Tech Crush Thursday: Kevin Systrom
With over 100 million users (as announced Tuesday), Instagram has grown from two young guys renting desks, to a record breaking acquisition with Facebook. Although Instagram was launched a little over two years ago, we can’t help but be impressed by the company’s growth and success (not to mention we are more than slightly addicted to the app).
Welcome, Kevin Systrom, CEO and Co-founder of Instagram, to the TWF Tech Crush Thursday hall of fame! After graduating from Stanford University, Kevin got his first taste of the startup tech world as an intern at Odeo, which later became Twitter. He also worked at Google where he worked on a number of product as well as their corporate development.
In 2012, Systrom and his Co-founder, Mike Krieger, sold the company to Facebook for an announced $1Billion. Although the sale went through, Kevin made sure that Instagram would continue to operate outside of Facebook. He also retained quite a bit of control over the photo-sharing company, allowing him to continue to make important decisions. For example, Kevin decided to remove Instagram photos from Twitter’s news feed, not at the request of Facebook, but to bring users to Instagram’s new website.
Yes, there have been some controversies surrounding the app and recent changes, but with 100 million users in just 28 months, it looks like the man behind Instagram knows what he’s doing.
