his style. Most men in IT love loose clothing. Systrom is not like that.
“I’m probably the only guy in Silicon Valley who likes to wear a jacket and tie—and does it without banter,” Kevin says.
– All of us – Tesla, Facebook, and Google – care about the constant improvement of products.
However, they will look down on you if they find out that you are wasting time on creating an actual look. I never liked this contrast.”
Kevin admits that he feels more comfortable being buttoned up, something he's had since high school. “It was forbidden to wear jeans there,” recalls Systrom. - We had to wear dress khakis and collared shirts. I think that school ultimately shaped my style.” But the relaxed California coast also influenced his taste. Kevin quite often complements a classic Brioni suit with a pair of sneakers.
The fact that these are Lanvin sneakers and not New Balance sneakers suggests that Systrom is actively involved in the fashion industry, which, in turn, sincerely glorifies Instagram. In 2015, in Paris, he met the legendary Karl Lagerfeld, LVMH executive director Delphine Arnault and Louis Vuitton designer Nicolas Ghesquière. Vogue editor Anna Wintour helped him choose a look for the Costume Institute gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And yes, Kevin was awarded by the Council of Fashion Designers of the USA.
Illustration by Isaac Bonan
The world of programming gradually fascinated Kevin as a child - he himself created levels for the second part of Doom (his uncle, who worked as a software developer, sometimes gave the teenager a laptop so that he could practice his programming skills). Later, Systrom began writing joke programs and testing them on friends: for example, one of these programs allegedly hacked into AOL Instant Messenger accounts (then someone complained to the provider, and the Sistroms’ house was disconnected from the Internet). This undying love for technology was passed down to Kevin, among other things, from his mother, who was introduced to the technological universe at its infancy.
However, Systrom's first work was, as usual, radically far from technology. At school, Kevin was obsessed with becoming a DJ and developed an obsession with Boston Beat, an old-school vinyl record store. The teenager actively spammed them with emails asking them to hire him, and the store eventually signed Systrom up for a few hours a week.
When it came time to go to college, Kevin chose Stanford University without hesitation. An obvious choice given Stanford's impressive roster of engineering majors and strong ties to Silicon Valley. Systrom began studying in the Computer Science program, but later transferred to Management Science and Engineering because the CS courses seemed too academic, and the MS focused on applied disciplines.
Systrom: “I started to think that maybe I wouldn’t make a great programmer. Essentially, I was trained to be an investment banker.”
In his spare time, he created sites such as Stanford's Craigslist and Photobox, a photo-sharing site for Sigma Nu fraternity members to post photos of their latest beer parties. (by the way, membership in a prestigious fraternity already says something - Mark Zuckerberg never managed to participate).
Systrom always had an interest in photography and design, and also made excellent presentations when required. In his third year, he went to Florence to study photography. I arrived with my favorite Nikon SLR, but the photography teacher replaced it with a Holga camera. It was probably then that Kevin saw how a bad photo could be turned into a good one. The teacher taught him how to “apply” various additional effects to photographs by adding chemicals to the solution for developing photographs.
Holga has been produced in Hong Kong since 1982 without design changes. The camera has long been a cult favorite and has gained an army of fans who like unusual retro photographs with soft focus and light distortions - Holga produces small, square, low-quality photographs with an abundance of effects (vignette, incorrect color and light rendition, blur).
Instagram took a similar approach to photo processing as the Hipstamatic app, which allowed you to customize retro filters. But there were no likes in it.
Directly from Florence, Systrom applied to participate in the prestigious Mayfield Fellows program, which recruits 12 students each year from several universities in California and spends a year teaching them the theory and practice of starting and running a large technology company. So, in 2005, Kevin first entered the fairy-tale world of ponies, startups and pink unicorns.
Participation in Mayfield Fellows culminated in a 4-month internship at Odeo Inc. Odeo was originally a startup by Evan Williams, the co-founder of Twitter. The bird will fly a little later, but for now it’s not a bird at all, but a service for recording and distributing podcasts, which are becoming popular thanks to the ubiquity of the iPod and digital music. Systrom shares a table with Jack Dorsey. Jack is the future co-founder of Twitter and Square, but he doesn’t know it yet and is meticulously cutting applications for Odeo together with the future co-founder of Instagram. Dorsey became one of Systrom's key contacts in the technology world.
Systrom: “I learned so much from Ev and Jack! These guys seemed to open my eyes."
Also in 2005, student Kevin had dinner with Mark Zuckerberg for the first time. Mark suggested that he take his senior year at Stanford to develop a photo service for Facebook. Systrom refused. They met with Mark more than once in the coming year - Systrom earned pocket money working as a barista at Caffé del Doge in Palo Alto, and Mark sometimes dropped in for a cup of coffee.
