Kevin Systrom's Quotes

Great products sell themselves.

I believe photos is one of the underlying things in every social network that becomes successful.

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 think not focusing on money makes you sane because in the long run it can probably drive you crazy.

I've always been into taking my photos, cropping them square, putting them through a filter in Photoshop.

Instagram is a media company. I think we're about visual media.

Instagram was created because there was no single place dedicated to giving your mobile photos a place to live and to be seen.

The major reason why Instagram works is that you can follow anyone out there and start following their photos immediately.

Working at a startup to make a lot of money was never a thing, and that's why I decided to just finish up school. That was way more important for me.

Every photo you take communicates something about a moment in time - a brief slice of time of where you were, who you were with, and what you were doing.

Every startup should address a real and demonstrated need in the world - if you build a solution to a problem lots of people have, it's so easy to sell your product to the world.

I actually think some of my best moments in life have been while I was with people from Instagram - whether it's super late nights getting a release out or being able to travel to places I'd never visited and meeting some of the most interesting people I've ever met.

I'm always in awe of people who are artists in their fields - people who understand that simply by taking ideas and translating them into reality, they've created value in the world.

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.

In the past, people have looked at photos as a record of memory. The focus has been on the past tense. With Instagram, the focus is on the present tense.

People interact with their phones very differently than they do with their PCs, and I think that when you design from the ground up with mobile in mind, you create a very different product than going the other way.

When people say that college isn't worthwhile and paying all this money isn't worthwhile, I really disagree. I think those experiences and those classes that may not necessarily seem applicable in the moment end up coming back to you time and time again.