Kevin Systrom: Instagram | Lex Fridman Podcast #243

the following is a conversation with. kevin systrom co-founder and long-time. ceo of instagram including for six years. after facebook's acquisition of. instagram. this is the lex friedman podcast to. support it please check out our sponsors. in the description. and now here's my conversation with. kevin. systrom. at the risk of uh asking the rolling. stones to play satisfaction let me ask. you about the origin story of instagram. sure. so maybe some context you.

like we were talking about offline grew. up in massachusetts. learned computer programming there liked. to play doom two. uh worked at a vinyl record store then. you went to stanford. turned down mr uh. mark zuckerberg and facebook. went to florence to study photography. those are just some random beautiful. impossibly brief glimpses into a life so. let me ask again can you take me through. the origin story of instagram giving. that context you basically set it up um.

all right so uh we have a fair amount of. time so i'll go into some detail but. basically what i'll say is. um. instagram started out of a company. actually called bourbon. and it was spelled b-u-r-b-n. and uh. a couple things were happening at the. time so if we zoom back to 2010 not a. lot of people remember what was. happening in the dot-com world then uh. but. check-in apps were all the rage. so what's this checking out uh gowalla.

four square hot potato. so i'm at a place i'm gonna tell the. world that i'm at this place that's. right what's what's the idea behind this. kind of app by the way you know what i'm. gonna answer that but through. what instagram became and why i believe. instagram replaced them. so the whole idea was to share with the. world what you were doing specifically. with your friends right. um. but they were all the rage and. foursquare was getting all the press and. i remember sitting around saying hey i. want to build something but i don't know. what i want to build what if i built a.

better. version of foursquare. and i asked myself. why don't i like foursquare or how could. it be improved. um. and basically i sat down and i said i. think that if you have a few extra. features it might be enough one of which. happened to be posting a photo of where. you were. there were some others it turns out that. wasn't enough my co-founder joined we. were going to attack uh you know. foursquare and the likes and and try to. build something interesting. um and no one used it no one cared.

because it wasn't enough it wasn't it. wasn't different enough right. so one day we were sitting down and we. asked ourselves okay let's come to jesus. moment. are we going to do this startup. and if we're going to we can't do what. we're currently doing we have to switch. it up so what do people love the most so. we sat down and we wrote out. three things that we thought people. uniquely loved about our product that. weren't in other products. photos happened to be the top one so. sharing a photo of what you were doing.

where you were at the moment was not. something. products let you do really facebook was. like post an album of your vacation from. two weeks ago right twitter allowed you. to post a photo but their feed was. primarily text and they didn't show the. photo in line or at least i don't think. they did at the time. so. even though it seems totally. stupid and obvious to us now at the. moment then. posting a photo of what you were doing. at the moment was like not a thing.

so. we decided to go after that because we. noticed that people who used our service. the one thing they happened to like the. most was posting a photo. so that was the beginning of instagram. and yes like we went through and we. added filters and there's a bunch of. stories around that but the origin of. this was that we were trying to be a. checking app realized that no one wanted. another checking app. it became a photo sharing app but one. that was much more about what you're. doing and where you are. and that's why when i say i think we've. replaced checkin apps.

it became a check-in via a photo rather. than. saying your location and then optionally. adding a photo when you were thinking. about what people like. from where did you get a sense that this. is what people like you you said we sat. down we wrote some stuff down on paper. where is that intuition that seems. fundamental to the success. of. an app like instagram what is that idea. where's that list of three things come. from exactly.

only after having studied machine. learning now for a couple of years. i like i have a you have understood. yourself. i've started to make connections like we. can go into this later but. obviously the the um. the connections between. machine learning and the human brain i. think are stretched sometimes right. at the same time. being able to backprop and being able to. like look at the world try something.

figure out how you're wrong how wrong. you are. and then nudge your company in the right. direction. based on how wrong you are is like a. fascinating concept right and i don't we. didn't know we were doing it at the time. but that's basically what we were doing. right. we put it out to call it a hundred. people. and you would look at their data you. would say what are they sharing. what like what resonates what doesn't. resonate we think they're going to. resonate with x but turns out they. resonate with y.

okay shift the company towards y. and it turns out if you do that enough. quickly enough you can get to a solution. that has product market fit most. companies fail. because they sit there and they don't. either their learning rate's too slow. they sit there and they're just they're. adamant that they're right even though. the data is telling them they're not. right. or. they their learning rate's too high and. they wildly chase different ideas and. they never actually set on on one where. where they don't groove right and i. think when we sat down and we wrote out.

those three ideas what we were saying is. what are the three possible. whether they're local or global maxima. in our world right. that users are telling us they like. because they're using the product that. way. it was clear people liked the photos. because that was the thing they were. doing. and we just said okay like what if we. just cut out most of the other stuff and. focus on that thing. um and then it happened to be a. multi-billion dollar business and. it's that easy by the way yeah i guess.

so um well nobody ever writes about. neural networks that. miserably failed so this this particular. neural network succeeded this is the. sound all the time right yeah but nobody. right default state is failing yes. um when you said the way people are. using the app. is that the lost function for this. neural network or is it also self-report. like do you ever ask people what they. like or do you have to. track exactly what they're doing not. what they're saying. i once made a thanksgiving dinner okay.

and. uh it was for. relatives and i like to cook a lot okay. and i worked really hard on picking the. specific. uh dishes and. and i was really proud because i had. planned it out using a gantt chart and. like it was ready on time and everything. was hot nice like i don't know if you're. a big thanksgiving guy but like the. worst thing about thanksgiving. is when the turkey is cold and some. things are hot and something anyway you. got a gantt chart you actually have a.

chart oh yeah yeah omni plan fairly. expensive like gantt chart thing that i. think maybe 10 people have purchased. in the world but i'm one of them and i. use it for recipe planning only around. big holidays that's brilliant by the way. do people do this kind of uh over. engineering it's not overdue it's just. engineering it's planning thanksgiving. is a complicated uh. set of events with some uncertainty with. a lot of things going on you should be. able you should be planning in this way. there should be a chart it's not over i.

mean so what's funny is um. brief aside yes uh brilliant i love. cooking i love food i love coffee and. i've spent some time with some chefs who. like know their stuff and. they always just take out a piece of. paper and just work backwards in rough. order like it's never perfect but rough. order it's just like oh that makes sense. why not just work backwards from from. the end goal right and put in some. buffer time and. so i probably overspecified it a bit. using a gantt chart but the fact that.

you can do it it's what professional. kitchens roughly do. they just don't call it a gantt chart or. at least i don't think they do um anyway. i was telling a story about thanksgiving. so here's uh here's the thing. i'm sitting down we have the meal and. then i'm. you know i got to know ray dalio. fairly well over maybe the last year of. instagram um. and one thing that he kept saying was. like feedback is really hard to get. honestly from people. and i sat down at.

after dinner i said guys i want feedback. what was good and what was bad yes and. what's funny is like literally everyone. just said everything was great. and i like personally knew i had screwed. up a handful of things. um but no one would say it. and can you imagine now. not something as high stakes as. thanksgiving dinner okay thanksgiving. dinner it's not that high stakes. but you're trying to build a product and. everyone knows you left your job for it. you're trying to build it out and you're. trying to make something wonderful.

and it's yours right you designed it. now try asking for feedback. and know that you're giving this to your. friends and your family. people have trouble giving hard feedback. people have trouble saying. i don't like this or this isn't great or. this is how it's failed me. in fact. um. you usually have two classes of people. people who just won't say bad things you. can literally say to them please tell me.

what you hate most about this and they. won't do it they'll try but they won't. and then the other class of people are. just negative period about everything. and it's hard to parse out. like what is true and what isn't. so my rule of thumb with this. is you should always ask people. but at the end of the day it's amazing. what data will tell you. and that's why with whatever project i. work on even now. collecting data from the beginning on. usage patterns so engagement how many.

