Kevin Systrom: Co-founder of Instagram

Kevin Systrom: Co-founder of Instagram

Business Owner · Internet & Consumer Tech

San Francisco

Kevin Systrom turned down a job offer from Mark Zuckerberg, co-founded Instagram and sold it to Facebook for $1 billion in 2012 when it had just 13 employees.

About Kevin Systrom: Co-founder of Instagram

Kevin Systrom (born December 30, 1983, in Holliston, Massachusetts) is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur who co-founded Instagram with Mike Krieger. He was included on Forbes' 2016 list of America's Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40. Under Systrom as CEO, Instagram grew quickly, reaching 800 million monthly users as of September 2017, and he resigned as CEO on September 24, 2018. Meta Platforms, then Facebook, Inc., bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012, a large sum for a company with 13 employees; today Instagram has over three billion users and contributes over $20 billion to Meta's annual revenue. Systrom is the son of Diane, a marketing executive at Zipcar who also worked at Monster.com and Swapit during the dot-com bubble, and Douglas Systrom, vice president of human resources at TJX Companies. He attended Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts, where he was introduced to computer programming, an interest that grew from playing Doom 2 and building his own levels as a child. In high school he worked at a Boston vinyl record store, Boston Beat. At Stanford he graduated in 2006 with a bachelor's degree in management science and engineering and belonged to Sigma Nu. He turned down a recruitment offer from Mark Zuckerberg and instead spent the winter term of his third year in Florence studying photography, and was chosen as one of twelve students in Stanford's Mayfield Fellows Program. Sources: English Wikipedia (Kevin Systrom, accessed September 2026).

Basic Information

Co-founder and former CEO, Instagram

Company Details

Instagram (Meta Platforms)

Social Media, Photo Sharing