WEBVTT - The Birth of Instagram 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:13.920 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:17.680 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer over 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:20.280 at how Stuff Works and I love all things tech, 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:25.160 and today I'm doing an episode based off a listener request. 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:29.840 Nelly asked if I might do an episode about Instagram, 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:32.879 And as it turns out, Instagram is a pretty interesting 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:37.040 story and big enough so that it necessitates two episodes. 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:39.680 So this is our first one talking about the birth 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:42.520 of Instagram, and in our next episode will continue that story. 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:45.479 But today we're gonna talk about an app that started 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:47.760 off as a project that was meant to help a 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:50.760 young fellow learn how to code, and it turned into 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:54.520 a billion dollar acquisition deal. It's one of those Silicon 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:58.360 Valley fairy tales that thousands of people chase after, but 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:01.320 only a select few ever atchieve. So we're going to 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:04.920 look at the Instagram story. And Instagram was designed by 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:09.600 co founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, and they launched 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:12.640 it in twenty ten. But our story will begin a 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:15.559 little earlier than that, because you guys know, I love 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:17.960 my history. So let's begin with a quick look at 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:21.800 the backgrounds of the two founders. Kevin Systram was born 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:26.080 in nineteen three in Holliston, Massachusetts, and his parents are 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:29.399 Douglas Systrom, a vice president of human resources at the 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:34.320 department store corporation t j X Companies, and his mother, Diane, 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:36.560 is an executive in the marketing department at zip Car 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:39.319 and has worked at other startups. He attended school and 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:44.040 Conquered Massachusetts at a private school called Middlesex School, a 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:47.440 boarding school or private school rather, which has fewer than 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:50.840 four hundred students total, and, according to The New York Times, 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:53.600 has nearly as many acres in land as it has 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:58.280 students enrolled. So this is not a Rags to riches Dale. 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:01.800 This is more of a rich's to Holy Cow, you 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:06.560 are so incredibly rich tale for Mr Systram. In addition 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:09.480 to his studies, he became a fan of the computer 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:13.400 first person shooter game Doom too, And I talked about 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:15.840 that in a couple of episodes way back when when 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:19.120 I was covering things like it. The Doom franchise was 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:22.200 one of a handful of games that launched level developer 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:25.440 tools to the community. That meant that if you liked 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:28.359 you could download those tools for yourself and you could 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:31.720 actually build your own maps for the game system. Began 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:35.000 to do that and also started studying computer programming, though 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:38.680 really only more as an enthusiast. He would not pursue 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:43.360 a degree in computer science after school. Systrom enrolled in 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:47.560 Stanford University back in two thousand two, studying management science 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:51.680 and engineering, so essentially the business classes over at Stanford, 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:55.560 and Stanford was or still is actually located near Silicon 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:58.640 Valley in California, and it's one of those places where 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:03.600 ambitious students and grew investors often collide. They meet up 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:06.880 with each other, they share ideas, and frequently students are 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:09.320 looking to get recruited right off school into one of 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:13.000 the big tech companies and uh they that ends up 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:18.560 just being a rich pool of talent for companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:22.640 and all the startups as well. Systrom spent a winter 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:27.120 semester at Stanford in Florence. He actually went to Florence 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:30.720 to study abroad, studying photography in particular, so he had 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:34.639 an interest in photography long before Instagram was ever a thing, 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:37.960 and at this time the iPhone had yet to appear 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:40.280 and cell phone cameras were fairly primitive, so he was 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:44.640 using actual film cameras and higher in digital cameras. In 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:47.800 two thousand five, System became part of a special work 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:52.720 study program called the Mayfield Fellows Program. Only twelve students 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:56.480 are selected to do this each year at Stanford. Coincidentally, 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.520 Mike Kreeger, the other co founder, would be selected for 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:02.600 that same program in two thousand seven, though at that 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:05.200 time sisterm and Krieger didn't really know each other that well. 