days of the week do they use it. how many i don't know if we were to go. back to instagram how many impressions. per day. right is that growing is that shrinking. and don't be like overly. scientific about it right because maybe. you have 50 beta users or something. but what's fascinating is that. data doesn't lie. people are very. uh defensive about their time. they'll say oh i'm so busy i'm sorry i. didn't get to use the app like i'm just.

you know um. but i don't know you're posting on. instagram the whole time. so. i don't know at the end of the day like. at facebook there was. you know before time spent became. kind of this loaded. term there. the idea that people. people's currency in their lives is time. and they only have a certain amount of. time to give things whether it's friends. or family or apps or tv shows or. whatever it's. there's no way of inventing more of it. at least not that i know of.

if they don't use it it's because it's. not great. so. the moral of the story is you can ask. all you want but you just have to look. at the data. and. data doesn't lie right i mean there's. metrics there's uh. data can obscure the key insight if. you're not careful so. so time spent in the app that's ones. there's so many metrics you can put at. this and they will give you totally.

different insights. especially when you're trying to create. something that doesn't obviously exist. yet. so. you know. measuring maybe. why you left the app or measuring. special moments. of happiness that will make sure you. return to the app or moments of. happiness that are long lasting versus. like dopamine short term. all of those things but i think i. suppose in the beginning. you can just get away with just asking.

the question. which features are used a lot let's do. more of that. and how hard was the decision. and uh i mean maybe you can tell me what. instagram looked in the beginning but. how hard was it to make. pictures the first class citizen that's. a revolutionary idea. like um at whatever point instagram. became this feed. of. photos. that's quite brilliant. plus.

i also don't know when this happened but. they're all shaped the same. it's like uh i have to tell you why. that's the interesting part. why is that so a couple of things one is. data data like you're right you can over. interpret data like imagine trying to. fly a plane. by staring at. i don't know a single metric like. airspeed. you don't know if you're going up or. down i mean it correlates with up or. down but you don't actually know it will.

never help you land the plane. so don't stare at one metric like it. turns out you have to synthesize a bunch. of metrics to know where to go. um but it doesn't lie like if your air. speed is zero unless it's not working. right if if it's zero. you're probably going to fall out of the. sky so. generally you look around and you have. the scan going yes. and you're just asking yourself is this. working or is this not working. um. but people have trouble explaining.

how they actually feel. so just it's about synthesizing both of. them so then instagram right uh we were. talking about revolutionary moment where. where the feed became. square photos basically and photos first. and then square footage yeah um. it was clear to me that the biggest so. i believe the biggest companies are. founded. when. enormous technical shifts happen and the.

biggest technical shift that happened. right before instagram was founded was. the advent of a phone that didn't suck. the iphone right like in retrospect. we're like oh my god the first iphone. that almost had. like it wasn't that good. but compared to everything else at the. time it was. amazing. and by the way the first. phone that had an incredible camera. that could that could like do as well as. the point and shoot you might carry. around. was the iphone 4 and that was right when.

instagram launched and we looked around. and we said what will change because. everyone has a camera in their pocket. and it was so clear to me that the the. world of. social networks before. it was based in the desktop and sitting. there and having a link you could share. right. and that wasn't going to be the case so. the question is what would you share if. you were out and about in the world. if not only did you have a camera that's. in your pocket but by the way that.

camera had a network attached to it that. allowed you to share instantly. that seemed revolutionary and a bunch of. people saw it at the same time it wasn't. just instagram there were a bunch of. competitors. the thing we did. i think was not only well we focused on. two things so we wrote down those things. we circled photos and we said i think we. should invest in this. but then we said what sucks about photos. one they look like crap right they just. at least back then now. my phone takes pretty great photos right.

um back then they were blurry not so. great compressed right. two. uh it was really slow. like really slow to upload a photo. and i'll tell a fun story about that and. explain to you why they're all the same. size and square as well. um and three. man if you wanted to share a photo on. different networks you had to go to each. of the individual apps and select all of. them and upload individually and. so we're like all right those are the. pain points we're gonna focus on that so.

one instead of. because they weren't beautiful um we. were like why don't we lean into the. fact that they're not beautiful and i. remember studying in florence my. photography teacher gave me this whole. gay camera and i'm not sure everyone. knows what a whole gay camera is but. they're these old-school plastic cameras. i think they're produced in china at the. time. and they're i want to say the original. ones like from the 70s or the 80s or. something they're supposed to be like. three dollar cameras for the every. person. they took nice medium format films large.

large. negatives. but they kind of blurred the the the. light and they kind of like light leaked. into the side and there was this whole. resurgence where people looked at that. and said oh my god this is a style right. and i remember using that in florence. and just saying well why don't we just. like lean into the fact that these. photos suck and make them suck more. but in an artistic way. and it turns out that had product market. fit people really liked that they were. willing to share their not so great.

photos if they. looked. not so great on purpose okay. it's the second part. that's the where the filters come into. the picture yeah so computational. modification of photos to make them look. extra crappy to where it becomes art. yeah yeah and. i mean. add light leaks add like an overlay. filter make them more contrasty than. they should be uh the first. filter we ever produced was called x-pro. 2. and i designed it while i was in this.

small little bed and breakfast room in. total santos mexico i was trying to take. a break from the. the bourbon days and i i remember saying. to my co-founder i just need like a week. to reset. and that was. on that trip worked on the first filter. because i said you know i think i can do. this and i literally iterated. one by one over the rgb values in the. array that was the photo. and just slightly shifted basically. there was a function of our function of. g function of b.

that just shifted them slightly it. wasn't rocket science um and it turns. out that actually made your photo look. pretty cool. it just mapped from one color space to. another color space. it was simple but it was really slow i. mean if you applied a filter. i think it used to take two or three. seconds to render. only eventually would i figure out how. to do it on the gpu and i'm not even. sure it was gpu but was using opengl but. anyway um i would eventually figure that. out and then it would be instant but it.

used to be really slow by the way anyone. who's watching or listening. it's amazing what you can get away with. in a startup as long as the product. outcome is right for the user like you. can be slow you can be terrible you can. be. as long as you have product market fit. people will put up with a lot and then. the question is just about compressing. making it more performant over time so. that they get that product market fit. instantly.

so fascinating because there's some. things where. those three seconds would. make or break the app. but some things you're saying not it's. hard to know when you know it's what. it's the problem spotify solved. making streaming like. work. and. like delays in listening to music is a. huge negative. even like slight delays. but here you're saying i mean how do you. know. when those three seconds are okay are.

you just gonna have to. try it out because to me my intuition. would be. those three seconds would kill the app. like i would try to do the opengl thing. right. so i wish i were that smart at the time. um. i wasn't i just knew how to do what i. knew how to do right. and i decided okay like why don't i just. iterate over the values and change them. and what's interesting. is that um.

compared to the alternatives no one else. used opengl. right so everyone else was doing that. the dumb way and in fact they were doing. it at a high resolution now comes in the. small resolution that we'll talk about. for a second. um. by choosing 512 pixels by 512 pixels. which i believe it was at the time. we iterated over a lot fewer pixels than. our competitors who were trying to do. these enormous output like images yeah. so instead of taking 20 seconds i mean.

three seconds feels pretty good right. so on a relative basis we were winning. like a lot. okay so that's answer number one answer. number two is uh. we actually focused on latency in the. right places so we did this really. wonderful thing um. when you uploaded so uh the way it would. work is you know you'd take your phone. you'd take the photo and then you'd go. to the um. you'd go the edit screen where you would. caption it. and on that caption screen you start.

typing you think okay like what's a. clever caption and and i said to mike. hey when i worked on the gmail team you. know what they did when you typed in. your username or your email address. even before you've entered in your. password like the chat probability once. you enter in your username that you're. going to actually sign in is extremely. high. so why not just start loading your. account in the background not not like. sending it down to the desktop that. would be a security uh uh. issue but like load it into memory on.

