The Exchanges

Q go, um, you know, the theme of this conference is kindness and collaboration. This is, this, this was a collaboration. The two of you got together. What's amazing is, we've done stories about businesses with co-founders and, and you know, they fall apart or the, the relationship breaks down. You guys are closer than ever. I mean, what, what, what is about the other guy that works for you, Mike?

A I think every, almost every interaction I have with Kev, I feel like makes me smarter and like pushes me in some interesting way. Like, uh, either something that, you know, I built that he looks at and is like, oh, could this be different? Or why did it work this way? I remember like early on at Instagram, we had like some outage and, uh, I fixed it and I was like, oh, it's fixed. And Kevin's like, yeah, but what happened? And I was like, I don't know. Does it matter? Like it's fixed. And he's like, no, no, no, we need to understand. And it sounds simple, but actually that approach to like actually understanding the problem you're facing and really like understanding that the solution makes sense and not just taking things for Granted is, I think, a pretty core part of your personality that I deeply appreciated, because I think it ended up pushing me to become a better engineer and a better leader. So, I don't know, it's exciting to work with somebody that you just trust implicitly, which is a hard thing to quantify, but, like, there's very few people in the industry who I feel like have, like, the integrity and have been shown, you know, over now 10 years of working together. I'm like, yeah, like, I trusted him to fly me in a plane, which I do not trust almost any other person.

AI assessment note: “every interaction I have with Kev, I feel like makes me smarter”

Q story just seems like a, just a clear, linear, like, jumping from success to success, like, It was super easy. You put it up there, and then you raise all this money, and then the valuation's just in the stratosphere. But were there moments in, in the beginning, even, even after that initial twenty-four-hour period and, and, and beyond, where you thought, this could fail, this could easily just fail?

A I mean, all the time. I, like, three weeks in, Kevin turned to me, and he said, Mike, I don't know how big this is gonna be, but I think we're onto something. And I was like, oh, we'll see. And every morning, I would wake up expecting that that was the morning that growth would stall, and that was it. And if I knew what I know now about metrics and how to measure that, whether people are coming back over a one day, seven day, 30 day period, I would actually have been, I think a lot calmer because I think it would have shown as the, it shows now that people who join Instagram tend to stick around and become more active. And that's really exciting. But at the time I didn't know that I was like, ah, they're signing up. Are they going to come back tomorrow? Like, is it all going to change? And that was sort of an internal worry. And then externally, you know, as we launched and grew, It became a very competitive space, and we would see, you know, companies get announced that had tens of millions of dollars in investments even before launching, and we're like, man, like, these guys have so much money, they're gonna come in and, you know, attack us, and it's gonna be really hard, and, um, that's the other lesson learned, which is, you know, your valuation and the amount you raise, it can be helpful in building your product, but it does absolutely nothing. People, end users don't care…

AI assessment note: “I mean, all the time. I, like, three weeks in”

Q How did people even find out about Instagram? Like, how did they know that they should download this, like, this app?

A So we had this intuition that if you're going to throw a party, which is kind of what an app launch really is, uh, as people are streaming to the door, you want them to sort of know how they should act and who else is there. So one of the things we did was we have, uh, you have a hundred sort of Invites that you can have before you launch your app to the Apple store where you can invite people to try it out. And we're like, how are we going to use these hundred people? And we use them a combination of some, uh, journalists that we've gotten to know over, you know, the last couple of, of years, uh, in San Francisco, in the Valley. We also, uh, went on this site called dribble.com, which is sort of like, A place where designers go and show off their best work, and we figured photographers might not instantly take to Instagram because, like, they want, like, super high resolution, or they have other constraints, but designers love photography, but it's not their main sort of job. So we picked basically the, the 10 top designers on Dribbble, and we emailed them, and some ignored us, which is fine, and some wrote back and said, sure, I'll try your app. Um, and it was great, because coming in day one, people who, uh, who would explore things, we had a popular page at the time that showed the most popular photos across the whole community, um, would be like, wow, you can take that on …

AI assessment note: “we use them a combination of some, uh, journalists... went on this site called dribble.com”

Q Did you guys have a moment where you were like, Jesus, like, they're using this thing that we built in, like, our basements?

A I think for me, the biggest one was the White House or Obama. I think it was Obama joined first, and I think it was part of the campaign, uh, that he was running, and I remember, like, the President of the United States, like, knows what Instagram is, and knows how to use it, and I remember, uh, you know, every, I, you know, every time somebody's using our app, and I either see or hear about it, I'm like, I hope it doesn't crash, I hope it works perfectly, um, and I hope they, like, don't have any questions that keep them from using it, so that was, I think, a big inflection moment, and I think the other one was, Uh, I, I noticed that the New York Times, when they would cover us, had stopped saying Instagram, comma, The photo sharing app, and then it was just Instagram. I'm like, oh, we are, we have now reached the point where they, they can assume that most of their readers know what we are.

AI assessment note: “I think for me, the biggest one was the White House or Obama.”