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:08.520 Systems work in the program led to an internship at 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:12.720 a company called Odeo. Now I've covered Odio in the past, 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:17.039 but here's a very quick refresher. Odio started out as 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:21.719 a podcast focused company, not necessarily to produce podcasts, not 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:25.840 a content creator, but rather as a way to publish podcasts, 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:29.799 to subscribe to podcasts, and to follow podcasts. But Odio 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:35.640 faced serious stiff competition, namely in iTunes, and ultimately the 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:38.919 company would pivot to a different project that one of 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:41.480 its employees had been working on for a while. It 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:43.680 was a little messaging app that would let users send 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:47.640 out a quick hundred forty character message to followers, and 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:51.280 it would end up being called Twitter Systrom joined the 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:55.120 Sigma New fraternity while he was at Stanford, and he 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:58.920 gained a reputation for being creative and particularly talented and 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:03.719 making visually appealing presentations and videos. During his senior year, 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:07.039 he was encouraged to drop out of school and joined 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:10.520 the Facebook team, which was just really getting started at 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:13.960 the time. System actually turned down that offer after chatting 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:17.320 with friends and concluding that Facebook was likely just a fad. 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:20.120 I think things turned out all right for Sistrom in 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.800 the end, however, even though he missed that opportunity. After 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:27.600 graduating Stanford in two thousand and six, Systrom joined the 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:29.760 ranks of Google in a move that many of his 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:34.120 peers felt was a safe but somewhat uninspired decision. Google 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:36.839 had already kind of established itself by two thousand six, 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:39.640 it was no longer in that crazy start up phase, 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:43.160 and System would stay with Google for about three years, 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:46.920 leaving to join a company called next Stop. Next Up 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:49.960 was founded by a former Google employee, or actually a 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:52.919 couple of former Google employees, and it was a social 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:56.760 travel recommendation site. The idea was the site would help 0:05:56.800 --> 0:05:59.560 people find fun things to do in new locations, so 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:03.520 you could post about things that were interesting at different 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:06.520 places in the world, and that's where we're gonna leave 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:08.800 Mr Systram for the time being. We're gonna switch to 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:12.440 the other co founder, Mike Krieger. Krieger was born in 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:15.680 nineteen eighty six and sal Paulo, Brazil. His father is 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:18.880 an executive who traveled extensively, and so Kreeger spent time 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:22.240 in places like Portugal, Argentina, and the United States as 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:24.840 he was growing up. He got his first computer when 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:28.240 he was four years old, So yeah, this is also 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:31.520 not a rag Store Riches story for Mr Kreeger. By 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:35.040 the age of six, Kreeger was already starting to experiment 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:38.320 with coding, mostly in an effort to enhance his gaming 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:41.240 experience on his Windows based computer. So you're starting to 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:46.440 sense a theme here, kids getting into coding through computer games. 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:48.920 By the time he was a teenager, he was acting 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:52.120 as a mentor to maintenance personnel in an after school 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:54.960 education program at his high school. So he would go 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:58.200 attend high school and afterwards he would help teach people 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:01.080 how to develop computers skills so that they could get 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:03.960 better jobs. It was kind of cool. When he turned eighteen, 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:06.960 he was accepted to Stanford University, and that was in 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:11.720 two thousand four. Kriegers major was in symbolic Systems, with 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:16.840 a focus on human computer interaction. That discipline combines elements 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:21.120 not just of technology, but also psychology and several other 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:23.920 important movers and shakers in the tech world graduated with 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:27.520 similar degrees, and as I mentioned earlier, Krieger, like Systrom, 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:29.880 was part of the Mayfield Fellows program, so he was 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.120 also one of those twelve students. While in college, Krieger 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:36.960 interned with Microsoft. He would work on power Point as 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:40.360 a project manager. He also interned at a company called 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:44.120 fox Marks, which creates a browser add on that allows 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:48.160 users to synchronize passwords and bookmarks across multiple computers and 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.239 over there he served as a software developer, and after 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:54.360 he graduated Stanford, Krieger went on to work for a 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:57.520 company called me Bo. Me Bo was a web based 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:01.040 instant messaging provider as well as something of a social network. 