Kevin Systrom Quotations

I really value passion for the product above experience.

Instagram is a media company. I think we're about visual media. I explain ourselves as a disruptive entertainment platform that enables communication through visual media. I don't think it's just photos. There's a reason we don't allow you to upload photos on the Web as albums. It's not about taking all these photos off your DSLR putting them into an album and sharing them with your family. It's not about that. It's about what are you up to right now out in the real world, how can you share that with everyone.

We're just taking people and shifting them from taking photos anyway to taking them on Instagram.

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.

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.

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.

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

What's awesome about social media is you curate your own experience. That leads to the rise of niche celebrities, who are actually just as popular as mass celebrities, but because there's no incentive for traditional media to invest in them as celebrities, they find a home where people can follow them on Instagram.

A lot of the earliest Instagram celebrities took really beautiful photos. But you're starting to see a change where it's not about beauty; it's about the story that you tell.

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.