Do what you love, and do it well - that's much more meaningful than any metric.
If you've got an idea, start today. There's no better time than now to get going. That doesn't mean quit your job and jump into your idea 100% from day one, but there's always small progress that can be made to start the movement.
The printing press did something really big for the world when everyone could get books in their hands and read.
I've always been into taking my photos, cropping them square, putting them through a filter in Photoshop.
Calling 'Instagram' a photo-sharing app is like calling a newspaper a letter-sharing book, or a Mozart grand era symphony a series of notes. 'Instagram' is less about the medium and more about the network.
'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.
Good companies are always fundraising. Whether you're meeting people or considering firms, you're always fundraising.
Instagram was created because there was no single place dedicated to giving your mobile photos a place to live and to be seen.
If you focus on producing a great experience for anyone, that's how you get big.
The way people communicate is changing, and no one knows this better than teens. We are using images to talk to each other, to communicate what we're doing, what we're thinking, and to tell stories.
Great products sell themselves.
Traditional businesses can say, 'We're going to sell widgets to people, and it will make X amount of profit.' But new business models are hard.
I don't think you should ever start a business and move in a direction where you can't see it becoming a business.
I grew up as a photo nut. Every Christmas I would get a new camera. It's a huge part of my life.
I've always had a passion for technology, photography, startups, and connecting people. Bringing those aspects together made me successful.
I don't foresee a future where people don't have some sort of phone that's like a computer. I don't foresee a future where those phones don't have cameras in them. That spells a future where smartphones are the status quo. You have to ask yourself how you allow people to communicate what's in their lives.
I like to compare 'Instagram' to the Library of Congress.
A platform is the base from which something big happens. In our case, we're an entertainment platform in the sense that there are people signing up like MTV, Burberry, folks like Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber. And why? Because it's their channel to control their entertainment to their fans.
There's a natural set of constraints with mobile phones that force you to be a better photographer by acknowledging and observing the world around you.
It helps to see the world through a different lens, and that's what we wanted to do with Instagram. We wanted to give everyone the same feeling of discovering the world around you through a different lens.