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:06.000 So in early System is that next stop, which would 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:09.400 later be acquired by Facebook, and Krieger was at me Bow, 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:11.880 which in two thousand twelve would be acquired by Google, 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:15.080 and System was working on a little side project since 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:17.560 two thousand nine that Krieger got a chance to try 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:19.720 out because the two knew of each other, but at 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:22.720 that point they hadn't really worked together. And that sets 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:27.320 the ground for the predecessor for Instagram, which I'll talk 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:29.480 about in just a second, But first let's take a 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:39.480 quick break to thank our sponsor. So before we went 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:42.120 to the break, I mentioned that System had been working 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:45.160 on a project since two thousand nine. That project was 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:48.679 called Bourbon, but it was spelled b U r b 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:53.319 N because it's an app and apps hate vowels, I guess, 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:58.160 and Bourbon is apparently System's favorite drink, and he was 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:00.600 working on it over the weekends when he wasn't doing 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:02.840 his normal work either at Google or then later at 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:06.120 Next Stop, and it was a bit of an odd beast. 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:09.840 Systrom had aspirations of launching his own app and potentially 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:13.080 his own company, and Bourbon was really the where he 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:16.160 was cutting his teeth on app development because that really 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:19.600 wasn't what he had studied. He knew about the power 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:22.760 of apps, and he was convinced that mobile was going 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:25.600 to be the biggest thing moving forward. This was in 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:30.000 when Mobile was already doing quite well and Bourbon was 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:33.040 in many ways a project that System was using to 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:36.240 learn how to develop apps, how to use HTML five, 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:39.600 and what sort of features users would actually want. Now, 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:42.360 remember that while System was interested in all this, he 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:44.720 still didn't have that degree in computer science or anything 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:47.280 like that, and so Bourbon ended up being kind of 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:50.520 a hydra, a mini headed creature that was trying to 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:53.280 do a lot of things all at once. For one thing, 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:55.760 it was a check in service, similar to what four 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:58.199 Square used to be. You could visit a place and 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:00.720 use the app to check in. He let your friends 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.280 know you had visited. You could make recommendations to friends, 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:06.160 and you could plan for future get togethers at specific spots, 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:09.319 which would earn you points in a sort of gamified 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:13.000 element in the app. System had cited the social network 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:15.520 game Mafia Wars as an influence on some of the 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:18.600 app design, and you could upload photos to the app 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:22.319 and share those with your friends as well. Krieger was 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:25.560 an early user of Bourbon, and Systram had conversations with 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:28.560 the Krieger focusing on ways to enhance the app's features 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:32.960 and make things better. Meanwhile, System continued life in Silicon Valley, 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:35.880 which included going to networking events and to try to 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:39.840 make connections with other entrepreneurs and developers. At one such 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:43.120 event hosted by a startup called Hunch, Systram met a 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:47.280 guy named Steve Anderson who was the founder of Baseline Ventures, 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:51.280 which is an investment firm. Anderson looked at a prototype 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:54.480 build of Bourbon and agreed to invest in the development 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.440 of the app to the tune of two fifty dollars 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:00.559 is a pretty big of agreement. He also recommended System 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:03.280 that he find a collaborator to work with more closely 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:07.880 and not just become a personal echo chamber. In March, 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:12.640 System decided to pursue Bourbon as an actual entrepreneurial opportunity, 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:15.439 and he quit his job at next Stop, which was 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:18.920 a pretty easy decision to make, especially after Mark Andresen 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:22.640 added to that initial investment with two fifty thousand dollars 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:25.360 of his own, which brought that launch investment up to 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:28.560 half a million dollars. And Systrom was able to convince 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:32.160 Kreeger a couple of months later in May to quit 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:34.120 his job at me Bo and come work with him 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:37.520 on the project, and so the two co founders joined forces. 