Systrom Kevin Quotes & Sayings

Imagine the power of surfacing what's happening in the world through images, and potentially other types of media in the future, to each and every person who holds a mobile phone. — Kevin Systrom

There are a lot more companies with a lot younger people. It is just like 23-year-olds are starting companies, and they are scaling really quickly. — Kevin Systrom

In May of 2010, I joined Kevin Systrom, my co-founder, and we created 'Instagram', a mobile social network that today has over 15 million users. — Mike Krieger

It's wonderful when you pair entrepreneurs together because they can share experiences and in some ways push each other to build better products going forward. — Kevin Systrom

Facebook's campus has a lot of creative spaces: an analogue print shop, a candy store. It's a dynamic place and one of the best environments I've been in, period. — Kevin Systrom

Having a company that's successful is a wonderful platform to do new things. You don't have to raise money for it; you can take profits from the company and pump them into new business. — Kevin Systrom

'Instagram' Direct is a really interesting feature because it's grown significantly since we launched it. People continue to use it to communicate more privately. — Kevin Systrom

I really value passion for the product above experience. — Kevin Systrom

On the intimate relationships, I'd say you can be someone who wouldn't normally get attention in traditional media and come onto Instagram and build this massive following. — Kevin Systrom

Traditional businesses can say, 'We're going to sell widgets to people, and it will make X amount of profit.' But new business models are hard. — Kevin Systrom

When you're introducing a mobile app, you look around and say, 'We could be doing 15 different things, but how do we communicate to someone why they would want to download and even sign up for this thing?' — Kevin Systrom

Above all else, products spread when they're useful and they're usable — Kevin Systrom

I like to say that the one thing that all people who succeed in changing the world have in common is that they at least tried. — Kevin Systrom

Chobani did a really wonderful yogurt campaign on 'Instagram' to shift perceptions away from the fact that they were just yogurt. And they had a 7-point incremental lift on shifting that perception through a brand advertisement on Instagram. — Kevin Systrom

The printing press did something really big for the world when everyone could get books in their hands and read. — Kevin Systrom

In the past, people have looked at photos as a record of memory. The focus has been on the past tense. With Instagram, the focus is on the present tense. — Kevin Systrom

It turns out that no undergrad class prepares you to start a startup - you learn most of it as you do it. — Kevin Systrom

I've always been into taking my photos, cropping them square, putting them through a filter in Photoshop. — Kevin Systrom

'Instagram' reached 13 million users in just 13 months. — Kevin Systrom

I love challenging the notion that, in order to be a tech founder, you have to be holed up in a dark room wearing a T-shirt and baggy jeans. — Kevin Systrom

Our goal is to allow people to use whatever app they want to get photos into 'Instagram'. — Kevin Systrom

Calling 'Instagram' a photo-sharing app is like calling a newspaper a letter-sharing book, or a Mozart grand era symphony a series of notes. 'Instagram' is less about the medium and more about the network. — Kevin Systrom

Whether it's an ad or organic content, video provides a new creative dimension for storytelling on 'Instagram'. Video lets people convey the power and beauty in a moment through sight, sound, and motion. — Kevin Systrom

A lot of the earliest 'Instagram' celebrities took really beautiful photos. But you're starting to see a change where it's not about beauty; it's about the story that you tell. — Kevin Systrom

Every photo you take communicates something about a moment in time - a brief slice of time of where you were, who you were with, and what you were doing. — Kevin Systrom

If you're a journalist, and you want to see live photos happening at any location in our system, you can simply type in the location, and up comes the page. — Kevin Systrom

I actually think some of my best moments in life have been while I was with people from Instagram - whether it's super late nights getting a release out or being able to travel to places I'd never visited and meeting some of the most interesting people I've ever met. — Kevin Systrom

Brands, musicians, and public figures were among the first to embrace video on 'Instagram', and we've been impressed with how brands have extended their reach with video ads. — Kevin Systrom

We just want to build a company that focuses on the love of Instagram. — Kevin Systrom

People interact with their phones very differently than they do with their PCs, and I think that when you design from the ground up with mobile in mind, you create a very different product than going the other way. — Kevin Systrom

What's awesome about social media is you curate your own experience. That leads to the rise of niche celebrities, who are actually just as popular as mass celebrities, but because there's no incentive for traditional media to invest in them as celebrities, they find a home where people can follow them on Instagram. — Kevin Systrom

I grew up as a photo nut. Every Christmas I would get a new camera. It's a huge part of my life. — Kevin Systrom

Teens just understand the world in ways I don't think any of us adults do. — Kevin Systrom

Working at a startup to make a lot of money was never a thing, and that's why I decided to just finish up school. That was way more important for me. — Kevin Systrom

As a kid, creation was something that I always loved. Creating worlds for video games, creating businesses that didn't make any money, selling lemonade, etcetera. In my fourth grade classroom, I even instituted a government structure because I was really interested in people having positions and there being law. — Kevin Systrom