Systrom: “The idea of working for a startup for big money never appealed to me. I wanted to finish my studies at Stanford. In hindsight, I realize it would have been a great deal. But you never know how things will turn out. I was interested in what would happen to me.”
In 2006, Kevin received his diploma. Stanford's career services office was ready to place him at Microsoft with a six-figure salary, but he chose Google at $60,000 a year. In three years, he worked as a marketer on Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs and Spreadsheets.
Kevin dreamed of getting into the social media field. In January 2009, he decided to take a risk and joined the startup Nextstop (also acquired by Facebook in 2010) as a product manager. The service, founded by former Google employees, provided users with travel recommendations. Here Systrom got the opportunity to do what he always wanted: write code and create applications, including games related to photography.
While working at Nextstop, Kevin realized he wanted to be an entrepreneur. All that remained was to ignite my passion for photography to such an extent that it would not fade away full time. He started to think about the idea.
Double bourbon please
In the spring of 2009, the Foursquare application was released, allowing you to mark your location. Systrom wanted to create an expanded version of this application, where the emphasis would not only be on check-ins, but also on communication and photo sharing.
While still working at Nextstop, he began coding on nights and weekends and eventually prototyped an HTML5 app called Burbn—after bourbon, of course. (Systrom is a big fan of Kentucky whiskey). Burbn gave users the opportunity to check in at different places, arrange hikes and trips with friends, earn points for hanging out, and post photos. As he later wrote on Quora, he wanted to cross Foursquare with the online game Mafia Wars, where you had to complete tasks by creating an online gang with friends. Location-based apps were trending back then, but the photo-sharing feature became Burbn's most popular feature.
In January 2010, Systrom attended a party for Hunch, another Silicon Valley startup, and showed a prototype of his app to Steve Anderson, a venture capitalist at Baseline Ventures. Steve invited him to meet over a cup of Russian coffee to discuss prospects.
Vitaly Myshlyaev, founder of the concert service Concertwith.me:
“The Valley is brainwashing. There are a lot of activities and movement around you. You can attend three conferences, three meetings, meetups, and anything else a day. You open a list of parties in California on the topic of startups - and there is an ocean of offers every day. Free beer in the office of large companies, sailing on a yacht, snorting cocaine, joint jogging for gay startups, races for whites, races for blacks, push-ups for Indians.
As a result, Anderson promised to invest $250 thousand in Burbn, but on the condition that Systrom finds a business partner. Anderson later explained that he feared a situation would arise where management's decisions were not discussed, but were made automatically. Under the same conditions, Anderson was joined by a second fund - Andreessen Horowitz, one of the best in the startup industry. Investments in Burbn have doubled.
Anderson: “We knew then that mobile was the future, that now was the chance to create a unique experience for mobile devices, but we didn’t know a damn thing about it.”
Having received the money ($500 thousand was collected in just two weeks), Systrom immediately quit Nextstop and began searching for a partner.
True, when Facebook absorbed Nextstop, and Dorsey suddenly launched Twitter, which began to grow by leaps and bounds, Kevin was a little upset. He even mentioned this in a later interview: “I sat and thought: I didn’t get into the Twitter boat and I didn’t get into the Facebook boat. Wonderful!"
There is safety in numbers
The second partner and future co-founder of Instagram was Mike Krieger, a 25-year-old native of Brazil. Krieger was two years younger at Stanford and also interned through the Mayfield Fellows program. Before meeting Kevin, he worked on UX design at Meebo, an online communication service.
Elayne Wherry, co-founder of Meebo: “Mike has a fantastic ability to connect with people and is fantastic with technology.”
Krieger came to the United States in 2004 to become a journalist, but the American curve took him into “symbolic systems,” an unusual combination of computing and cognitive science. Elayne Wherry, co-founder of Meebo: “Mike has a fantastic ability to connect with people and is fantastic with technology.”
Krieger was still a senior when Verry visited Stanford to judge an undergraduate technology competition. Mike stood out. Over coffee, she invited the young man to join the startup, which by that time had been operating for several years.
After Krieger started working with Meebo, Verry quickly realized that he was more talented than anyone else in the company - even with zero experience. So it's hard to say she was surprised when Mike announced he was leaving to co-found a new company.
Systrom showed Krieger a prototype of the app, and although Mike was hesitant, he liked the ability to view photos of his friends' events. A month later, he left Meebo and began obtaining a US work visa to become Burbn's CTO.
Krieger: "I wasn't very enthusiastic about geography-based apps, but Burbn was the first one I liked." The first hire was Shane Sweeney, an engineer on the Egg Haus project.