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:41.640 They set up shop at a place called dog Patch Labs, 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:44.880 which was a company that offered up shared office space 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:48.400 for the startup tech companies in the Bay Area. Companies 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:50.720 that did not yet have an office of their own 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:53.840 could rent out space at dog Patch Labs, and before 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:57.760 long the two decided that they weren't really on the 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:01.400 right track. They had come to the conclusion that Bourbon 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:04.320 was just too similar to four Square, which was already 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:07.319 an established app at that time, and they also felt 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:10.200 the service was just too busy and cluttered. It had 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:13.280 so many features that was a little confusing as to 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:17.000 what it was intended to do. And thus, in June 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:21.559 they decided to engage in the great tradition of app development, 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:24.720 the pivot. And I mentioned a pivot a little bit earlier, 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:27.920 but what exactly is that. Well, a pivot in Silicon 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:31.840 Valley speak is when you realize you've done messed up 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:34.560 and you need to try something else. So if you 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:38.360 ever hear about a company pivoting, what that's really saying 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:40.880 is that the people in charge realized that what they 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:43.720 had been doing is just not working and they'd better 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:47.240 do something else or they're going to face ugly consequences. 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:50.679 For Kreeger and Systrom, that meant taking a look at 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:52.960 their app and then trying to figure out what they 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:55.679 might be able to salvage from it. And while the 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:58.720 check in services were sewn up, one thing that stood 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:02.439 out was the idea of a photo sharing app. Their 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:05.560 first attempt at building a solo photo sharing app was 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:08.400 a failure. It didn't even get a new name, and 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:11.000 this was before they had entirely abandoned the hope for 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:14.040 a full featured bourbon app. But they got back to 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:16.880 it and they began to refine their approach, and one 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:19.840 thing that really helped them out was the inclusion of 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:25.320 a popular feature in Instagram, the photo filter. Systram tells 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:29.040 a story about being on vacation with his then girlfriend 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:33.760 now his wife, Nicole. Nicole was another Stanford graduate, and 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:37.840 she explained to Systrom that she never really liked sharing 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:41.120 the photos she was taking with her iPhone four because 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:43.520 she felt they never looked as good as she wanted 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:46.960 them to. And that inspired System to develop a filter 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:51.600 for photos taken by the iPhone four camera, and one 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:55.440 that would automatically adjust settings in a post processing approach, 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:58.600 so you didn't have to do all that messing around 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:01.800 with settings yourself. It would just automatically apply them and 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:05.080 make the image better. So it would change the color balance, 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:07.920 it would change the contrast, it would soften the edges, 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:11.360 adding a little bit of golden light to sweeten the image. 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:13.720 And he taught himself how to create the tools and 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:17.600 then developed his first filter, the x pro to filter, 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:21.320 And according to both System and Krieger, they would use 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:25.120 Photoshop to actually create the effects they wanted to create 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:29.560 within Photoshop, and then reverse engineer how to do that 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:33.120 within the app how to create those same effects uh 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:36.880 as an as a post processing trick with images taken 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:41.280 from a iPhone camera. Ultimately, Krieger and System decided that 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:44.440 their new app would allow users to share photos, to 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:48.400 leave comments, and to like images, as in you could 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:51.360 hit the little like button or the little heart button 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:53.280 and say, hey, that was a pretty cool picture. I 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:56.720 really enjoy it, and also to use filters. They needed 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:59.840 a new name, and they chose Instagram, which is a 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:04.400 portmanteau of instant and Telegram and also kind of hearkens 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:07.640 back to the instant cameras that Sistram had played with 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:11.720 when he was younger, like a classic Polaroid camera. It 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:14.240 took the two about eight weeks to go from the 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:18.280 idea to a full fledged app, and before they submitted 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:21.200 the app to the Apple App Store, they tested it 