the server like get it ready prepare it. i always thought that was so fascinating. and unintuitive i was like mike why. don't we just do that but like we'll. just upload the photo and like assume. you're gonna upload the photo and if you. don't. forget about it we'll delete it right. so what ended up happening. was people would caption their uh photo. they'd press done or upload. and you'd see this little progress bar. just go. it was lightning fast okay.

we were no faster than anyone else at. the time but by choosing 512 by 512 and. doing in the background it almost. guaranteed that it was done by the time. you captioned. and everyone when they used it was like. how the hell is this thing so fast. but we were slow we just hid the the. slowness it wasn't like. these things are just like it's a shelly. game you're just hiding the latency. that. that mattered to people like a lot and i. think that so you were willing to put up.

with a slow filter if it meant you could. share it immediately and of course we. added sharing options which let you. distribute it really quickly that was. the third part. um. so latency matters but relative to what. and then. there's some like tricks you can get. around to just hiding the latency um. like i don't know if spotify starts. downloading the next song eagerly i'm. assuming they do. there are a bunch of ideas here that are. not rocket science that.

that really help. and all of that was. stuff you were explicitly having a. discussion about like. those designs and argument you were. having like arguments discussions. uh i'm sure it was arguments i mean. i'm not sure if you've met my co-founder. mike but he's a pretty nice guy and he's. very reasonable and uh. and we both just saw eye to eye and. we're like yeah just like. make this fast early seem fast. it'll be great i mean honestly i think. the most contentious thing and he would. say this too initially.

was um i was on an iphone 3g so like the. the not so fast one and he had a brand. new iphone 4. i was cheap nice um. and his feed loaded super smoothly like. when he would scroll from photo to photo. buttery smooth right but on my phone. every time you got to a new photo it was. like. a chunk allocate memory like all this. stuff right. i was like mike that's unacceptable he's. like oh come on man just like upgrade.

your phone basically you didn't actually. say that it's nicer than that um. but i could tell he wished like i would. just stop being cheap and just get a new. phone. but what's funny is we actually sat. there working on that little detail for. a few days before launch and. that polished experience plus the fact. that uploading seemed fast for all these. people who didn't have nice phones. i think meant a lot. because. far too often you see teams focus not on. performance.

they focus on. what's the cool computer science problem. they can solve. right can we scale this thing to a. billion users and they've got like 100. right. yeah. you talked about loss function so i want. to come back to that. but like the loss function is like do. you provide a great happy magical. whatever experience for the consumer. and listen if it happens to involve. something complex and technical then. great. but it turns out i think most of the.

time. those experiences are just sitting there. waiting to be built with like not that. complex solutions. uh but everyone is just like so stuck in. their own head that they have to over. engineer everything and then they forget. about the easy stuff. i mean also maybe to flip the lost. function there is you're trying to. minimize the number of times. you there's unpleasant experience right. like uh the one you mention where when. you go to the next photo it freezes for. a little bit so it's almost as opposed. to maximizing pleasure it's probably.

easier to minimize. the number of like. the friction. yeah and as we all know you just you. just uh you just make the pleasure. negative and then minimize everything so. we're mapping this all back to neural. networks but actually can i say one. thing on that which is. i don't know a lot about machine. learning but i feel like i've i've tried. studying a bunch that whole idea of. reinforcement learning. and planning out more than the greedy. single experience i think is.

is the closest you can get to. like ideal product design thinking. where you're not saying hey like can we. have a great experience just this one. time. but like what is the right way to. onboard someone what series of. experiences correlate most with them. hanging on long term right so not just. saying oh did the photo load slowly a. couple times or did they get a great. photo at the top of their feed. but like what are the things that are.

going to make this person come back. over the next week over the next month. and as a product designer asking. yourself okay i want to optimize not. just minimize bad experiences in the. short run but like. how do i get someone to engage over the. next month. and i'm not going to claim at all that i. thought that way at all at the time. because i certainly didn't but if i were. going back and giving myself any advice. it would be thinking what are those what. are those second order effects that you. can create.

and it turns out having your friends on. the service. it's an enormous win so starting with a. very small group of people that produce. content that you wanted to see which we. did we seeded the community very well i. think. ended up mattering and. so. yeah you said that community is one of. the most important things so it's from a. metrics perspective from uh maybe a. philosophy perspective. building a certain kind of community. within the app see i wasn't sure what. exactly you meant by that when when i've.

heard you say that maybe you can. elaborate but as i understand now it's. can literally mean. get your friends onto the app. yeah. think of it this way. you can build an amazing restaurant or. bar or whatever right. but if you show up and you're the only. one there is it like does it matter how. good the food is. the drinks whatever um no um these are. inherently social experiences that we. were working on.

so. the idea of having people there. like you needed to have that otherwise. it was just to filter out but by the way. part of the genius. i'm going to say genius even though i. wasn't really genius was starting to be. marauding as a filter app. was awesome. the fact that you could so we talk about. single player mode a lot which is like. can you play the game alone. and instagram you could totally play. alone you could filter your photos and a. lot of people would tell me i didn't.

even realize that this thing was a. social network. until my friend showed up it totally. worked as a single player. game and then when your friend showed up. all of a sudden it was like oh. not only was this great alone but now i. actually have this trove of photos that. people can look at and start liking and. then i can like theirs and. so it was this bootstrap method of how. do you make the thing not suck when the. restaurant is empty. yeah but the thing is when you say. friends i mean we're not necessarily.

referring to friends in the physical. space so you're not bringing your. physical friends with you you're also. making new friends so you're finding new. community so it's not immediately. obvious to me that. it's like it's almost like building any. kind of community. it was it was both and what we learned. very early on was what made instagram. special and the reason why you would. sign up for it versus say just sit on. facebook and look at your friends photos. of course we were live and of course it. was interesting to see what your friends. were doing now.

but the fact that you could connect with. people who like took really beautiful. photos in a certain style all around the. world whether they were travelers it was. the beginning or beginning of the. influencer economy there's these people. who became professional instagramers way. back when right. um. but they took these amazing photos and. some of them were photographers right um. like professionally. and all of a sudden you had this moment. in the day when you could open up this. app and sure you could see what your. friends were doing but also it was like. oh my god that's a beautiful beautiful.

waterfall or oh my god i didn't realize. there was that corner of england or like. really cool stuff. um. and the beauty about instagram early on. was that it was. international by default you didn't have. to speak english to use it right you. could just look at the photos. worked great. we did translate we had some pretty bad. translations but we did translate the. app. and uh. you know even if our translations were. pretty poor the the idea that you could. just connect with other people through.

their images was pretty powerful. how much uh technical difficulties there. with the programming like what. programming language you were talking. about what was zero i'd like maybe it. was hard for us but um i mean we. there was nothing the only thing that. was complex about instagram at the. beginning. technically was making it scale and we. were. just plain old objective c for the. client uh so it was iphone only.

yep as an android person i'm deeply. offended but go ahead again come on this. was 2010. oh sure sure sorry android's. getting a lot better yeah yeah so. um i take it back you're right if i were. to do something today i think it would. be very different in terms of launch. strategy right android's enormous too uh. but anyway um back to that moment it was. objective c uh and then. we were python based uh which is just. like this is before python was really. cool like now it's cool because it's all.

these machine learning libraries like. support python and right. now it's super. now it's like cool to be by the back. then it was like oh google uses python. like maybe you should use python. facebook was php like. i had worked at a small startup of some. ex-googlers that used python so we used. it and we used a framework called django. uh still exists and people use for. basically. the back end and then you threw a couple. interesting things in there i mean we.

used postgres which was kind of fun it. was a little bit like hipster database. at the time right. my sequel my sequel like everyone used. my sequel so like using postcards was. like an interesting decision right uh. but we used it because it had a bunch of. uh geo features built in because we. thought we were going to be a checking. out pretty much it's also super cool now. so you were into python before it was. cool and you were into postgres before. it was cool yeah we were basically like. not only hipster. hipster photo company hipster tech. company right uh we also adopted redis.

