The Decade Tech Lost Its Way - The New York Times

The Decade Tech Lost Its Way - The New York Times

Two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs start a photo-sharing app that quickly becomes a sensation, spawning thousands of subcultures and Kardashian selfies.

The first Instagram post.

Kevin Systrom, co-founder: I wanted to make a massive multiplayer game, where you would check in at a location around the city — at a cafe, a bar, a park, whatever. But as I started to show it to people, it was clear that they didn’t actually want it to be a game. They just wanted to check in and share what they were doing.

I stopped working on the game part, and it just became a check-in app. And that’s where Mike and I first connected.

Mike Krieger, co-founder: I got super into it because it wasn’t just “Oh, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.” It was “I’m here, and here’s a photo.” And that sounds like a small detail, but actually it made the whole product way more interesting.

Mr. Systrom: Steve Anderson, the venture capitalist, said, “Hey, here’s $50,000 — except the only way I’m going to do this is if you find a technical co-founder.” And Mike was like, “Count me interested.”

Mr. Systrom and Mr. Krieger begin to work on an app called Burbn.

Mr. Krieger: We had the fateful Blue Bottle meeting. We had a coffee catch-up with Ronny Conway, another venture capitalist, showing him what we’d been working on. And it wasn’t anything he said — I think it was this look on his face. You could tell he felt we didn’t have a clear conviction on what we were building. We needed to make a major change.

Mr. Systrom: We sat down, and we were sulking. I said, “Let’s write out what people like most about the app.” I think plans were one of the features, and check-ins and photos. Then we crossed off check-ins and plans.

Mr. Krieger: We had a one-week break because Kev had his first vacation in I don’t know how many years.

Mr. Systrom: My wife and I went to Todos Santos, Mexico, which was the cheapest Mexican vacation we could find that was nice. We were walking on the beach, and I was asking her, “Hey, do you think you’re going to use this app?”

And she said, “Well, no, because all your friends take such good pictures.” I said something like, “That’s just because they filter their photos.” She said, “O.K., you should probably add filters, then.” And I was like, “Oh, my God.”

We launched in October. That first day, we had 25,000 people sign up.

Mr. Krieger: And it just started to grow.

Mr. Systrom: I just remember Mike struggling to keep the servers up. I think we spent the next year convinced we were going to go under.

Mr. Krieger: It’s not an experience that you ever would willingly sign up for, it was so intense. But I wouldn’t trade it for the world. The learning pace was absolutely unmatched — every single week we were learning something new about running a company or product design or infrastructure or raising money.

The crazy times are all tempered eventually. Your brain probably reprograms it. You look back on it fondly — but it was nutty.

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2019-12-16 10:46:55Z
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/15/technology/decade-in-tech.html
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