Instagram (Meta)

Kevin Systrom originally built an app called Burbn — a location check-in service heavily inspired by Foursquare. It had too many features and users were confused. Systrom and his co-founder Mike Krieger stripped everything out except one feature that users actually loved: photo sharing with filters. They renamed it Instagram and launched on October 6, 2010. It hit one million users in three months.

On April 9, 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram for approximately $1 billion in cash and stock. Instagram had 13 employees, no revenue, and had been operating for 551 days. The deal was negotiated personally between Mark Zuckerberg and Kevin Systrom over eight days, without the board being told first. Zuckerberg later said he was afraid Instagram would become what Facebook could have been if it had focused on mobile earlier. By 2018, Instagram was worth an estimated $100 billion — 100 times the acquisition price.

In September 2018, both Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger resigned from Instagram simultaneously, citing growing friction with Zuckerberg over autonomy and direction. Zuckerberg had begun integrating Instagram more deeply into Facebook's infrastructure, overriding product decisions the founders had made. The departure was one of the most consequential in social media history — leaving Instagram without the creative vision that had built it.

When TikTok exploded globally in 2020, Instagram launched Reels — a near-identical short video format. Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced the app was "no longer a photo-sharing app." Long-term users were furious. The app that had been built around the beauty of a single photograph was now competing with TikTok for 15-second dances. The pivot worked commercially but cost Instagram its distinct identity.

By September 2025, Instagram had reached 3 billion monthly active users — making it one of only three apps ever to reach that scale, alongside Facebook and WhatsApp. Meta's AI-powered ad tools, which used Reels and Feed targeting to drive conversions, generated $46.6 billion in ad revenue for Meta in Q2 2025 alone. Instagram's Generative Ads Recommendation Model delivered a 5% increase in conversions that quarter. The app that Kevin Systrom had built as a simple photo filter had become one of the most powerful advertising machines in history.