early and like loved it i mean it solved. so many problems for us. and turns out that's still pretty cool. but the programming was very easy it was. like sign up a user have a feed there. was nothing. no machine learning at all zero can you. get some context how many users at each. of these stages are we talking about 100. users a thousand users so the stage i. just described i mean that technical. stack lasted through. probably 50 million users.

um. i mean seriously like you can get away. with a lot with with a pretty basic. stack um like i think a lot of startups. try to over engineer their solutions. from the beginning to like really scale. and you can get away with a lot. that being said most of the first two. years of instagram was literally just. trying to make that stack scale and it. wasn't it was it was not a python. problem it was like. literally just like where do we put the. data like it's all coming in too fast. like how do we store it how do we make.

sure to be up how do we like. how do we make sure we're on the right. side of boxes that they have enough. memory um those were the issues but can. you speak to the choices you make at. that stage when you're growing so. quickly. do you use something like somebody. else's computer infrastructure or do you. build in-house. i'm only laughing because we when we. launched we had a single. computer that we had rented.

in some colo space in la i don't even. remember what it was called. because i thought that's what you did. when i worked at a company called odio. that became twitter i remember visiting. our space in san francisco you walked in. you had to wear the ear things and it. was. cold and fans everywhere right. and we had to you know plug one out. replace one and i was the intern so i. just like held things. but i thought to myself oh this is how. it goes and then i remember being in a. vc's office. i think it was benchmark's office and i.

think we ran into another entrepreneur. and they were like oh how are things. going we're like uh you know trying to. scale this thing. and they were like well i mean can't you. just add more instances and i was like. what do you mean. and they're like instances on amazon i. was like what are those. and it was this moment where we realized. how deep in it we were because we had no. idea that aw aws existed nor should we. be using it anyway. that night we went back to the office. and we got on aws but we we did this. really dumb thing we're.

i'm so sorry to people listening but um. we brought up an instance which was our. our database it's going to be a. replacement for our database. but we had it talking over the public. internet to our little box in la that. was our app server very nice yeah um. that's how sophisticated we were and. obviously that was very very slow. didn't work at all i mean it worked but. didn't work did we only like later that. night did we realize we had to have it. all together.

but at least like if you're listening. right now and you're thinking you know i. have no chance i'm going to start to. start i have no chance. i don't know we did it and we made a. bunch of really dumb mistakes initially. i think the question is how quickly do. you learn that you're making a mistake. and do you do the right thing. immediately right after so you didn't. pay for those mistakes by you know by. failure so. yeah how quickly did you fix it. i guess there's a lot of ways to sneak. up to this question of how the hell do. you scale the thing. other startups if you have an idea how.

do you scale the thing is this is just. aws. and uh. you try to write the kind of code that's. easy to spread across a large number of. instances and then. the rest is just put money into it. basically i would say a couple things. first off. don't even ask the question just find. product market fit. duct tape it together right like if you. have to i think there's a big caveat. here which i want to get to.

but generally all that matters is. product market fit that's all that. matters if people like your product. do not worry about when 50 000 people. use your product because you will be. happy that you have that problem when. you get there i actually can't name. many. startups. where they go from. nothing to something overnight and they. can't figure out how to scale it there. are some. but i think nowadays it's a when i say a. solved problem like.

there are ways of solving it. the base case is typically that startups. worry way too much about. scaling way too early and forget that. they actually have to make something. that people like that's the that's the. default mistake case. but what i'll say is um. once you start scaling. i mean hiring quickly people who have. seen the game before and just know how. to do it it it becomes um. it becomes a bit of like yeah just throw. instances of the problem right. but the last thing i'll say on this that.

i think did save us um. we were pretty rigorous about writing. tests uh from the beginning. that helped us. move very very quickly when we wanted to. rewrite parts of the product. and know that we weren't breaking. something else. tests are one of those things where it's. like you go slow to go fast. and they suck when you have to write. them because you have to figure it out. and. they're always those ones that break. when you don't want them to break and. they're annoying and it feels like you. spent all this time but.

looking back i think that like long-term. optimal even with the team of four. it allowed us to move very very quickly. because anyone could touch any part of. the the the product and know that they. weren't going to bring down the site or. at least in general at which point do. you know product market fit how many. users would you say what is it all it. takes is like 10 people or is it a. thousand is it 50 000. i don't think it is. generally a question of absolute numbers. i think it's a question of cohorts and i.

think it's a question of trends so. you know it depends how big. your business is trying to be right but. if i were signing up a thousand people a. week and they all retain like the. retention curves for those cohorts. looked good healthy. and even like. as you started getting more people on. the service maybe those earlier cohorts. started curving up again because now. there are network effects and their. friends are on the service or totally. depends what type of business you're in. but i'm talking purely social right.

um. i don't think it's an absolute. number i think it is a i guess you could. call it a marginal number so i spend a. lot of time when i work with startups. asking them like okay have you looked at. that cohort versus this cohort whether. it's your clients or whether it's people. signing up for uh the service. but a lot of people think you just have. to hit some mark like 10 000 people or. 50 000 people. but really. seven-ish billion people in the world.

most people forever will not know about. your product there are always more. people out there to sign up it's just a. question of how you turn on the spigot. so. at that stage early stage. yourself but also by way of advice. should you worry about money at all how. this thing is going to make money or do. you just try to find product market fit. and get a lot of users to enjoy using. your thing. i think it totally depends and that's an.

unsatisfying answer um i was talking. with a friend today. who. he was one of our earlier investors and. he was saying hey like have you been. doing any angel investing lately i said. not really i'm just like focused on what. i want to do next and. he said the number of financings have. just gone bonkers like just bonk. like people are throwing money. everywhere right now um. and. i think the question is.

do you have an inkling of how you're. gonna make money. or are you really just like waving your. hands i would not like to be an. entrepreneur in the position of. well i have no idea how this will. eventually make money that's not fun um. if you are in an area like let's say you. wanted to start a social network right. not saying this is a good idea but if. you did. they're only a handful of ways they've. made money and really only one way. they've made money in the past and. that's ads.

so. you know. if you. have a service that's amenable to that. and. then i wouldn't worry too much about. that because if you get to the scale you. can hire some smart people and figure. that out. i. do think that is really healthy for a. lot of startups these days especially. the ones doing like. enterprise software. slacks of the world etc to be worried. about money from the beginning but. mostly as a way of winning over clients.

and having stickiness um. i think i like of course you need to be. worried about money but i'm going to. also say this again which is. it's like long-term profitability. if you have a roadmap to that then. that's great. but if you're just like i don't know. maybe never like we're working on this. meta first thing i think maybe someday. i don't know like that seems harder to. me um so you have to be as big as. facebook to like finance that bet right. do you think it's possible you said.

you're not saying it's necessarily a. good idea to launch a social network. do you think it's possible. today. maybe you can put yourself in those. shoes. to launch a social network that achieves. the scale of a facebook. or a twitter or an instagram and maybe. even greater scale absolutely. how do you do it. asking for a friend yeah if i knew i i'd. probably be doing it right now and not. sitting here so.

i mean there's a lot of ways to ask this. question one is create a totally new. product market fit create a new market. create something like instagram did. which is like create something kind of. new. or. literally out compete facebook at its. own thing or i'll compete twitter at its. own thing. the only way to compete now if you want. to build a large social network is to. look for the cracks look for the. openings. um. you know. no one competed.

i mean no one competed with the core. business of google no one competed with. the core business of microsoft. you don't go at. the big guys doing exactly what they're. doing. instagram didn't win quote unquote. because it tried to be. a visual twitter like. we spotted things that either twitter. wasn't going to do or refused to do. images and feed for the longest time. right. or that facebook wasn't doing or not. paying attention to because they were. mostly desktop at the time and we were.

purely mobile. purely visual. often there are opportunities sitting. there you just have to you have to. you have to figure out like uh i think. like there's a strategy book i can't. remember the name but talk about moats. and just like the best place to play. is where your competitor like literally. can't pivot because structurally they're. set up not to be there. and that's where you win um. and what's fascinating is like do you.