The first hire was Shane Sweeney, an engineer on the Egg Haus project.
Rob Abbott, Burbn user, first public Instagram user: “Kevin and I sat together in [co-working space] Dogpatch Labs from the early days of Burbn until Instagram outgrew our space. My team collaborated with Kevin (and later Mikey) - well, we helped them in any way we could. However, we helped all our residents. Kevin asked for feedback on the design, and unfortunately, I was always inundated with clients. Then he asked me to join the project, but I again found myself in a stalemate because I had just hired new people, including Shane Sweeney, who later became Instagram's first full-time employee.
I provided feedback on interaction architecture, helped a little with naming and branding; Shane wrote Sinatra POC (POC - Proof-of-Concept, layout) to test a native iOS camera hack that makes it possible to post directly in Safari. The concept was impressive, but native code was the only option because the product required higher performance and the filters needed to be handled on the client side, something Burbn's HTML5 couldn't handle.
Kevin came to me some time later to woo Shane. Shane was very talented. I told Kevin that Shane would be most useful if I assigned him to work on a specific product, especially on iOS. I think highly of Kevin and consider him one of the best resident entrepreneurs in the two years I spent at Dogpatch Labs, so it was an easy conversation. Kevin is generally very competent in many areas. And this is quite natural: remember, Kevin designed, developed and grew Burbn himself. One. The arrival of Mikey, and then Shane, closed all the key positions in the main Instagram team. Plus Cole Rice [more on him later] gave some great advice as an outside observer.
Rob Abbott himself refused to work on Instagram and then bit his elbows. But his story is not the only one. There is a whole thread on Quora about “refuseniks.”
One of them is Quora contributor Robert Cesar Matei. He received an offer to become an Instagram developer from Kevin and Mike.
Matei: “The Instagram team grew very slowly. By the time the company was acquired by Facebook, Kevin and Mike had hired only one new developer. I think they did not offer the position to a very large number of applicants.
The guys knew what they wanted, but it seemed to me that they didn’t take their company seriously. Back then, everyone thought that Instagram was just an application made by a couple of hobbyists in their spare time, and most programmers could not imagine that working with this service could be interesting. Some thought that the platform would still be assimilated into Facebook or Twitter. Others did not see development prospects or were not happy with the size of the team.
I wanted to do other things, but Kevin asked me for help - and for several months he and I worked on developing the project, periodically staying in the office until late at night. When I began to think that it was time to find a job, the guys suggested that I work on the Instagram API. They offered me a position on staff many times. Kevin accompanied each new proposal with a letter - it really touched me.”
As a result, Matei got a job at Quora. He explained this by saying that the Q&A platform was more interesting to him. He believed that Quora could revolutionize the Internet—like Google, for example—and become the largest resource for sharing knowledge.
Mobile developer Amanda Wickstead says she also received an offer from Kevin and Mike in June 2010. Back then the service was still called Burbn.
Wickstead: “Mike is my friend. I met with him and Kevin, and the guys talked about their idea: they wanted to make a photo sharing app. I knew that working with them would be crazy fun and that the idea was really fantastic."
But Amanda chose to stay in the gaming industry - then she was an employee of Zynga. She felt that Instagram is a fairly simple application that may not be of interest to the developer.
Wickstead: “Of course, now I’m not happy with my decision. Hindsight is 20 out of 20.”
Designer Julian Targowski says he received an offer from Instagram a couple of days before the launch of the app he was working on at the time. He didn’t even bother to read the proposal - his mind was occupied with other things, and the photo sharing service did not interest him at all.
Targowski: “On the day of the Instagram takeover, I was celebrating my two-year anniversary with my girlfriend outdoors. My friends sent me several text messages, mostly to tease me. But I don't regret my decision. I don't work for money. I love design. The best of my work I did absolutely free for my friends or relatives.”
There is also about an anonymous employee who was offered to work on Instagram for Android, but the anonymous person, as you know, is worse than Justin Bieber, so we won’t write about him. Let him know!
Burbn turns, turns...
On Krieger's first day at work, Kevin announced that Burbn would not survive - Foursquare was already far ahead in promotion. They needed to create something completely new, and the partners decided to focus primarily on mobile photography.
Systrom: “The iPhone was new, people were creating amazing things, and new behaviors were emerging. This was an opportunity to create a new type of service, a social network that would be based not on computers, but on mobile devices.”
They carefully studied the leading applications in this category and saw the potential in creating a product that would combine Hipstamatic filters and the social component of Facebook. Systrom and Krieger made the difficult but life-changing decision to take a step back, reverting Burbn to photos, comments and likes. The application was renamed Instagram - a portmanteau of the words instant (instantaneous) and telegram (telegram).
