Kevin Systrom Quotes

“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

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

“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

“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

“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

“The major reason why Instagram works is that you can follow anyone out there and start following their photos immediately.”

— Kevin Systrom

“I think not focusing on money makes you sane because in the long run it can probably drive you crazy.”

— 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

“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

“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

“I care deeply about craft: the quality of how something is made and the experience it enables.”

— Kevin Systrom

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

— Kevin Systrom

“I've always had a passion for technology, photography, startups, and connecting people. Bringing those aspects together made me successful.”

— Kevin Systrom

'Instagram' is definitely becoming a new entertainment source for people day after day.

— Kevin Systrom

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

— Kevin Systrom

“Our goal is to allow people to use whatever app they want to get photos into 'Instagram'.”

— Kevin Systrom

“People are hungry for what's happening right now in the world.”

— Kevin Systrom

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

— Kevin Systrom

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

— 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

“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

Back in the day, I actually studied photography in Florence for a few months, and my photography teacher took away my digital camera and said, 'No, use this - it's analog and it's square.' It was a Holga camera, a very cheap $3 or $4 plastic camera. And that's what inspired 'Instagram'.

— 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

“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

“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

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

“'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

“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

It is cool to see that the fashion world has really taken to 'Instagram,' but, again, it is one of the many examples of many communities, whether you are a chef, a skateboarder, a surfer, a skier.

— Kevin Systrom

Our goal is really to make sure that 'Instagram', whether you're a celebrity or not, is a safe place and that the content that gets posted is something that's appropriate for teens and also for adults.

— Kevin Systrom

The way people communicate is changing, and no one knows this better than teens. We are using images to talk to each other, to communicate what we're doing, what we're thinking, and to tell stories.

— 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

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

“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

“Focusing on one thing and doing it really, really well can get you very far.”

— Kevin Systrom

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

— Kevin Systrom

“The best products in the world have a point of view. The worst products have none.”

— 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

“We just want to build a company that focuses on the love of Instagram.”

— 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

“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

“You need to fail in order to find the right solution.”

— Kevin Systrom

“You can be a couple in London who happen to take pictures of their breakfasts every day - it's called @symmetrybreakfast - and you can gain hundreds of thousands of followers overnight because people are genuinely interested in your unique angle on the world.”

— 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

“I really love connecting people, creating communities. As a kid, creation was something that I always loved.”

— 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

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

— 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

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

“I really value passion for the product above experience.”

— Kevin Systrom