know how many people are like images. facebook does that twitter does that i. mean how wrong were they really wrong. these are some of the smartest people in. silicon valley right. but now instagram exists for a while. how is it that snapchat could then exist. makes no sense. like plenty of people would say well. there's facebook no images okay okay i. mean instagram i'll give you that one. but wait now another image based social. network's gonna get really big. and then tick tock comes along. like.

the prior so you asked me is it possible. the only answer and reason i'm answering. yes is because. my prior is that it's happened once. every i don't know three four or five. years. consistently and i can't imagine there's. anything structurally that would change. that. so that's why i answer that way not. because i know how i just. when you see a pattern you see a pattern. and there's no reason to believe that's. going to stop and it's subtle too. because like you said snapchat and tick. tock they're all doing the same space of.

things but there's something. fundamentally different about. like a three second video and a five. second video and a 15 second video in a. one minute video and a one hour video. right like fundamentally different. fundamentally different i mean i think. one of the reasons snapchat exists is. because instagram was so focused on. posting great beautiful manicured. versions of yourself throughout time. and there was this enormous demand of. like hey i really like this behavior i.

love using instagram but. man i just like wish i could share. something going on in my day like. do i really have to put it on my profile. do i really have to make it last forever. do i really. um and that opened up a door it created. a market right and then what's. fascinating is. instagram had an explore page for the. longest time it was image driven right. um. but there's absolutely a behavior where. you open up instagram and you sit on the. explore page all day that is effectively. tick tock but obviously focused on.

videos and it's not like you could just. put the explore page in tik tok form and. it works it had to be video it had to. have music. these are the hard parts about product. development that are very hard to. predict. but um. they're all versions of the same thing. with varying. if you line them up in a bunch of. dimensions they're just like. kind of on. they're different values of the same. dimensions which is like i guess easy to. say in retrospect but like if i were an.

entrepreneur going after that area i'd. ask myself like where's the opening. what needs to exist because tiktok. exists now. so i wonder how much. things that don't yet exist and can. exist is in the space of algorithms in. the space of recommender systems. so. in the space of how the feed is. generated so we kind of talk about the. actual elements of the um. the content that's what we've been. talking the difference between photos. between uh short videos longer videos i.

wonder how much disruption is possible. in the way the algorithms work. because a lot of the criticism towards. social media is in the way the. algorithms work currently and it feels. like. first of all talking about. product market fit there's certainly a. hunger. for. um social media. algorithms that do something different i. don't think anyone everyone said. complaining this is not doing this is.

this is hurting me and this is hurting. society but i keep doing it because i'm. addicted to it. and they say we want something different. but we don't know what it feels like a. uh. just different uh it feels like there's. a hunger for that. but that's in the space of algorithms i. wonder if it's possible to disrupt in. that space absolutely. um. i have this thesis that. the worst part about social networks is. that they're uh.

is the people. it's it's. it's a line that sounds funny right. because like that's why you call it a. social network um but what does social. networks actually do for you like just. think you know like. imagine you were an alien and you landed. and someone says hey there's this site. it's a social network we're not going to. tell you what it is but just what does. it do and you have to explain it to them. it does two things one is that. people you know and have social ties. with. uh distribute updates through whether.

it's uh you know photos or videos. about their lives so that you don't have. to physically be with them but you can. keep in touch with them that's one. that's like a big part of instagram. that's a big part of snap. it is not part of tick tock at all so. there's another big part which is. there's all this content out in the. world that's entertaining. whether you want to watch it or you want. to read it. um. and matchmaking between content that. exists in the world and.

uh people that want that content turns. out to be like a really big business. right search and discovery would you. search and discovery but my point is it. could be video it could be text it could. be websites it could be i mean think. back to um. think back to like dig right or stumble. upon or. right. nice. yeah but like what did those do like. they basically distributed interesting. content to you right. um. i think the most interesting part or the.

future of social networks is going to be. making them less social because i think. people are part of the root cause of the. problem so for instance. um often in recommender systems we talk. about two stages there's a candidate. generation step. which is just like of our vast trove of. stuff that you might want to see. what small subset. should we pick for you. okay. typically that is grabbed from things. your friends have shared. right. then there's a ranking step which says.

okay now given these hundred 200 things. depends on the network right let's like. be really good about ranking them and. generally rank the things up higher that. get the most engagement right so what's. the problem with that. step one is we've limited everything you. could possibly see to things that your. friends have chosen to share. or maybe not friends but influencers. what things do people generally want to. share they want to share things that are. going to get likes that are going to. show up broadly. so they tend to be more emotionally.

driven they tend to be more risque or. whatever so why do we have this problem. it's because. we show people things people have. decided to share and those things. self-select to being the things that are. most divisive. so how do you fix that. well. what if you just. imagine for a second that why do you. have to grab things from things your. friends have shared why not just like. grab things. that's really fascinating to me and. that's something i've been thinking a. lot about and just like.

you know why is it that when you log on. to twitter. you're just sitting there looking at. things from accounts that you've. followed for whatever reason. and tick tock i think has done a. wonderful job here which is like you can. literally be anyone. and if you produce something. fascinating it'll go viral. but like. you don't have to be someone that anyone. knows you don't have to have built up a. giant following you don't have to have. paid for followers. you don't have to try to maintain those.

followers you literally just have to. produce something interesting. that is i think the future of social. networking that's the that's the. direction things will head and i think. what you'll find is it's far less about. people manipulating distribution and far. more about what is like is this content. good. and good is obviously a vague definition. that we spend hours on but. different networks i think will decide. different value functions to decide what. is good and what isn't good and i i.

think that's a fascinating direction so. that's almost like creating an internet. i mean that's what google did for web. pages. they did the. you know page rank search. so discovery you don't you don't follow. anybody on google when you use a search. engine you just discover web pages and. so what tick tock does. is saying let's start from scratch. let's like like start a new internet and. have people discover stuff on that new. internet within a particular kind of. pool of people well what's so.

fascinating about this is like the. the um field of information retrieval. like i always talked about and as i was. studying this stuff they would always. use the word query and document so i was. like why are they saying query. undocuments like they're literally. imagine like. if you just stop thinking about query as. like literally a search query and a. query could be a person i mean a lot of. the way. i'm not going to claim to know how. instagram or facebook machine learning. works today. but. you know if you want to find a match for. a query the query is actually the.

attributes of the person. their age their gender where they're. from. maybe some kind of summarization of. their interests and and that's a query. right and that matches against documents. and by the way documents don't have to. be text they can be. videos they're however long i don't know. what the limit is on tick tock these. days they keep changing it my point is. just. you've got a query which is someone in. search of something that they want to. match and you've got the document it. doesn't have to be text it could be. anything and how do you match make and.

that's one of these like i mean i've. spent a lot of time thinking about this. and i don't claim to have mastered it at. all. but i think it's so fascinating about. where that will go with new social. networks see what i'm also fascinated by. is metrics that are different than. engagement. so the other thing from an alien. perspective. what social networks are doing. is they. they in the short term bring out. different aspects of each human being so.

first let me say. that. an algorithm or a social network. for each individual can bring out. the best of that person or the worst of. that person or there's a bunch of. different parts to us parts we're proud. of. that. that we are parts we're not so proud of. when we look at the big picture of our. lives when we look back 30 days from now. am i proud that i said those things or. not am i proud that i felt those things. am i proud that i experienced or read.

those things or thought about those. things just in that kind of. self-reflective kind of way. and so coupled with that i wonder if. it's possible to have different metrics. they're not just about engagement. but are about. long-term happiness. growth of a human being well they look. back and say. i am a better human being for having. spent 100 hours on that app. and. that feels like it's actually strongly. correlated with engagement.