Now they had to convince their investor, Steve Anderson, of the correctness of this decision, who four months ago wrote Systrom the first check for $250 thousand. The young entrepreneurs piled into the café across the street, a cheap eatery staffed by ex-convicts.
Anderson knew the app's performance was poor. They had been discussing this for the past few weeks. The startups told Steve about their plan to start over, not knowing what reaction to expect from their backers - anger, disappointment or sympathy. Anderson rubbed his red stubble and looked at the table. But soon enough he looked up at them and said with a grin: “Why the hell did you wait so long?”
The founders worked together for two weeks on a photo app they called Codename. Krieger made the client application for iOS, and Systrom took over the server part.
Their place of work was a co-working space located on an old pier, with fishing nets on the walls and long tables that served as a common space for start-up technology companies. Julian Green, who worked at Dogpatch for a time, recalls that Kevin and Mike were unusually obsessed with the details of the project.
Green, Dogpatch Labs resident:
“They spent two hours perfecting the rounded corners of the app icons.”
However, both startupers did not like what happened in the end, and then Systrom, thanks to Nicole, remembered the Florentine experiments with the Lomo camera.
The first filter for Instagram was the X-Pro II. Then Hefe appeared (after the name of the unfiltered Hefeweizen wheat beer that Kevin drank while working) and Toaster (this was the nickname of the Labradoodle, a cross between a Labrador and a poodle, which belonged to the creator of the social news site Digg, Kevin Rose). In total, about 30 filters were made, of which 11 were included in the application (there are currently 39 of them, including video filters).
After six weeks of refining the application, they gave it to friends for beta testing, fixed the bugs and prepared Instagram for launch.
First Instagram icon
The Instagram icon, one of the most famous app icons, was drawn in 45 minutes when Apple decided to put the app on the App Store home page. The prototype icon was essentially an image of a real-life Polaroid camera, and the announcement required something unique.
Cole Rice is a professional photographer and designer. One day (suddenly!) Kevin called him and asked him to work on Instagram. Cole was an early beta tester for Instagram, and Systrom came across his work on Dribbble, which was based on an image from a 1940s Bell & Howell camera. Systrom liked it and asked Rice to redesign the Instagram icon before sending it to Apple. The only catch was that Apple waited an hour for all this to happen, otherwise Instagram would not have made it to the main App Store, which would have deprived the young app of a great opportunity to shine.
Less than an hour later, Rice sent the icon. The Bell & Howell camera has two lenses, so Rice turned one of them into a viewfinder. He also slapped a rainbow with the acronym INST on the left side of the camera.
Instagram was released to the App Store at midnight on October 6, 2010. Systrom and Krieger remained at Dogpatch Labs to keep the servers from crashing. In the morning, a message about the new product was published by the New York Times Bits Blog and TechCrunch. The load on the servers was off the charts - Systrom and Krieger worked 24 hours without a break to keep the application running.
Rob Abbott, Burbn user, first public Instagram user:
“They were sitting opposite each other, there was a bunch of mobile phones on the table.
and dozens of empty Red Bull cans.”
In the first 24 hours, 25 thousand iPhone users downloaded the free application:
Instagram has actually become the best free photo sharing app.
Systrom: “First of all, I have to say that we never expected such widespread popularity. We went from the first registered users to the top of the free photography segment in just a few hours.”
By the end of the first week, Instagram had been downloaded 100,000 times, and by mid-December the number of users had reached one million and Apple named Instagram “iPhone app of the year.” The timing of the application's release was perfect: the iPhone 4 with an improved camera was presented three months before the release of Instagram, in June 2010.
The main task of Systrom and Krieger was to maintain the performance of the servers so that they would not collapse from the influx of visitors. The partners brought in Quora's Adam D'Angelo (formerly of Facebook), whom Systrom had met with Zuckerberg at fraternity parties at Stanford, to help move Instagram to Amazon EC2 cloud servers and scale the platform.
The difficulty of supporting a high-load application was one of the reasons why Instagram’s founders subsequently agreed to a deal with Facebook: joining such a large company also meant starting to use its developed infrastructure.
Systrom: “This is our child. He keeps us up at night and gets us out of bed early in the morning.”
Manuscripts are burning
In February 2011, Instagram raised $7 million in funding for its initial stage of development from various investors: Matt Kohler from Benchmark Capital, which valued Instagram at approximately $25 million, Jack Dorsey, Adam D'Angelo and business angel Chris Sacca.
The rapidly growing app caught the attention of leading social media companies, particularly attracting the interest of Jack Dorsey, who was already a co-founder of Twitter. (and toyed with the idea of acquiring Instagram) and Mark Zuckerberg.