Q So Mike, how did you guys, like, I mean, how did this happen? Like, you came to Kevin, you were like, I like this thing, it's cool, I wanna work with you. I mean, did you, was there more formal than that?

A Uh, I think where it came from was we had a kind of shared kindred spirit of tinkering, so on the weekends, a lot of times I would be at Coffee Bar, which was this Great coffee shop here in San Francisco, and I'd be working on iPhone apps just for fun. And bourbon, um, the, the check-in in itself I didn't find as compelling, but having a sort of visual status was really compelling. So I got excited enough that I think I, yeah, I came up with Kevin. I was like, look, if you ever do this for real, like, let's have a conversation. And, uh, I think that first meeting we had about it, actually, I was like, count me interested. Like, I'm, I'm excited enough to do it. And You know how, like, the, the cliche of your life flashing before your eyes, like, my future flashed before my eyes for talking to Kevin right then. I just imagined myself working one-on-one with him on something that I was really excited about in San Francisco, um, and just trying to make something of it, and I was like, I, there was something in me that just stirred at that thought.

AI assessment note: “I came up with Kevin. I was like, look, if you ever do this”

Q How did people even find out about Instagram? Like, how did they know that they should download this, like, this app?

A So we had this intuition that if you're going to throw a party, which is kind of what an app launch really is, uh, as people are streaming to the door, you want them to sort of know how they should act and who else is there. So one of the things we did was we have, uh, you have a hundred sort of invites that you can have before you launch your app to the app, Apple store, where you can invite people to try it out. And we're like, how are we going to use these hundred people? And we use them a combination of some, uh, journalists that we'd gotten to know over, you know, the last couple of years, uh, in San Francisco, in the Valley, uh, We also went on the site called dribble.com, which is sort of like a place where designers go and show off their best work, and we figured photographers might not instantly take to Instagram because, like, they want, like, super high resolution, or they have other constraints, but designers love photography, but it's not their main sort of job. So we picked basically the, the 10 top designers on Dribbble, and we emailed them, and some ignored us, which is fine, and some wrote back and said, sure, I'll try your app. Um, and it was great, because coming in day one, people who, uh, who would explore things, and we had a popular page at the time that showed the most popular photos across the whole community. Um, would be like, wow, you can take that o…

AI assessment note: “we use them a combination of some, uh, journalists that we'd gotten to know”

Q story just seems like a, just a clear, linear, like, jumping from success to success, like, It was super easy. You put it up there, and then you raise all this money, and then the valuation's just in the stratosphere. But were there moments in, in the beginning, even, even after that initial twenty-four-hour period and, and, and beyond, where you thought, this could fail, this could easily just fail?

A I mean, all the time. I, like, three weeks in, Kevin turned to me, and he said, Mike, I don't know how big this is gonna be, but I think we're onto something. And I was like, oh, we'll see. And every morning, I would wake up expecting that that was the morning that growth would stall, and that was it. And if I knew what I know now about metrics and how to measure that, whether people are coming back over a one day, seven day, 30 day period, I would actually have been, I think a lot calmer because I think it would have shown as the, it shows now that people who join Instagram tend to stick around and become more active. And that's really exciting. But at the time I didn't know that I was like, ah, they're signing up. Are they going to come back tomorrow? Like, is it all going to change? And that was sort of an internal worry. And then externally, you know, as we launched and grew, It became a very competitive space, and we would see, you know, companies get announced that had tens of millions of dollars in investments even before launching, and we're like, man, like, these guys have so much money, they're gonna come in and, you know, attack us, and it's gonna be really hard, and, um, that's the other lesson learned, which is, you know, your valuation and the amount you raise, it can be helpful in building your product, but it does absolutely nothing. People, end users don't care…

AI assessment note: “I mean, all the time. I, like, three weeks in”

Q are there, and they disappear without leaving a trace. Kevin and Mike are smart enough and cool enough to know you should never be the last person to leave the party. Now, essentially, what this article was saying is that you sort of saw The social media landscape, and maybe you thought, you know, this isn't really what we signed up for. Is there, is there any truth to that?

A I don't, that was not a big factor for me. Like, I think, in fact, like, it was weighing on me in the opposite direction. Like, I remember when, um, like, early last year, so before we were really thinking seriously about leaving, I sat down with some folks, and they're like, I hope you stay for a long time, because I can tell you really care about kindness, you really care about, ah, building a positive network, like, and we really need that, um, so please stay, which added this, like, whole guilt factor for me for the next, like, you know, few months as we started thinking about leaving. So, I saw it less like, you know, the tide is changing, therefore it's time for us to leave, and in fact, it was like the other side, like, ugh, like, maybe, not to sound conceited, but like, maybe this is when we could be most needed, um, and that was definitely like a factor that I weighed, uh, when thinking about the departure.

AI assessment note: “that was not a big factor for me. Like, I think, in fact”

Q of get out of the day-to-day grind, and you probably had assistants and people who always, you know, needed your time, and there was a, you know, team meetings, and now, you know, all of a sudden you go from a hundred miles an hour to like five miles an hour, right? Are you starting to think about the next chapter, and what does that look like for you, Mike?