in the long term in the short term it. might not be but in long term it's like. the same kind of thing where you really. fall in love with the product. you fall in love with an iphone you fall. in love with a car. that's what makes you fall in love is. like. really. being proud. and just. in a self-reflective way understanding. that you're a better human being for. having used the thing and that's like. where the f. that's what great relationships are made. from it's not just like you're hot.

and we like being together or something. like that it's more like i'm a better. human being because i'm with you. and that feels like a metric that could. be optimized for by the algorithms. um but you know anytime i kind of talk. about this with anybody they seem to say. yeah okay that's going to get out. competed immediately by the engagement. if it's ad driven especially. i just don't think so. i don't i mean. a lot of is just implementation.

i'll say a couple things one is to. pull back the curtain on daily meetings. inside of these large social media. companies. a lot of what. management or at least the people that. are are tweaking these algorithms spend. their time on our trade-offs. and there's these things called value. functions which are like okay. we can predict the probability that. you'll click on this thing or the. probability that you'll share it or the. probability that you will leave a.

comment on it or the probability. you'll dwell on it. individual actions right. and you've got this neural network that. basically has a bunch of heads at the. end and all of them are between zero and. one and. great they all have values right or. or they all have probabilities. um. and then in these meetings what they. will do is say well uh. how much do we value a comment versus a. click versus a share versus a. and then maybe even some downstream.

thing right that has nothing to do with. the item there but like. driving follows or something. and what typically happens is they will. say well what are our goals for this. quarter at the company oh we want to. drive sharing up okay well let's uh turn. down these metrics and turn up these. metrics. and and they blend them right into a. single scaler with which they're trying. to optimize. that is really hard because invariably. you think you're solving for i don't. know something called meaningful.

interactions right. this was the big facebook pivot and i i. don't actually have any internal. knowledge like i wasn't in those. meetings. but at least from from what we've seen. over the last month or so it seems by. actually trying to trying to optimize. for meaningful interactions it had all. these side effects of optimizing for. these other things. and i don't claim to fully understand. them but what i will say. is that trade-offs abound. and as much as you'd like to solve for.

one thing if you have a network of over. a billion people. you're gonna have unintended. consequences either way and it gets. really hard. so what you're describing is effectively. a value model that says like can we. capture this is the thing that i spent a. lot of time thinking about like can you. capture. utility. in a way that like actually measures. someone's happiness. that isn't just a um. what do they call it a surrogate problem. where you say well i kind of think like. the more you use the product.

the happier you are that was always the. argument at facebook by the way it was. like well. people use it more so they must be more. happy yeah turns out they're like a lot. of things you use more that make you. less happy in the world not talking. about facebook just you know let's think. about. whether it's gambling or whatever like. that you can do more of but doesn't. necessarily make you happier so the idea. that time equals happiness obviously. you can't map utility and time together. easily there are a lot of edge cases. so when you look around the world and.

you say well what are all the ways we. can model utility that is like one of. the. please if you know someone smart doing. this introduce me because i'm fascinated. by it and it seems really tough. but the idea that reinforcement learning. like everyone interesting i know in. machine learning like i was really. interested in recommender systems and. supervised learning and. and the more i dug into it i was like oh. literally everyone smart is working on. reinforcement learning. like literally everyone you just made. people at open ai and deep mind very. happy yes but i mean but what's.

interesting is like it's one thing to. train a game and like. i mean that paper that where they just. took atari and they used a convnet to. basically just like train simple actions. mind-blowing right absolutely. mind-blowing but it's a game great. so now what if you're constructing. a feed for a person right. like. how can you. construct that feed in such a way. that optimizes for a diversity of.

experience a. a long term happiness right. but that reward function it turns out in. reinforcement learning again. as i've learned. like reward design is really hard. and. i don't know like how do you design a. scalar reward for someone's happiness. over time i mean do you have to measure. dopamine levels like do you have to well. you have to have a lot of. a lot more signals from the human being. currently it feels like there's not.

enough signals coming from the human. being users of uh. of this algorithm so for reinforcement. learning to work well. it needs to have a lot more data. needs to have a lot of data and that. actually is a challenge for anyone who. wants to start something which is you. don't have a lot of data so how do you. compete but i do think back to your. original point rethinking the algorithm. rethinking reward functions rethinking. utility. that's fascinating that's cool and i. think that's an open opportunity for.

for a company that figures it out. i have to ask about april 2012. when instagram. along with its massive. employee base of 13 people was sold to. facebook for 1 billion dollars. what was the process like on a business. level engineering level human level what. was that process of selling to facebook. like what did it feel like. so i want to provide some context which. is i worked in corporate development at. google.

which not a lot of people know but. corporate development is effectively the. group that buys companies right you sit. there and you acquire companies and i. had sat through so many of these. meetings with entrepreneurs we actually. fun fact we never acquired a single. company when i worked in corporate. development so i can't claim that. um i had like a lot of experience. but i had enough experience to. understand okay like what prices are. people getting and what's the process. and. and as we started to grow.

you know. we were trying to keep this thing. running and we were exhausted and we. were 13 people and i mean we were trying. to think back he was probably 27. 37 now um. so. young. and on a relative basis right and uh. we're trying to keep the thing running. and then you know we go out to raise. money and. we're kind of like the hot startup at. the time. and i remember going into a specific vc. and saying our terms we're looking for.

are we're looking for a 500 million. valuation. and i've never seen so many jaws drop. all in unison right. and i was like thanked and walked out. the door very kindly after. um and then i got a call the next day uh. from someone who was connected to them. and said they said. we just want to let you know that like. uh it was pretty offensive that you. asked for a 500 billion dollar. evaluation and i i can't tell if that. was um. like just negotiating or what but it's.

true like no one offered us more right. so we were so can you clarify the the. number again you said how many million. 500 500 million 500 million yeah half a. billion yeah um. so in my mind i'm anchored like okay. well literally no one's biting at 500. million and eventually we would get. sequoia and greylock and others together. at 500 million basically uh post uh it. was 450 pre i think we raised 50 million. dollars but just like no one was used to. seeing 500 million dollar.

companies then like i don't know if it. was because we were just coming out of. the hangover 2008 and things were still. on recovery. mode. but then along comes facebook and. after some negotiation. we've 2xed the number from a half a. billion to a billion. yeah it seems pretty good. you know. and uh i think mark and i really saw eye. to eye that this thing could be big um.

we thought we could. their resources would help us scale it. and in a lot of ways it de-risks. i mean it degrees a lot of the employees. lives for the rest of their lives. including me including mike right. um i think i might have had like 10. grand in my bank account at the time. right like. we're working hard we had nothing um. so on a relative basis it seemed. very high and then i think the last. company to exit for anywhere close to a. billion was youtube that i could think. of. and uh and thus began the giant long.

bull run of 2012 to all the way all the. way to where we are now where um i saw. some stat yesterday about like how many. unicorns exist and it's absurd. but then again never underestimate. technology and like the value. it can provide and man costs have. dropped and man scale has increased and. you can make businesses make a lot of. money now but on a on a fundamental. level. i don't know like how do you describe. the decision to sell a company with 13.

people for a billion dollars so first of. all like how. did it take a lot of guts to set a table. and say 500 million or 1 billion with. mark zuckerberg. it seems like a very large number with. 13. like especially like it doesn't seem. it is it is they're all larger. especially like you said before. the unicorn. parade. i like that i'm going to use that. unicorn. yeah the uh the the you are at the head.

of the unicorn parade it's the uh yeah. it's a massive unicorn parade um okay so. no i mean we knew we were worth. quote-unquote a lot but we didn't i mean. there was no market for instagram i mean. it's not you could mark you couldn't. mark to market this thing in the public. markets you didn't quite understand what. it would be worth or it was worth at the. time. so in a market an illiquid market where. you have one buyer and one seller and. you're going back and forth and. well i guess there were.

like vc firms who are willing to. you know invest at a certain valuation. so. i don't know you just go with your gut. and uh and at the end of the day i would. say um. the hardest part. of it was not realizing uh. like when we sold it was tough because. like literally everywhere i go. restaurants whatever like. for a good six months after there was a. lot of attention on the deal a lot of.