Our goal is to not just be a photo-sharing app, but to be the way you share your life when you're on the go. — Kevin Systrom

Products can introduce more complexity over time, but as far as launching and introducing a new product into the market, it's a marketing problem. You have to explain everything you do, and people have to understand it, within seconds. — Kevin Systrom

'Instagram' doesn't exist in a vacuum. We're not a bunch of siloed individuals. It's a bunch of people coming together on topics, fashion, you know, youthful teens, creatives, photographers, foodies, everyone coming together and building a community around the things they love, communicating visually. — Kevin Systrom

There are a lot of apps that are fun to use - they're utility apps; they're fine. But there are a fraction of apps that are in the cream of the crop. You just need to be in the cream of the crop to get noticed. — Kevin Systrom

I like to compare 'Instagram' to the Library of Congress. — Kevin Systrom

People have presences, both online and in real life. You can choose to show everything, meaning all sides of you, or you can choose to be selective. — Kevin Systrom

Really, we're just taking people and shifting them from taking photos anyway to taking them on 'Instagram'. — Kevin Systrom

I always look toward teens on Instagram to really understand what's going on. For some reason, when you're a teen, you just understand the world better than anyone else. — Kevin Systrom

I own a Canon 20D, though I don't remember the last time I used it. Ever since the iPhone 4, I've been completely absorbed in taking photos from my mobile phone. — Kevin Systrom

Four years later, in 2013, Facebook bought Instagram for one billion dollars in cash and stock. A billion dollars! Driving to Palo Alto in Evan's Porsche, I couldn't even conceive of a number that high. I like to think that Mark Zuckerberg learned something from his encounter with us. He wasn't going to hedge his bets this time with some paltry offer like five hundred million in a mix of stock and cash. He probably said to Kevin Systrom, the creator of Instagram, "You've been working on this for eighteen months. I will give you one billion dollars." I mean, startup, schmart-up. Who could say no to that? — Biz Stone

I think it's hard to compare 'Twitter' and 'Instagram'. Twitter has a more mature business. — Kevin Systrom

The best feature is less features. — Kevin Systrom

A platform is the base from which something big happens. In our case, we're an entertainment platform in the sense that there are people signing up like MTV, Burberry, folks like Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber. And why? Because it's their channel to control their entertainment to their fans. — Kevin Systrom

There are billions of dollars spent every year on traditional media. The majority of people are spending more time every day on the Internet, especially on mobile. You're starting to see a shift of that spend go to mobile, especially to things like 'Instagram'. — Kevin Systrom

What people tell you and how they act is very, very different sometimes. — Kevin Systrom

Do what you love, and do it well - that's much more meaningful than any metric. — Kevin Systrom

I can't imagine that companies are uninteresting if they don't have a billion users. But I do believe, to have mass scale, you have to be in the many-hundreds-of-millions-of-users range, and there are not that many companies that get there. — Kevin Systrom

Just so everyone knows, we're not a photo-sharing company. I don't see photos on 'Instagram' as art. They're much more about communication. — Kevin Systrom

If you focus on producing a great experience for anyone, that's how you get big. — Kevin Systrom

Obviously, being the CEO, there are a lot of eyes on what you do and what you post and how you post, and I think one of the challenges of Instagram in general is that, as we get bigger, there are just more voices in the room, more eyes on everyone's accounts. — Kevin Systrom

There's real beauty in pushing yourself to expose the real you in more ways. — Kevin Systrom

Videos are a very difficult medium to be good at and also a difficult medium to consume quickly. — Kevin Systrom

People are hungry for what's happening right now in the world. — Kevin Systrom

I don't think you should ever start a business and move in a direction where you can't see it becoming a business. — Kevin Systrom

I really appreciate crafts. I like cooking. I love food and drink. I love owning that through Instagram. Although that can be challenging at times because it doesn't fit people's stereotypes of a technical founder. — Kevin Systrom

Good companies are always fundraising. Whether you're meeting people or considering firms, you're always fundraising. — Kevin Systrom

You can build a filter app get people really excited, but the way to keep them is to provide long-term value. Long-term value is, in fact, being its own network. — Kevin Systrom

Focusing on one thing and doing it really, really well can get you very far. — Kevin Systrom

There are fun parts of running a startup and not so fun parts, and Facebook handles the not so fun parts, like infrastructure, spam, sales. The real questions are, how big can 'Instagram' get? Is it 400 million, or bigger? Can it be a viable business if it is that big? These are at the top of the list for everyone in Silicon Valley. — Kevin Systrom

On average, people miss about 70 percent of the posts in their 'Instagram' feed. What this is about is making sure that the 30 percent you see is the best 30 percent possible. — Kevin Systrom

If you've got an idea, start today. There's no better time than now to get going. That doesn't mean quit your job and jump into your idea 100% from day one, but there's always small progress that can be made to start the movement. — Kevin Systrom