By the way, right before this investment round, Kevin Systrom suffered another setback.
It turned out that the Andreessen Horowitz fund, which invested in Burbn, decided to share the risks and in 2010 also invested money in the Picplz application, a direct competitor to Instagram. A month after the launch of Instagram, the venture informed Systrom that it was going to invest an additional $5 million in Picplz, refusing further investments in Kevin’s company “for ethical reasons.”
Systrom was devastated: “Andreessen Horowitz is a strong name...Their rejection sucks. This is a big shake-up for us."
Instagram was not only distinguished by its minimalist approach to the application interface. With the same minimalism, the guys built the structure of the company itself. The new funding gave Systrom and Krieger the opportunity to hire more employees, but the company's founders maintained a lean staff of a dozen employees until the integration with Facebook. At least, only three new people on Instagram's staff are mentioned by name - community manager and agreement assistant Josh Riedel, community evangelist Jessica Zollman and engineer Gregor Hoschmuth (all of them have now left the company).
The number of users increased much faster than the number of company employees, and along with the growth of the community, interest from potential buyers also grew. The company began meeting with interested parties.
At the same time, Systrom received a call and was offered additional investment by Roelof Botha from Sequoia Capital, an investor in Tumblr and a number of other trending startups. He followed Instagram's growth closely and admired its "stickiness."
Dorsey and Rowhani subsequently claimed that they handed Systrom a paper proposal. He insisted otherwise. According to Bulgakov, manuscripts do not burn, but we, apparently, will never know how the events actually developed that night. But the question is: where could the manuscript have gone, other than where it ended up in the end? However, Systrom remained in contact with Twitter and on April 4 told their CEO Dick Costolo that Instagram would likely agree to a huge investment from Sequoia, Greylock and Thrive Capital (ventures invested $50 million when the company was valued at $500 million) and will remain an independent company, because independence is very important and cool.
New records
Each month after the launch broke the records of the previous one.
So, when Justin Bieber opened an account, Instagram registered an abnormal surge of activity - thousands of girls commented and liked every photo of the celebrity. Bieber's agent even contacted Kevin and demanded that his client be financially satisfied for using the service.
Systrom seemed to blow off the sly agent, but Bieber remained on Instagram anyway (for a while, then quit, and then came back again).
Bieber: “I think hell is Instagram. I'm 90 percent sure of this. We are sent to hell and we find ourselves locked on an Instagram server. I'm stuck in private messages, trying to get out, but I can't. I’ll lie down by the pool, take photos for Instagram and won’t upload them to the Internet.”
Kevin and Mike became celebrities themselves. Krieger had dinner with Michelle Obama, and Systrom met with British Prime Minister David Cameron and hung out with Jamie Oliver. They appeared on magazine covers. All this time, Systrom convinced himself and those around him that he did not feel threatened by Facebook. Facebook's mobile apps were too complex. Their iOS app was overloaded with all sorts of features, and on top of that, Facebook had written the app in HTML5, and now it was horribly slow on mobile devices, and Facebook was receiving thousands of complaints from users.
Instagram, on the contrary, has always strived for utilitarianism and minimalism. There were no structural changes even after the user base “inflated”. More difficult (and more important) abandon new features rather than implement them. When Instagram received funding from Benchmark Capital, new board member Matt Kohler encouraged the team to focus on growth first and figure out the business model later.
Systrom: "We're seeing Facebook-level engagement."
So, the disposition at the beginning of April 2012 was as follows: the Instagram application for iOS reached 30 million users after about a year and a half on the market, and taking into account the fact that more than 500 million Android devices had already been sold, Instagram had a real chance to get more 100 million users in the very near future if I launched an application for a second mobile system.
But why did we have to wait so long for the Android version? The notorious minimalist concept of the project is to blame for everything.
Systrom: “Launching on a single platform allowed us to focus on the product and user experience. This enabled us to remain small and nimble, and we were able to respond quickly to user feedback.”
Kevin emphasized that his main concern was consistency between the interfaces on both platforms, and that the same 13 people who wrote the iOS app also made an Android app that can run on any camera phone running Android 2.2 or higher with OpenGL support ( technology necessary for the operation of the filters).
Systrom: “The Android application offers almost identical functionality. You will find all the same filters as in the iOS version. Some features, such as TiltShift and Flickr integration, are not included in the current build, but will definitely appear in future versions. The app is available in Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish."
In the first 24 hours after the launch of Instagram on Android, the application was installed by more than 1 million users. Given that more Android and iOS devices are sold per month than new Facebook users are registered, there is a real threat that a new social network could appear right under Zuckerberg's nose.