attention on the product a lot of. attention it was kind of miserable right. and you're like wait like i made a lot. of money but like why is this not great. and it's because it turns out you know. and i don't i don't know like i don't. really keep in touch with mark but i've. got to assume his job right now is not. exactly the most happy job in the world. it's really tough when you're on top and. it's really tough when you're in the. limelight. so the decision itself was like oh cool. this is great how lucky are we right so. okay there's a million questions yeah go.

first of all first of all. why. why is it hard to be on top why did you. not feel good. like can you dig into that it always um. i've heard like olympic athletes say. after what they win gold they they get. depressed. is it something like that where. it feels like. it was kind of like a thing you were. working towards yeah some some loose. definition of success and this sure. psych feels like.

uh at least according to other startups. this is what success looks like and now. why don't i feel any. better i'm still human i still have all. the same problems is that the nature or. is it just like negative attention or. some kind what i think it's all of the. above um but to be clear there was a lot. of happiness in terms of like oh my god. this is great like we. like won the super bowl of startups. right um anyone who. can get to a liquidity event of anything. meaningful feels like wow this is what.

we started out to do of course we want. to create great things that people love. but. um. like we won in a big way but yeah. there's this big like oh if we won what. is like what's next i don't so. they call it the we have arrived. syndrome. um. which i i need to go back and look where. i can quote that from but i remember. reading about it at the time i was like. oh yeah that's that. i remember we had a product manager. leave very early on when we got to. facebook and he said to me um i just.

don't believe i can learn anything at. this company anymore it's like it's hit. its. apex we sold it great i just don't have. anything else to learn. so from 2012 all the way to the day i. left in 2018 like the amount i learned. and the humility with which i realized. oh we thought we won. billion dollars is cool but like there. are a hundred billion dollar companies. and by the way on top of that. we had no revenue we had i mean we had a.

cool product but we didn't scale it yet. and. there's so much to learn and then. competitors and how fun was it to fight. snapchat oh my god like it was. it's like yankees red sox it's great. like that's what you live for um. you know you win some you lose some but. uh the amount you can learn through that. process uh. what i've realized. in life is that there is no end there's. always someone who has more there's. always more challenge just at different.

scales and uh it sounds like a little. buddhist but um. everything is super challenging whether. you're like a small business or an. enormous business. i say like choose the game you like to. play right you've got to imagine that if. you're an amazing basketball player you. enjoy to some extent practicing. basketball it's got to be something you. love it's going to suck it's going to be. hard. you're going to have injuries right but. you got to love it and the same thing. with instagram which is.

um. we might have sold but it was like great. there's one super bowl title can we win. five what else can we do. now i imagine you didn't ask this but. okay so i left. there's a little bit of like what do you. do next right like what do you how do. you top that thing it's the wrong. question. the question is like when you wake up. every day. what is the hardest most interesting. thing you can go work on. because like at the end of the day we. all turn into dirt doesn't matter right.

but what does matter is like can we. really enjoy this life not in a. hedonistic way because that's those. it's like the reinforcement learning. learning like short term versus. long-term objectives. can you wake up every day and truly. enjoy what you're doing. um. knowing that it's going to be painful. knowing that like no matter what you. choose it's going to be painful um. whether you sit on a beach or whether. you manage a thousand people or ten. thousand it's gonna be painful so choose.

something that's fun. to have pain. um but yes there was uh there was a lot. of we have arrived and um. it's a maturation process you just have. to go through so no matter how much. success is there is how much money you. make you have to wake up the next day. and choose the hard life whatever that. means next that's fun the fun slash hard. life. hard life that's fun i guess. what i'm trying to say is slightly. different which is just that no one.

realizes. everything's gonna be hard. even chilling out. is hard and then you just start worrying. about stupid stuff like i don't know. like. did so and so forget to paint the house. today or like did the gardener come or. whatever like yeah or oh i'm so angry. and my shipment of wine didn't show up. and i'm sitting here on the beach. without my wine i don't know i'm making. shit up now but like it turns out that. even chilling aka meditation is hard. work yeah i and at least meditation is. like productive chilling where you're.

like actually training yourself to calm. down and be but. backing up for a moment everything's. hard you might as well be like. playing in the game you love to play i. just like playing and winning and. and i'm i'm on the on the i'm still on. the i think the first half of life knock. on wood um. and i've got a lot of years what am i. going to do sit around and the other way. of looking at this by the way. um. imagine you made one movie it was great.

would you just like stop making movies. no generally you're like wow i really. like making movies let's make another. one a lot of times by the way the second. one or the third one not that great but. the fourth one awesome. and no one forgets the sec everyone. forgets the second and the third one so. there's just this constant process of. like can i produce. and is that fun is that exciting what. else can i learn so this machine. learning stuff for me has been this. awesome new chapter. of being like.

man that's something i didn't understand. at all and now i feel like i'm one-tenth. of the way there. and that feels like a big mountain to. climb uh. so i distracted us from the original. question no. return to machine learning because i'd. love to explore your interest there but. i mean speaking of sort of challenges. and hard things is there a possible. world. where sitting in a room with mark. zuckerberg. with a one billion dollar deal. you turn it down yeah of course.

what does that world. look like why would you turn it down why. did you take it what was the calculation. that you were making ah thus enters the. world of. counterfactuals and not really knowing. and if only we could run that experiment. well the universe exists it's just. running in parallel to our own yeah. it's so fascinating right um. i mean we're talking a lot about money. but the real question was. um. i'm not sure you'll believe me when i.

say this but. could we strap our little company onto. the side of a rocket ship. and like get out to a lot of people. really really quickly with the support. with the. the talent. of a place like facebook i mean people. often ask me what i would do differently. um at instagram today and i say well i. probably hire more carefully because we. showed up. just like before i knew it we had like. 100 people on the team and 200 and 300 i. don't know where all these people were. coming from i never had to recruit them.

i never had to screen them they were. just like internal transfers right. so it's like relying on the facebook. hiring machine which is quite sort of. i mean it's an elaborate machine it's. and it's great by the way they have. really talented people there. but my point is um. the choice was like take this thing put. it on the side of a rocket ship that you. know is growing very quickly. like i had seen what had happened when. ev sold blogger to google and then. google went public remember we sold.

before facebook went public. there was a moment at which the stock. price was 17 by the way the facebook. stock price was 17 i remember thinking. what the f did i just do right. uh now at. 320-ish i don't know where we are today. but like. okay like. the best thing by the way is like. when the stock is down everyone calls. you dope and then when it's up they also. call you a dope but just for a different. reason.

right like you can't win lesson in there. somewhere yeah so but you know the. choice is to stripe yourself to a rocket. ship or to build your own you know mr. elon built his own. literally with the rocket ship. that's a difficult choice because um. there's a world. actually i would say something different. which is elon and others decided to sell. paypal. for. not that much i mean how much was it. about a billion dollars i can't remember. something like that yeah i mean it was. early and um but it's worth a lot more.

an hour and then build a new rocket ship. so this is the cool part right if you. are. an entrepreneur and you own a. controlling stake in the company. not only is it really hard to do. something else with your life because. all of the. you know value is tied up in you as a. personality attached to this company. right. but if you sell it and you get yourself. enough capital and you like have enough. energy. you could do another thing or 10 other. things or in elon's case like a bunch of. other things i don't know like i lost.

count at this point um. and it might have seemed silly at the. time and sure like if you look back man. paypal's worth a lot now right. but i don't know like do you think elon. like cares about like are we gonna buy. pinterest or not like i just he is. he created a a a massive capital that. allowed him to do what he wants to do. and that's awesome that's more freeing. than anything because when you are an. entrepreneur attached to a company you. gotta stay at that company for a really. long time it's really hard to remove.

