One of the earliest requested features was to do premium filters where a brand could sponsor a filter. It's just not in our wheelhouse. It doesn't feel 'Instagram'-my in the way that the high-quality brand ads do.
When you open up 'Instagram,' you need to know that you're seeing the real Tony Hawk, the real Taylor Swift, the real Burberry.
'Instagram' Direct is a really interesting feature because it's grown significantly since we launched it. People continue to use it to communicate more privately.
I try to list the top three things to get done every day, and I'll be lucky if I hit all three, but it's amazing what that does to keep you on track.
Just so everyone knows, we're not a photo-sharing company. I don't see photos on 'Instagram' as art. They're much more about communication.
Really, we're just taking people and shifting them from taking photos anyway to taking them on 'Instagram'.
'Instagram' is definitely becoming a new entertainment source for people day after day.
People are hungry for what's happening right now in the world.
If you're a journalist, and you want to see live photos happening at any location in our system, you can simply type in the location, and up comes the page.
Most photo apps before asked something of the users. They said, 'You produce, act, and perform.' 'Instagram' said, 'Let us take care of the secret sauce.'
Imagine the power of surfacing what's happening in the world through images, and potentially other types of media in the future, to each and every person who holds a mobile phone.
You can build a filter app get people really excited, but the way to keep them is to provide long-term value. Long-term value is, in fact, being its own network.
I'm a huge fan of what 'Hipstamatic' is doing and all they've accomplished.
Our goal is to allow people to use whatever app they want to get photos into 'Instagram'.
The best companies in the world have all had predecessors. 'YouTube' was a dating site. You always have to evolve into something else.
Mike Krieger and I started talking, and he decided he liked the idea of helping start the company. Once he joined, we took a step back and looked at the product as it stood.
It turns out that no undergrad class prepares you to start a startup - you learn most of it as you do it.
A photo app is a utility. It's like comparing 'Twitter' to Microsoft Word. If you want to be an author, you're not always going to constrain yourself to 140 characters.
I like to say that the one thing that all people who succeed in changing the world have in common is that they at least tried.
There are a lot of apps that are fun to use - they're utility apps; they're fine. But there are a fraction of apps that are in the cream of the crop. You just need to be in the cream of the crop to get noticed.
