SXSWORLD

1 6 SXS W O R L D | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9 | SXSW.COM Six years after the billion-dollar sale of Instagram to Facebook, and a few months after the service hit a billion users, Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger left the company last September. The statement released on their departure said they were "ready for [their] next chapter." Not long after that, Systrom said, "I figure I have a few more Instagrams, timewise, in me," during a live interview at a Wired maga- zine event. This was a tantalizing statement, made more so by the pair's decision to appear together at SXSW for a joint conversation with TechCrunch editor-at-large Josh Constine. Systrom and Krieger have said that they have been taking time off to unplug with their families and other interests during this post-Instagram period. They have plenty of things to do: Systrom has been a DJ, passed a sommelier exam and taken flying lessons. Since the departure, he has also made several public speaking appearances at industry and media events. Krieger and his wife, Kaitlyn, founded the Future Justice Fund, a progressive grant-making organization with a focus on criminal justice reform and projects that explore a universal basic income. The couple are also avid art collectors who have been profiled in The New York Times. Both Systrom and Krieger also have young children. They won't be on break forever, and the pressing question for industry observers — and no small amount of the general public, considering that Instagram is the runaway leader in popular song mentions for social media — will be what the pair will be up to next. The reason for that anticipation is not just Instagram's success as a company, but the way it achieved it, and the ways in which it differs from other networks. Those differences might provide signs of the pair's next steps. Instagram's origin story combines pivoting, serendipity and astute reading of user habits. Systrom had been working on his location check-in app Burbn, and had brought his fellow Stanford grad Krieger on board, when he realized that users were mostly engaging with Burbn's photo-sharing aspect. His then-girlfriend, now wife, Nicole, said she wished she could make her photos look better, and the filters that would be the app's early signature were born. While the filters were the hook, the ways that Instagram interpreted and responded to how its users engaged with it would set it apart. As social media services try to balance an open-to-all policy with the safety of users, Instagram has been enterprising with its use of tools to moderate comments and judge inappropriate content. That proactive approach has been present from its early days, when admins would manually delete and block trollish comments and repeat offenders. As the service grew, that became impossible, so the company created ways to automate the process. Ultimately, it was able to give users a way to block com- ments containing keywords, including emoji, that would signal a potentially upsetting or unwanted response. Having those tools at hand, and having that policy and philosophy in place from the beginning, gave Instagram a head start on handling the kinds of harassment and fraudulent use that Twitter and Facebook have publicly struggled with. Anticipation Awaits Instagram Co-Founders' Next Moves By Susan Elizabeth Shepard Mike Krieger

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