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:25.000 with their friends. And these were influential friends. It wasn't 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:28.480 just buddies who were in the neighborhood. These are people 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:31.840 like Jack Dorsey, who was the founder of Twitter. Not 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:34.240 bad idea. If you want to get some evangelists for 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:37.360 your product, you go after people who already have a 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:41.800 wide following. And a little after midnight on October six, 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:46.880 the Instagram app launched in the App Store. When it debuted, 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:50.240 it was an iPhone exclusive, and it would remain so 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:52.520 for more than a year and a half. The app 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:55.960 wouldn't be available on other platforms for a while, so 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:59.120 on the first day of it being available, about twenty 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:03.920 thousand people downloaded the app. They began taking photos, they 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:08.000 began sharing them and breaking the system. The system load 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:11.880 was too much for Instagram's initial servers to handle, and 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:14.160 it sent Systram and Krieger onto a little bit of 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:16.920 a panic. They tried to figure out who they could 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:21.240 contact to get some advice, and they settled on Adam D'Angelo, 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:24.040 whom System had met at a Sigma New party at 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:28.960 Stanford years earlier, D'Angelo had served as Facebook's chief technology 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:32.600 officer and was a pretty knowledgeable guy. D'Angelo helped out 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:35.200 his buddy and talked him through the process of moving 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:39.720 the load over to Amazon's hosting services, where Instagram could 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:44.360 rent server capacity while building out its own systems. According 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:49.640 to Systrom, the conversation took about half an hour and 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:52.520 then things were back up and running. Now, at this point, 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:55.080 it was still a two man show, and both Systrom 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:57.600 and Krieger made it a habit to always have a 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:00.800 computer with WiFi capability handy in case there was a 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:03.800 need to jump into the app and patch it so 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:07.560 that you could smooth out a bug or fix other problems, 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.199 which was happening on a fairly regular basis due to 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:13.360 the enormous popularity of the app, because within just three 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:17.640 weeks that thousand user base had grown to three hundred thousand, 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:20.439 and this was just the start of a wild ride. 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:23.159 I have more to say about Instagram, but before I 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:25.840 jump into the next section, let's take another quick break 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:36.760 and thank our sponsor. The same month that Instagram launched, 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:41.240 Systrom and Krieger hired their first coworker, Josh Redal. He 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:44.240 would become the community manager and led efforts to form 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:47.960 partnerships at Instagram. He had previously worked at next Stop, 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:50.800 the same company that Systram had worked for earlier in 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:56.560 a month later in November, Shane Sweeney joined as a 0:17:56.600 --> 0:18:00.480 mobile engineer. Sweeney had become interested in program main through 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:04.960 computer games It's sound familiar, and then later through social platforms. 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:07.399 He had started working in web development while still in 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:09.800 high school. He had moved on to doing work with 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:12.760 a company that was called Digital Path that was making 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:16.359 wireless mesh networks. It's a pretty cool technology. I'll have 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:18.040 to do a full episode on that at some point. 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:21.640 But three months into his stint of working for the company, 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:25.520 the funding fell out and one hundred people were laid off, 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:29.159 including Sweeney. He would go on to work on personal 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:32.720 projects at dog Patch Labs, using that as a workspace, 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:36.359 and there he met Sistrom and Sistrom invited him to 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:40.800 work on Bourbon earlier in but Sweeney actually said no 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:43.359 when he was invited to work on Bourbon. It was 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:47.359 only after Instagram launched that Sweeney reconsidered and joined the team. 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:49.720 And in fact I saw an interview with Sweeney where 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:54.240 he said there's an ongoing joke at Instagram that everyone 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:57.880 says no to Systrom. Initially he asks them to join 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:01.080 his project, and they'll say no, and then later on 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:03.359 they'll change their minds and say yes, and that this 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:07.440 is just a thematic thing that goes on at Instagram. Well, 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:11.080 there wouldn't be another higher until two thousand eleven, so 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:15.120 in those initial weeks, Instagram was a four person operation. Meanwhile, 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:18.200 the app continued to get thousands of downloads and user 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:21.920 activity was increasing on a daily basis. In fact, by December, 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:27.520 Instagram had one million registered users. And remember this was 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:30.760 before there was any support for platforms like Android or 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:35.760 Windows Mobile. This was purely on iOS. The flagship phone 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:38.439 for Instagram was the iPhone four, which had launched in 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:42.359 June two thousand ten. The iPhone four had two cameras. 