It took Facebook about four years to achieve similar figures. The idea of Instagram as the world's first major mobile-only social network seemed extremely compelling, especially considering that Instagram had closed another round of funding for $50 million.
Zuckerberg called
After launching Instagram, Zuckerberg invited Systrom to dinner several times at his home in Palo Alto to talk about “philosophy.”
Zuckerberg: “Kevin called me lazily, and I called him”
These meetings, however, were not mentoring sessions: Mark certainly had the growing popularity of Instagram in mind, especially since photo uploads were the catalyst for the surge in popularity of Facebook itself.
Zuckerberg: “They were getting a lot of traffic from Facebook, and it occurred to me that we could be one company.”
Such guesses are confirmed, for example, by MySpace founder Tom Andersen.
Andersen: “Facebook was scared. He wasn't going to learn anything from Instagram. Zuckerberg made the deal because the rapid growth of Instagram's user base made him worried. Even if Instagram was only a nascent threat, it was still a threat. If your company is worth $100 billion, and neutralizing a potential competitor would cost only a billion, why not take such a step?
Facebook primarily revolves around friends and is therefore terribly afraid of services like Twitter or Instagram, which follow a more open and public model and where the messages of any user are available to everyone else. Therefore, Zuckerberg wants to own the main “private” social network (Facebook) and the main “public” one (now it’s Twitter, but you can’t buy it, so there’s only one way out - Instagram).”
Forbes, citing various sources, provides other evidence.
Paul Buckheit, partner at Y Combinator
and founder of FriendFeed:
“Any time you see a social platform growing so quickly, it's a good reason to get a little nervous. Of course it's smarter
it would have been for Facebook to acquire Twitter when it was at a similar stage of development.
However, if you believe that Instagram can become the next Twitter, the purchase is the right move.”
Lou Kerner
Founder of The Social Internet Fund:
The app would be of enormous value not only to Facebook, but, say, Twitter as well. I'm also sure Google would be very interested in purchasing. So, to some extent, Zuckerberg is not only attacking, but also defending: Instagram is a very valuable asset for anyone who would like to compete with Facebook."
Zuckerberg has enough power at Facebook to make quick and dramatic moves. He invited Systrom to Palo Alto and had a series of long and detailed discussions with him about how Instagram could be boosted using Facebook.
Zuckerberg: “I wouldn’t call it a negotiation. We just really wanted to work together."
Subsequent events confirm his words: as a result of the gatherings, an offer was born - twice as large as what Twitter presented, and twice as large as the valuation of the company by venture capitalists. What's more, Zuckerberg's offer included a whopping $300 million in cash.
Systrom was shocked by the size of the proposal and Zuckerberg’s pressure, and he apparently forgot that he wanted to maintain Instagram’s independence at all costs.
Systrom: “I don’t know what influenced my decision, but Mark presented a comprehensive plan of action and went from $500 million [the amount Instagram valued Sequoia at to $1 billion. Obviously, this was a completely different valuation."
Instagram was acquired by Facebook for $1 billion in cash and stock in April 2012 (the final transaction amount, taking into account the fall in Facebook shares, was $736.5 million).
Dennis. K. Berman, financial editor of The Wall Street Journal: “Remember this day. Instagram, which is 551 days old, is valued at $1 billion. New York Times Co., which is 116 years old – $967 million.”
Thanks to this deal, Systrom received a lot of money, but lost his partner and friend - Jack Dorsey. Dorsey posted daily Instagram photos to his popular Twitter account, but stopped doing so after the deal went through.
The instantly rich co-founders of Instagram, yesterday's geeks, suddenly became one of the wealthiest men today. It is believed that Systrom (CEO and co-founder) made $400 million from the sale of his stake (40%), while Krieger (CTO and co-founder) received approximately $100 million (10%). Sources close to the company say another 10% stake - again worth $100 million - has been distributed to employees. Key investors also did not leave offended - Andreessen Horowitz and Baseline Ventures received $100 million each (having invested $250 thousand 2 years ago).
So, let's think about what young people can spend the first hundreds of millions on? For girlfriends! In October 2015, Systrom married Nicole Schutz, his peer and passion since his student days; Krieger meets with Caitlin Trigger, a Yale graduate and collaborator on a charity fundraising project. The founders of Instagram have enough money for a hobby. Krieger has a passion for vintage cars. As for Systrom, he loves photography, bow ties, corduroy and “making interesting cocktails,” and now he can fully satisfy his taste for a beautiful life. He boasted on Twitter that he flew to Las Vegas just to have dinner with chef Jamie Oliver (not the first time, actually - before that back in 2011). And he shyly admitted on Facebook that selling Instagram would allow him to buy a few more bottles of his favorite sparkling wine. To hell with modesty, Kevin - now you can swim in it!
