Kevin York Systrom (born December 30, 1983) is an American entrepreneur and programmer, known as co-founder of Instagram with Mike Krieger.
Video Kevin Systrom
Early life and education
Systrom was born in 1983 in San Diego, California. He is the son of Diane (Pels), a marketing executive at Zipcar, who also worked on Monster and Swapit during the first dotcom bubble, and Douglas Systrom, Vice President of Human Resources at TJX Company.
Systrom attended Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts, where he was introduced to computer programming. His interest grew from playing Doom 2 and creating his own level as a child. He has also created programs that will annoy his friends by hacking their AOL Instant Messenger account.
He worked at Boston Beat, a vinyl record store in Boston, when he was in high school.
Systrom attended Stanford University and graduated in 2006 with a bachelor's degree in management and engineering sciences. At Stanford, he is a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity. He spent the winter of his third year in Florence, where he studied photography.
He got the first taste of the startup world when he was selected as one of twelve students to participate in the Mayfield Fellows Program at Stanford University. The fellowship led to his apprenticeship in Odeo, the company that eventually brought up Twitter.
Maps Kevin Systrom
Careers
After graduating from Stanford, he joined Google on Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs, Spreadsheets and other products. He spent two years on Google as a product marketer; Systrom left Google in frustration at not being transferred to the Associate Product Manager program.
Burbn
After leaving Google to join Nextstop, the location startup recommendation set up by former Googlers acquired by Facebook in 2010, Systrom thinks of combining check-in locations and popular social games. He made a prototype of what later became Burbn and threw it into Baseline Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz at a party. He came up with the idea while on vacation in Mexico when his girlfriend did not want to post his picture because they did not look good enough when taken by the iPhone 4 camera. The solution to this problem is using filters, effectively hiding the qualitative inferiority of the photographs. Furthermore, Systrom developed the X-Pro II filter which is still used in Instagram today.
After the first meeting, he decides to quit his job to find out if Burbn can become a company or not. Within 2 weeks of quitting his job, he received a $ 500,000 funding round from Baseline Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. While in San Francisco, Systrom and Mike Krieger built Burbn, the HTML 5 check-in service, a product that allows users to do many things: check location, make plans (check in in the future), earn points for hangouts with friends, post pictures, and more. However, given their studies at the Mayfield Fellows Program, Krieger and Systrom identify that Burbn contains too many features and users do not want complicated products. They decided to focus on one special feature, sharing photos. The development of Burbn leads to the creation of Instagram. A month after launch, Instagram has grown to 1 million users. A year later, Instagram hit more than 10 million users.
In 2010, Systrom set up photo sharing and, later, social networking service Instagram video sharing with Mike Krieger in San Francisco, California. The name "Instagram" comes from the words "instant camera" and "telegram".
In April 2012, Instagram was sold to Facebook for US $ 1 billion in cash and stock, along with 13 employees. According to some reports, the deal captured Systrom US $ 400 million based on its shareholding in the business. One of the key contributions to the acquisition is that Mark Zuckerberg stated that Facebook "is committed to building and developing Instagram independently", allowing Systrom to continue to lead Instagram. Systrom stated in an interview with Bloomberg that the pro being part of Facebook is that "we must pair up with corporate giants who understand how to grow, understand how to build a business, have one of the best, if not the best, management team in technology and we have to use it as our resource ".
In an interview with Forbes, he stated that "Instagram is a new form of communication that fits perfectly with the iPhone that is always in the world of social media today Instagram is a social network built around photos, where people can quickly comment on or 'likes' photos and share them on Twitter or Facebook. "Systrom identifies Instagram as a media company, explaining the launch of video ads by big companies like Disney, Activision, Lancome, Banana Republic and CW by the end of 2014.
Under the leadership of Systrom, Instagram develops key features such as Explore tabs, filters, and videos. Over time, Instagram has launched a feature that allows users to upload and filter short photos and videos, follow other users 'feeds, geotag pictures, name location, and comments on other users' photos and short videos. Instagram enables the development of web profiles by 2012, connecting accounts to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr in 2013, the Explore tab in mid-2012 and Video in June 2013. Instagram offers 19 photographic filters; Normal, 1977, Amaro, Branna, Earlybird, Hefe, Hudson, Inkwell, Kelvin, Lo-fi, Mayfair, Nashville, Rise, Sierra, Sutro, Toaster, Valencia, Willow, X-Pro II.
Systrom hires former Yahoo Vice President James Everingham, as well as Kevin Weil, who previously led product development on Twitter, as a high-ranking executive at Instagram.
As of October 2015, 40 billion photos have been shared on Instagram.
As of June 2016, Instagram has over 500 million active users.
Also in 2016, CNN cited a study that Snapchat considers to be the most important social network among 14- to 19-year-olds, the first time in two years that Instagram does not appear above.
Instagram currently employs about 450 people. This app is used by 600 million people per month and 300 million per day. Its competitors Snapchat and Twitter hire more people for a smaller user base, with Twitter having 3,500 employees for 317 million monthly users, and Snapchat employing 1,500 people for half of Instagram's daily user base.
In the future, Systrom is trying to develop Instagram further to further integrate the use of video into the app. He also stated that in a few years, companies may be involved in Virtual Reality products.
According to Quartz and New York Times, Systrom and Krieger are implementing systems to address congestion and slow down corporate decision making by scheduling meetings where only decisions are made. This approach is informed by Systrom's interest in academic business theory, especially Clayton M. Christensen's concept of The Innovator's Dilemma .
Views about copying ideas in industry
Instagram has been called on numerous occasions to copy new functions from its closest competitor Snapchat. Regarding this issue, Systrom argues that all new services launched by today's technology companies are "remixes" of existing products, and that "all these ideas are genuine when you mix them and bring your own flavor". Systrom also argues that 'You can trace the roots of every feature anyone has in his app, somewhere in the history of technology' and that this is just 'like the way Silicon Valley works.'
Forbes list
In 2014, Systrom is listed on Forbes 30 under 30 lists under the Social/Cellular category.
In 2016, the magazine ranked Systrom as a billionaire with an estimated net worth of US $ 1.1 billion. The fortune comes as a result of Facebook shares rising by more than 500%.
Personal life
According to The Guardian , Systrom enjoys "good food, golf, skiing and holidays in California's Lake Tahoe".
In February 2016, Systrom met with Pope Francis at the Vatican, where they discussed the power of images in uniting people "across borders, cultures, and generations".
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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