Instagram is a media company. I think we're about visual media. — Kevin Systrom

I do believe that Instagram has put a stake in the ground and we're growing more quickly than anyone. Is there something in there we could do to make it a multi-billion dollar business? I think we can figure out something along the way. — Kevin Systrom

Photos were seen as the most private type of content, and 'Instagram' really flipped that on its head and said photos can be really public. — Kevin Systrom

I really love connecting people, creating communities. As a kid, creation was something that I always loved. — Kevin Systrom

Instagram was created because there was no single place dedicated to giving your mobile photos a place to live and to be seen. — Kevin Systrom

The best companies in the world have all had predecessors. 'YouTube' was a dating site. You always have to evolve into something else. — Kevin Systrom

I was never as focused in math, science, computer science, etcetera, as the people who were best at it. I wanted to create amazing screensavers that did beautiful visualizations of music. It's like, "Oh, I have to learn computer science to do that." — Kevin Systrom

There's a natural set of constraints with mobile phones that force you to be a better photographer by acknowledging and observing the world around you. — Kevin Systrom

People always told me photos have been done. My feeling was, these people are wrong. — Kevin Systrom

Way back in 2008, when the iPhone was new and Instagram was a gleam in Kevin Systrom's eye, I was involved in creating a service called CrowdFire. It was a way for fans at a festival (the first was Outside Lands) to share photos, tweets, and texts in a location and event specific way. — John Battelle

When you open up 'Instagram,' you need to know that you're seeing the real Tony Hawk, the real Taylor Swift, the real Burberry. — Kevin Systrom

I run a business and go all over the world doing things for that business, things that are fairly orthogonal. But my job is to run my company, not to be the best Instagrammer. I'll let other people be awesome at it. — Kevin Systrom

I'm always in awe of people who are artists in their fields - people who understand that simply by taking ideas and translating them into reality, they've created value in the world. — Kevin Systrom

'Instagram' can engage generations of people that may not be on Facebook yet. I think that's true with 'WhatsApp,' and I think that will be true with things like Oculus. — Kevin Systrom

The number of people who have either gotten married or had kids or started dating or just made great friends over Instagram is countless. I think we're the only platform that continues to be successful in bringing people together in real life for these real relationships. — Kevin Systrom

Someone once described entrepreneurship to me as a series of happy accidents. — Kevin Systrom

'Instagram' is great if you want to share photos, but you're not that technical. Or, if you're not interested in sharing publicly, 'Instagram' becomes a place where you can not only consume photos and videos from musicians, or whoever, but send them directly to your friends. — Kevin Systrom

I'm a huge fan of what 'Hipstamatic' is doing and all they've accomplished. — Kevin Systrom

'Instagram' is an app that only took 8 weeks to build and ship but was a product of over a year of work. — Kevin Systrom

It's funny: I was a photographer before I was a programmer. — Kevin Systrom

You need to fail in order to find the right solution. — Kevin Systrom

People don't work in a dotcom because they have to. There are many professions that don't require that sort of time. But people sign up because they want to make world-changing differences, to build something that affects millions of people. — Kevin Systrom

A photo app is a utility. It's like comparing 'Twitter' to Microsoft Word. If you want to be an author, you're not always going to constrain yourself to 140 characters. — Kevin Systrom

If it's one thing we do really well as a company, it's that we take big change slowly and deliberately and bring the community along with us. — Kevin Systrom

Mike Krieger and I started talking, and he decided he liked the idea of helping start the company. Once he joined, we took a step back and looked at the product as it stood. — Kevin Systrom

Most photo apps before asked something of the users. They said, 'You produce, act, and perform.' 'Instagram' said, 'Let us take care of the secret sauce.' — Kevin Systrom

I try to list the top three things to get done every day, and I'll be lucky if I hit all three, but it's amazing what that does to keep you on track. — Kevin Systrom

I think Instagram at its best is where you feel like you're getting the most authentic version of the person on the other side of the camera. Someone who does this wonderfully well is Lena Dunham. — Kevin Systrom

It helps to see the world through a different lens, and that's what we wanted to do with Instagram. We wanted to give everyone the same feeling of discovering the world around you through a different lens. — Kevin Systrom

I promise you, a lot of it is luck. But you make your own luck by working really hard and trying lots and lots of things. — Kevin Systrom

I believe photos is one of the underlying things in every social network that becomes successful. — Kevin Systrom

Mobile has created a totally different dynamic for discovering apps. You're sitting in a bar, and your friend is taking some pictures, and then you ask what app they're using. — Kevin Systrom

Every startup should address a real and demonstrated need in the world - if you build a solution to a problem lots of people have, it's so easy to sell your product to the world. — Kevin Systrom

I don't foresee a future where people don't have some sort of phone that's like a computer. I don't foresee a future where those phones don't have cameras in them. That spells a future where smartphones are the status quo. You have to ask yourself how you allow people to communicate what's in their lives. — Kevin Systrom