After Twitter's IPO and the news that trendy startup Snapchat was valued by Zuckerberg at three billion a little over a year later, the tone changed, and the idea began to grow louder that Kevin Systrom had made a blunder by significantly underselling Instagram.
Experts agree that Instagram would most likely do well and be worth much more ($5-15 billion) if it continued to remain an independent company.
John Corney, columnist for The Wall Street Journal:
“If you're an Instagrammer, does the news that Zuckerberg offered 3 yards of greenery for Snapchat piss you off?”
Shervin Pishevar, investor:
“Today Instagram would be worth $5 billion. It propped up FB's stock and put its mobile strategy on its feet. What a damn smart and cheap acquisition Zuckerberg made.”
As it turned out later, those who consider Kevin Systrom to be the losing party in the deal with Facebook include some of Instagram's investors. Snapchat's founders rejected a recent $3 billion offer from Facebook, largely under the influence of Benchmark Capital, an early Instagram investor who was "disappointed" when the startup was sold for just $1 billion. Despite the high sale price, the firm was convinced that Instagram could be more successful as a standalone company, or at least get a better offer.
Thus, the father of the future billionaire, Douglas Systrom, is a professional personnel officer: at the time of the birth of his son Kevin, he served at the regional Bank of New England as an HR specialist, and until recently worked as vice president of human resources at the large retail chain TJX. Kevin's mother Diana has been involved in marketing for the last 30 years, her last job was with the car sharing service Zipcar. Her mother (Kevin's grandmother) worked for corporations such as Standard Oil and Western Union, and in retirement became an activist in the Protestant community.
Born into a family of executives and raised in the spirit of the Protestant ethic, Kevin Systrom was interested in the business world from childhood. He often accompanied his mother on marketing campaigns organized by her. The Systrom family was quite wealthy, and Kevin's parents were able to enroll Kevin in a prestigious private school in Middlesex. Graduated at different times Pulitzer winner Conrad Aiken , ex-Republican Vice Presidential candidate Henry CabotLodge and current vice presidential candidate libertarians William Weld.
Of several advanced study subjects, Kevin chose computer science. According to The Wall Street Journal, the boy was greatly influenced by his uncle, who worked as a software developer, who, since 1995, sometimes gave Kevin his laptop so that he could practice his programming skills.
A few years later, the Internet boom began in the United States and the dot-com bubble began to inflate. A huge number of new online services appeared, and old corporations hastily launched Internet sites. For example, in 1999, Kevin’s mother herself helped launch the web page of the Eastpak company (which sells backpacks and suitcases), for which she then worked. By this time, high school student Kevin Systrom already knew that he himself wanted to study the Internet and computerization.
Stanford Circle
By 2002, Systrom had graduated from an elite school in Massachusetts, had good experience in amateur programming, and even had some work experience—at one time he worked part-time in a music store in downtown Boston. Encouraged by Stanford University's close collaboration with Silicon Valley companies, Kevin moved to California and successfully enrolled at Stanford. As Eyerys notes, Systrom initially intended to study computer science, but his studies at the university seemed too theoretical, andhe changed his major to management and engineering. After four years of study, he received a bachelor's degree in management and engineering.
Before the last, fourth year Stanford Kevin decided to try out for the Mayfield Fellows program. Each year, it recruits 12 bright students from several universities in California, who are taught the theory and practice of creating and leading large technology companies over the course of an academic year.
Systrom was recognized as a worthy candidate, successfully passed the Mayfield Fellows competition and got an internship at the newly created Odeo company. On the basis of this service for creating and searching for podcasts (informational audio and video broadcasts), the microblogging network Twitter will be founded in a couple of years.
During his four-month internship at Odeo, Systrom got his hands on creating interface elements, after which he returned to finish his studies at Stanford. At that time, he began to receive tempting job offers (in particular, from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg), but the young specialist still decided to get a bachelor’s degree without being distracted by a part-time job.
After graduating from Stanford in 2006, Kevin accepted an offer from Google, which was then the undisputed leader among young startups in Silicon Valley. By that time, it had already entered the stock exchange and even managed to get into the S&P 500 index. For the first two years, Systrom was promoting Google projects (mail, calendar, spreadsheets and documents), then he was part of the corporate development group.
After Systrom left Google, largely because of the corporate atmosphere, which, as it seemed to him, was ruining people's desire for individual entrepreneurship. “I always had a desire for this, and I wanted to regain my social space,” Systrom later recalled. He briefly worked as a product manager at Nextstop, a social travel guide company.
lone wolf
As the businessman admitted in a conversation with Forbes in 2012, while working at Nextstop, he was actively considering creating his own application. If, while studying at Stanford and working at Google, Kevin spent his free time programming, getting his teeth in, now in his free time he purposefully developed the concept of his startup.