A I think the first chapter of the next chapter, if you will, was me trying to be way too strategic. You're like, I did this thing. It had an impact. Like I had this whole company around it. I need to go through and like do a chart and like maybe like a matrix around like areas of impact and ideas. And, uh, somebody actually said to Kevin recently, something that really resonated with me as well, which is, did you put that much work into starting Instagram? Like, were you super strategic and thoughtful and like, no, we were interested in helping people tell their stories. We loved photography. I was excited about iPhone development. It was like, 2009. It was like, all these things were much more like inner sources of joy and excitement and interest and learning. And I think it took probably six or seven months for me to let go of the idea that I had to be, you know, perfectly aimed in terms of the next direction to instead reconnect with what was true early on, which is like, I love learning. I love hard technical problems and I love working with people, uh, who really pushed me and vice versa. And Once I let go of those things, I think the last two months when we've actually been spending a ton of time together again, have been the most fun, because all of a sudden you're like, oh, like, we don't have to figure this out tomorrow, and if we'd had that pressure for Instagram, we n…

AI assessment note: “I think the first chapter of the next chapter, if you will, was me”

Q your identities were so wrapped into it, right? And we've, we've had stories of the show where founders have sold their companies, or David Neelaman was pushed out of JetBlue. He was here earlier today. Um, and it's hard. I mean, even if you're paid well, and you get the payout, it's, it's a thing that you made. It's yours. Is a part of it, a part of that heart?

A I thought about this a ton in like, say like the year before our departure, you start thinking about, I used to tell the team very openly, like every year, you know, I would sit down and like sort of recommit to Instagram and say like, am I still learning? Is this still exciting? I still feel like I can have impact. Um, or is it time for the next chapter? And the question that I would often get from friends would be like, aren't you worried? Like you're not like going to be important after Instagram, like in not so many words, but basically asking that question and you realize a couple of things. One is The legacy lives on, and like, the fact that I get to use the product, and people still come up to me, and are like, oh, you built this, uh, is awesome, and I realized, like, I'd gotten attached to being co-founder and CTO, and I will always get to be co-founder, and that feels really good in starting conversations, and having people be excited about something that we built, so, um, I think that part of the identity feels solid, and the other part is you kind of realize, like, who's excited to spend time with you for, you know, what you've built, and what you're interested in, and the people who just wanted to get verified, or whatever, they, like, never request that

AI assessment note: “I think that part of the identity feels solid”

Q So Mike, how did you guys, like, I mean, how did this happen? Like, you came to Kevin, you were like, I like this thing, it's cool, I wanna work with you. I mean, did you, was there more formal than that?

A Uh, I think where it came from was we had a kind of shared kindred spirit of tinkering, so on the weekends, a lot of times I would be at Coffee Bar, which was this A great coffee shop here in San Francisco, and I'd be working on iPhone apps just for fun. And bourbon, um, the, the check-in in itself I didn't find as compelling, but having a sort of visual status was really compelling. So I got excited enough that I think I, yeah, I came up with Kevin, I was like, look, if you ever do this for real, like, let's have a conversation. And, uh, I think that first meeting we had about it, actually, I was like, count me interested. Like, I'm, I'm excited enough to do it, and You know how, like, the, the cliche of your life flashing before your eyes, like, my future flashed before my eyes for talking to Kevin right then. I just imagined myself working one-on-one with him on something that I was really excited about in San Francisco, um, and just trying to make something of it, and I was like, I, there was something in me that just stirred at that thought.

AI assessment note: “I came up with Kevin, I was like, look, if you ever do this”

Q Was there any way to anticipate that when you guys were sitting in, you know, at Stanford, and when you met there?

A You're lucky early on because the community self-selects for people that are excited about something new. It's rare to get, like, a troll as one of your first hundred. You're very unlucky if, like, some jerk joins in your first, you know, hundred, hundred users, and, uh, but as we even, we grew, You know, all of a sudden you go beyond friends and family to friends of friends of friends, and you know, I remember, actually, I distinctly remember the first person that we ever had a problem with on Instagram. I think we were like a month in, or even less than that, and it was somebody who had been stalked by another person, and they're like, hey, can you please build a block feature? Like, we didn't launch with a block feature, because we didn't need it at the beginning, or didn't think we needed it, and they're like, I don't want this guy on my Instagram, and we're like, oh yeah, that makes sense, and I think we had that out in like two or three days. It was amazing, like back in the early days, like building something is like It's pretty easy to do. Uh, and we launched it, and over time you start adding these safeguards in, um, whether that's, like, being able to mute comments, and in some ways that means you're on, you know, more of a reactive side, but I think it's also just the reality that as, like, every order of magnitude you scale to, I think it introduces a new set of pro…

AI assessment note: “we didn't launch with a block feature, because we didn't need it at the beginning”