Who Created Instagram? Meet the Founders and Story

Key takeaways

• Instagram was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, two Stanford graduates based in San Francisco.
• The app launched on October 6, 2010, exclusively on Apple's App Store.
• It grew out of a more complicated check-in app called Burbn, which the pair stripped down to just photo sharing.
• Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012 for roughly 1 billion dollars; the parent company is now called Meta Platforms.
• Both founders left Instagram in 2018, and Adam Mosseri has led the platform since.
• The founders' original obsession with simplicity still shapes how the Instagram algorithm surfaces content today.

Who actually created Instagram?

Instagram was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. Systrom, who studied management science and engineering at Stanford, had already worked at Google on products like Gmail before striking out on his own. Krieger, a fellow Stanford graduate in symbolic systems, joined him as co-founder and lead engineer.

The two didn't set out to build a photo app. Their first product, Burbn, was a location check-in tool similar to Foursquare with photo posting bolted on. User data showed people mostly ignored the check-in features and used Burbn almost entirely to share photos, so Systrom and Krieger scrapped everything else and rebuilt the app around that one behavior in about eight weeks.

When did Instagram actually launch?

Instagram launched on October 6, 2010, picking up 25,000 users on day one and reaching 1 million registered users within roughly two months — a pace of growth many creators still chase when they ask how to get more followers on Instagram today. The app crossed 10 million users by September 2011, more than a year before an Android version even existed; Android arrived in April 2012 and picked up over a million downloads in its first day.

Why did Facebook buy Instagram?

Facebook wanted to neutralize a fast-growing mobile rival and lock in Instagram's momentum before it got too expensive to acquire. The deal was announced in April 2012 for approximately 1 billion dollars in cash and stock and closed that September, when Instagram had around 30 million users but just 13 employees and no ad revenue. Facebook later rebranded as Meta Platforms in 2021, and Instagram has operated as a Meta product ever since — which is also why people researching who owns Instagram usually land on Meta as the answer.

Did the founders keep running Instagram after the sale?

Yes, for six years. Systrom served as CEO and Krieger as CTO, shipping features like Stories, IGTV, and the algorithmic feed with a fair amount of independence from Facebook. Both resigned in September 2018, reportedly over friction with Facebook leadership about product direction and autonomy. Adam Mosseri, a longtime Facebook product executive, took over as head of Instagram later that year and still holds the role.

What happened to Systrom and Krieger after they left?

Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger went on to co-found Artifact, a personalized news app, in 2022, a very different product from the platform many now research through guides like how Instagram works today. Artifact shut down in early 2024, and both founders have since moved into separate, lower-profile ventures compared to their Instagram years.

How does the founding story connect to how Instagram works now?

Instagram's origin as a stripped-down, photo-first app still explains a lot about the product today, from the visual grid layout to features people now research separately, like what a reel on Instagram actually is or how the Instagram algorithm ranks content. Even newer additions, like Threads on Instagram, trace back to that same founding instinct: keep the core experience simple and visual, then layer features on top.

Quick facts about Instagram's founding