Literally in the same months (spring 2009), the Foursquare application was born, which allows you to mark your location. Systrom wanted to create an expanded version of this application, where the emphasis would be not only on registering his geolocation, but also on communication and sharing photos.
In January 2010, at a party, Systrom showed a prototype of his application, named Burbn, after American whiskey, to venture capitalist Steve Anderson. He was interested in the idea of a young businessman, and Anderson promised to invest $250 thousand in the project, but on the condition that Systrom finds a business partner. Anderson later explained to The New York Times that he feared there would be an "echo chamber" at Burbn—a situation that arises under unified management, in which management decisions are not discussed but are made automatically.
In general, Anderson noted: “Back then we knew that mobile platforms were the future, that now there was a chance to create a unique experience for mobile devices, but we didn’t know a damn thing about it.” After receiving money from Anderson, Systrom immediately quit Nextstop and began searching for a partner. He soon settled on the candidacy of Mike Krieger, who was two years younger at Stanford and also interned through the Mayfield Fellows program.
Having barely agreed to work together on the project, Krieger and Systrom came to the conclusion that Foursquare was already too popular and it was becoming almost impossible to compete with it. It was decided to turn the concept of the application around so that photography would be in the foreground, and location and communication would be applied tools. The project was renamed Instagram, from a combination of the words “instant photograph” and “telegram”.
Retro fashion
Systrom drew inspiration for creating photo filters from his brief encounter with the Lomography technique five years earlier. In early 2005, he traveled to Florence, where an Italian professor he knew showed a small Holga camera to a Stanford student. This camera began to be produced in 1982 in British Hong Kong, and since then the model has remained almost unchanged - only later a modification was added for 35 mm film, popular in the West.
Thanks to its simplified design and technical features, Holga produced small, square, low-quality photographs with an abundance of effects - vignette, incorrect color and light rendition, blurriness, which gave the photographs a retro touch. Like many Lomography fans, Systrom liked this aesthetic.
Instagram is far from the first smartphone app to use this technique. In 2009, the Hipstamatic application was born, which allows you to customize retro filters for photos taken on your phone. Unlike Instagram, this method of processing a photo could take several minutes; in addition, the application initially did not have its own platform for user communication.
In addition, the management of the Synthetic company, which released Hipstamatic, from the very beginning relied on the self-sufficiency of the application, so as not to attract investors if possible. According to Inc.com, from the first weeks of its existence, Hipstamatic, a paid application with paid additional content, became profitable. At the time of the purchase of Instagram by Zuckerberg’s company, this service not only had no revenue, but even no model for generating it.
With your hands untied
In October 2010, p After several months of test work, Instagram went public. During the month of operation, about 1 million people downloaded the free application, so at first the task of Systrom and Krieger was to maintain the performance of the servers so that they would not collapse from the influx of visitors. The problem was solved by transferring capacity to the servers of the online retailer Amazon. This was one of the reasons why the founders of Instagram agreed to a deal with Facebook: joining such a large company also meant starting to use its developed infrastructure.
Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger and developer Shane Sweeney at the Instagram office in San Francisco, April 2011 (Photo: Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)
After the deal with Facebook was closed, Instagram management received support from a powerful corporation and concentrated on developing the application. Many new features have been added, some with Systrom's direct participation. Having remained the general director, the businessman was now able to free up time for other activities. In 2014, he joined the board of directors of Wal-Mart, the largest supermarket chain in the United States. In turn, Facebook management became interested in monetizing the application, which already had hundreds of millions of active users.
By mid-2015, Fortune magazine notes, Facebook shareholders began to express dissatisfaction with the fact that the corporation was not receiving adequate financial returns from its numerous acquisitions. In September, Instagram introduced a model of 30-second advertising videos that appeared in users' feeds.
According to Credit Suisse bank estimates, the share of Instagram advertising revenue in all Facebook revenue for the first quarter of 2016 amounted to more than 10%, reaching $573 million. Over time, bank analysts predict that advertising revenue from the photo service will increase and will amount to about $3 for the entire 2016 .2 billion
A month ago, Instagram’s audience exceeded 500 million registered users. Now the main direction of expansion of the service, according to Systrom himself, is the markets of China and India. Systrom is also thinking about developing the service. “What we have now will not take you to the scene. A few filters are not enough to change the world for ourselves,” he told The Wall Street Journal. The billionaire is betting on the wider use of video in the application, and in the future - on the introduction of augmented reality.