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:45.719 The back facing one was a five megapixel camera and 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:49.359 the front facing camera was just point three megapixels. And 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:52.040 a quick explanation for folks who have heard the term 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:54.720 megapixels but they don't really have a grasp on what 0:19:54.880 --> 0:19:59.160 that's all about. Megapixels are a way to measure image resolution. 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.320 A pixel is a point of light within a digital 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:05.639 image or a screen. So if you are looking at 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:09.080 a television screen, every single little bit of that television 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:10.800 screen is made up of tiny little points of light 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:15.080 called pixels. So every photo is a collection of pixels. 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:17.520 If you only have a small number of pixels, your 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:20.240 image is going to be blocky and ill defined. I've 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:23.639 used this example before, but imagine that you've got a 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:27.080 bunch of blocks of different colors, and the blocks measure 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:30.480 maybe two inches per side, and you're told to make 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:33.879 the image of a flower, and you're given fifty blocks 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:35.840 to do it. That flower is going to be a 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:39.800 little blocking. But let's say you're given two hundred blocks 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:43.760 and they're each a half inch per side. Well, that 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:45.720 flower is going to be less blocky. It's gonna look 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:49.159 more like a flower. The smaller the blocks are, and 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:52.800 the more blocks you have, the more refined the image 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:59.880 you can create, So you increase the resolution of your image. Uh, However, 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:03.520 that's only part of the quality of a photo. It 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:06.639 is true that more pixels generally means higher resolution image, 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:10.479 and a megapixel is technically one million, forty eight thousand, 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:13.320 five D seventy six pixels that we usually just round 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:16.440 down and say it's a million pixels, But megapixels don't 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:19.440 always mean better photos. Like if you have a ten 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:22.840 megapixel camera and your friend has a fifteen megapixel camera, 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:26.239 it does not necessarily mean the fifteen megapixel images are 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:28.439 going to be better than yours. Uh, I mean it 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:32.000 matters a lot of other things matter too. System's then girlfriend, 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:35.600 Nicole now wife. That's what she was complaining about the 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:38.280 iPhone four camera. Wasn't that the megapixels were bad. It's 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:42.320 just that there were other elements that would factor into 0:21:42.600 --> 0:21:45.960 the quality of an image, like color representation, or contrast 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:50.200 and other factors. And that's partly why photo filters became 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:54.199 so popular. The filters could compensate for shortcomings in the 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.680 digital camera sensors that were found in smartphones at the time. 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:00.720 Instagram was not the only out to do this, or 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:03.200 even the first app to do this. The app hip 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:06.080 Stomatic had already made a name for itself at this time, 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:10.159 turning smartphone photos into these little, squared off images that 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:14.080 look like vintage photographs, and it had several filters that 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:16.600 would automatically apply to each image to give it sort 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:20.280 of that vintage feel. But Instagram gave users an easier 0:22:20.320 --> 0:22:23.400 way to archive photos and keep a record of those images. 0:22:23.640 --> 0:22:26.400 And unlike hip Stomatic, which cost a dollar ninety nine 0:22:26.440 --> 0:22:30.640 to purchase, Instagram was free. What's more, Systrom had said 0:22:30.680 --> 0:22:34.760 it would always be free and that monetization strategies would 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:37.720 not involve users coughing up money to pay for the service. 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:40.320 I have to do a full episode and hip Stomatic 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:42.960 at some point, because that's another fascinating story of a 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:45.640 company that made a huge impact when it launched, only 0:22:45.680 --> 0:22:48.400 to find itself in troubled waters. A couple of years later, 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:52.600 in January twoleven, Instagram rolled out support for one of 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:58.520 its enduring features, hashtags. The hashtag the pounds symbol had 0:22:58.560 --> 0:23:02.800 already gained popularity over at Twitter, where users had sort 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:05.879 of invented and adopted the practice in an effort to 0:23:05.880 --> 0:23:09.440 make it easier to follow tweets about specific subjects. You 0:23:09.440 --> 0:23:12.880 would use Twitter Search and you would search hashtag the term, 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:15.200