Kevin Systrom
22 statements across 9 episodes · 4 bullish · 5 bearish · 9 people on the record · first statement Dec 7, 2020 by Reid Hoffman · said 57 times in 24 episodes since 2016 · across every show →
On the record as a speaker too: Kevin Systrom's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
Mentions by year
brought up most by Harry Stebbings (12), Kevin Weil (8), Jag Duggal (6), Adam Mosseri (6), Chris Sacca (4), Kevin Rose (2), Keith Rabois (2), Gina Gotthilf (2)
tap a year for its mentions
2025 1 mention in 1 episode
2024 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2023 15 mentions in 4 episodes 4 per episode
- Adam Mosseri: Why Video Is Bad For Business; Does Feed Matter Anymore? | E1039 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Jag Duggal: How We Scaled Nubank to 80M Users; Google's Brutal Hiring Practices | E995 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Gina Gotthilf: Lessons Scaling Duolingo from 3-200M Users; How to Master PR and Comms | E1028 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- David Tisch: The 3 Most Important Variables When Raising Your Seed Round | 20VC #983 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2023, scene by scene →
2022 16 mentions in 4 episodes 4 per episode
- Kevin Weil: Lessons from Leading Product at Instagram & Twitter | 20VC #934 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Clubhouse CEO Paul Davison: What does Clubhouse do now to regain mindshare? | | 20VC #929 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Chris Sacca's True Unfiltered Opinion on Facebook and Softbank | Full Interview · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Michael Mignano: How I Founded Anchor; Why TikTok could be a $2 TRILLION Company | 20VC #923 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2022, scene by scene →
2021 14 mentions in 6 episodes 2 per episode
- 20Growth: The Biggest Growth Lessons from Leading Teams at Instagram & Instacart, How To Structure The Hiring Process for Growth Teams, How To Onboard Growth Reps Efficiently and The Relationship Between Growth and The Rest of the Org with Bangaly Kaba, H
- 20VC: The Opendoor Memo: Keith Rabois on The Origins of Opendoor from a Conversation with Peter Thiel, Why Cash is Not a Competitive Moat for Startups Today and What People Misunderstand About Black Swan Events in Real Estate and How it Impacts Opendoor
- 20VC: Chris Sacca on Coming Out of Retirement To Unf**k The Planet with Lowercarbon, How Chris Evaluates His Relationship To Money Today, Why We Have Bred a Generation of Ass**** Kids, Do VCs Provide Any Real Value and The True Unfiltered Opinion on Faceb
- 20VC: Mike Lazerow on Why How You Operate As a VC Is More Important Than Who You Are and What You Have Done, Why Boards Are More Important for the Entrepreneur than Investor & How The Best Entrepreneurs Prep Their Boards & Extract Value From Them
- 20VC: Wunderlist & Pitch Founder, Christian Reber on His Personal Relationship with Risk, Money, Whether the Sale to Microsoft was a Mistake, What Great Product Designs Means Today & Why Founders Investing External Capital is a Distraction
- 20VC: Evernote & mmhmm Founder Phil Libin on Why We are Beginning a Multi-Trillion Dollar Restructuring of the World, Why Shortcuts are the Biggest Mistakes Startups Make & The Future of Video and The Unbundling of Zoom
- every mention in 2021, scene by scene →
2020 1 mention in 1 episode
2018 3 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
- 20VC: The Mindset The Best Investors Assume When Assessing Opportunities, Why So Many Hardware Startups Fail Today & The Right Way To Think About Employee Retention with Andrew Farah, Founder & CEO @ Density
- 20VC: Elad Gil's High Growth Handbook on The Commonalities of The Truly Great CEOs, How To Hire The Very Best Execs, Why Cash is A Defensible Moat Today & The Pros and Cons of M&A and IPOs
- 20VC: How To Strategically Build The Right Investor Base, Why Startup Timing is Like Surfing & How To Determine Whether Someone is Scaling with the Organisation or Not with Daniel Lewis, Founder & CEO @ Convoy
- every mention in 2018, scene by scene →
2017 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Kevin Rose on Putting The Entire Fund Into Uber, The Future For Mobile & Whether Angels Should Have Super Pro-Rata Rights?
- 20VC: Jason Calacanis on The 4 Questions Investors Must Ask Founders, Whether YC Have Scaled Their Process Successfully & Why Early Founder Liquidity Is Good Not Bad
- every mention in 2017, scene by scene →
Everything said about Kevin Systrom, oldest first
Dec 7, 2020 positive
Greylock recruited three key engineers for Instagram within four days
“And to give you an example, when we were talking to Kevin Systrom about investing in Instagram, and they were 13 employees, and they said, well, what's their major pain point in terms of how they operated? We said, okay, great. Because we have this network of …”
Aug 2, 2021 negative
Lazerow passed on early angel investments in Instagram and Uber in 2011
“So, my biggest misses were really as a personal investor, you know, sitting in a hotel room in 2011 with Kevin Systrom and Travis from Uber and, you know, having the opportunity, but not raising my hand and saying like, hey, I'd love to invest, right?”
Oct 11, 2021 neutral
Jan 20, 2022
Kevin Systrom specifically targeted Sacca, D'Angelo, and Dorsey for Instagram's angel round
“Instagram came to me, but like Kevin Systrom literally said, I want three angels, you, Adam D'Angelo and Jack Dorsey. And so he pitched me. I literally was not seeking photos. I, it sounds fucking hilarious, but I thought it was spent. I thought it was done. A…”
Oct 7, 2022 positive
Feb 22, 2023
Feb 22, 2023 neutral
Feb 22, 2023 negative
Feb 22, 2023 negative
Systrom: Investing in industry verticals is 'BS' compared to team quality
“This is gonna be heresy to a VC's ears, but like, I think investing in verticals and spaces is BS. Like, yes, in general, generative AI is gonna produce something pretty cool, Like, yes, the stuff, like, these verticalized, like, the sharing economy, it's like…”
Feb 22, 2023
Feb 22, 2023
Feb 22, 2023
Feb 22, 2023
Systrom: Artifact overbuilt social features and could have launched much earlier
“There's parts of this product that exist, you can DM people, you can post socially, like, Facebook or Twitter, like, they're entire, there's entire pieces of this app that people can use, it's just locked away and not launched. We have over, we could have laun…”
Feb 22, 2023 neutral
Feb 22, 2023
Systrom: Founders must rely on dashboards over gut feelings during volatility
“Just trust the instruments. And like, my god, we have instruments, dashboards, et cetera, just trust the instruments. Forget about what people are saying, forget about what issue you had yesterday with the server, trust the instruments. And it doesn't make it …”
Feb 22, 2023
Systrom: Startups grind people down through workload trade-offs and emotional volatility
“This stuff's just hard, and that's why the startup process just chews up and spits out people, like, no process I've seen before. It is just a grinder. Like, it goes through people like crazy, because it either screens you out because it's too hard work-wise, …”
Feb 22, 2023 negative
Feb 22, 2023 positive
Systrom: Social networks must become less social and rely on behavioral affinity
“So, long time, like, long story short, I think that social networks need to become less social, and I think that something that will make up for it is this idea of learned association or learned affinity through your behavior.”
Feb 22, 2023 bullish
Mar 29, 2023 negative
Jul 24, 2023
Mar 13, 2024
Instagram Acquisition Forced Facebook to Switch Metrics From MAU to DAU
“When Instagram came along to Facebook, we still had the MEU as our goal. And so when we had the MEU as a goal, I mean basically Kevin's system was like, what? We are now in the mobile world. People use the phones all the time. We should be doing we do DAUs. We…”