yourself but i'm not sure how much he. loved paypal versus spacex and tesla. i have a sense that you love. instagram. yeah i loved enough to like. work for six years beyond that which is. rare which is very rare you chose but. can i tell you why sure it's um. please. there are not a lot of companies that. you can be part of where. the pope's like i would like to sign up. for your product like i'm not a. religious person at all.

i'm really not um yeah but when you go. to the vatican and you're like walking. among the giant columns and you're. hearing the music and everything and. like. the pope walks in and he wants to press. the sign up button on your product like. it's a moment in life okay um no matter. what your persuasion okay. the number of doors and experiences that. that opened up was it was incredible i. mean the people i got to meet the places. i got to go. um i assume maybe like a payments. company is slightly different right.

but that's why like it was so fun and. plus i truly believed we were building. such a great product and i loved loved. the game it wasn't about the money it. was about the game. do you think do you think you had the. guts to say no. is that so his i often think about this. like. how hard is it for entrepreneur to say. no because. the peer pressure so every like. basically the sea of entrepreneurs in. silicon valley are going to tell you. this is their dream.

the the the thing you were sitting. before was is a dream to walk away from. that is really. it seems like nearly impossible. because instagram. could in 10 years. be you know you could talk about google. you could be making self-driving cars. and building rockets that go to mars and. compete with spacex totally and so. that's an interesting decision to say. am i willing.

to risk it and the reason i also say. it's an interesting decision because. it feels like per previous discussion if. you're launching a social. uh social network company. there's there's going to be that meeting. whatever that number is if you're. successful if if you're on this rocket. ship of success there's going to be a. meeting. with one of the social media. social network companies. that want to buy you. uh whether it's facebook or twitter but. it could also very well be google who.

seems to. have like a graveyard of failed social. networks. and it's. i mean i don't know i i i think about. that how difficult it is for the. entrepreneur to make that decision. how many have successfully made that. decision i guess this is a big question. it's sad to me to be honest that too. many make that decision perhaps for the. wrong reason to to so when you say make. the decision you mean to the affirmative. affirmative you got it yeah there are. also companies that don't sell right and.

take the path and say we're going to be. independent and then you've never heard. of them again. like i remember uh path right was one of. our competitors early on. uh there's a big moment when they had i. can't remember what it was like 110. million offer from google or something. it might have been larger i don't know. um. and i remember there was like this big. techcrunch article that was like they. turned it down after talking deeply. about their values and everything and.

i don't i don't know the inner workings. of foursquare but like i'm certain there. were many conversations over time where. there were companies that wanted. foursquare as well um recently. like i mean what other companies. there's clubhouse right like i don't. know maybe people were really interested. in them too. like. there are plenty of moments. where people say no. and we just forget that those things. happen we only focus on the ones where.

like. uh uh they said yes and like wow like. what if they had stayed independent so i. don't know i like i used to think a lot. about this and now i just don't because. i'm like whatever i you know like things. have gone pretty well yeah. i'm ready for the next game i mean think. about um an athlete. where. i don't know maybe they they they do. something wrong in the world series or. whatever and like if you let it haunt. you for the rest of your career like. why not just be like i don't know it was. a game next game next shot right and if.

if you just move to that world like at. least i have a next shot right no that's. that's beautiful but i mean just in. insights uh and it's funny you brought. up clubhouse it is very true it seems. like clubhouse is uh. you know. on the downward path and it's very. possible to see. a billion plus dollar deal at some stage. maybe like a year ago or half a year ago. from facebook from google i think. facebook was flirting with that idea too.

and i think a lot of companies probably. were. i wish it was more public. you know what there's not like a badass. public story about them making the. decision to walk away we just don't hear. about it and then we get to see the the. results of that success or the failure. more often failure. so a couple things one is i would not. assume clubhouse is down for the count. at all they're young they have plenty of. money they're run by really smart people. i'd give them like a very fighting.

chance to figure it out there are a lot. of times when people call twitter down. for the count and they figure it out and. they seem to be doing well right yeah um. so just backing up like and not knowing. anything about their internals like. there's a strong chance they will figure. it out and that people are just down. because they like being down about. companies they like assuming that. they're going to fail so who knows right. but let's take the ones in the past. where like we know how it played out. there are plenty of examples where. people have turned down big offers and. then you've just never heard from them.

again but we never focus on the. companies because you just forget that. those were big but inside your psyche. i think they're um. it's easy for someone with enough money. to say money doesn't matter which i. think is like it's bullshit of course. money matters to people um. but at the moment you just can't even. grasp like the number of zeros that. you're talking about it just doesn't. make sense. right. so to think rationally in that moment is. not something many people are equipped.

to do especially not people where i. think we had founded the company a year. earlier maybe two years earlier like a. year and a half we were 13 people. but um i will say. i still don't know if it was the right. decision because i don't have that. counterfactual i don't know that other. world. i'm just thankful that. by and large most people love instagram. still do. by and large people are very happy with. like the time we had there. um and i'm proud of what we built so. like.

i'm cool like we're you know now now. it's it's next shot right. well if we could just linger on this. yankees versus red sox the fun of it the. competition over i would say over the. space of features. so um. there are a bunch of features. like there's. photos. there's one minute videos on instagram. there's igtv there's stories there's. reels there's live. so that sounds like it's like a long.

list of too much stuff but it's it's not. because it feels like they're. they're close together but they're. somehow like what we're saying. fundamentally distinct like each of the. things i mentioned. maybe can you describe the philosophies. the design philosophies behind some of. these how you were thinking about it. during the uh. the historic war between snapchat and. instagram or just in general like. this space of features that was. discovered there's this um.

great book by clay christensen called. competing against luck it's like a. terrible uh title. but within it there's uh effectively an. expression of this thing called jobs to. be done theory. and it's unclear if like he came up with. it or some of his colleagues but. everyone there are a bunch of places you. can find with people claiming to have. come up with this jobs to be done theory. but the idea is if you if you like. zoom out and you look at your product.

you ask yourself why are people hiring. your product. like imagine every product in your life. is effectively an employee. you know your ceo of your life and you. hire products to be employees. effectively they all have roles and jobs. right. why are you hiring a product why do you. want that product to perform something. in your life and what like what are the. hidden reasons why uh you're you're in. love with this product. instagram was about sharing your life. with others visually period right.

why because you feel connected with them. you get to show off. you get to feel good and and cared about. right with likes and. um and it turns out that. that will i think forever define. instagram and any product that serves. that job is going to do very well. okay. stories let's take it as an example. is very much serving that job in fact it. serves it better than the original.

product because when you're large and. have an enormous audience. you're worried about people seeing your. stuff or you're worried about being. permanent so that a college admissions. person is going to see your photo of you. doing something and. so it turns out that that is a more. efficient way of performing that job. than the original product was the. original product still has its value. but at scale these two things together. work really really well. now. i will claim that other parts of the. product over time.

didn't perform that job as well i think. igtv probably didn't right. shopping is like completely unrelated to. what i just described but it might work. i don't know right um. products i think. products that succeed. are products that all share this parent. node. of like this job to be done that is in. common and then they're just like. different ways of doing it right. apple i think does a great job with this. right it's like managing your digital. life and all the products just work.

together they sink they like it's. beautiful right. even if they require like silly specific. cords to work. but they're all part of a system. it's when you leave that system and you. start doing something weird that people. start scratching their head. and i think you are less successful so i. think one of the challenges facebook has. had throughout its life. is that it has never fully i think. appreciated the job to be done of the. main product and what it's done is said. oh there's a shiny object over there.

that starts getting some traction let's. go copy that thing and then they're. confused why it doesn't work like why. doesn't it work it's because the people. who show up for this don't want that. it's different what's the purpose of. facebook i remember i was a very early. facebook user i was the reason i was. personally excited about facebook. is um. because you can first of all use your. real name. like i i can exist in this world it can. be like. formally exist there's i i like.

anonymity for certain things reddit and. so on but i want it to also exist. uh. not anonymously so that that can connect. with other friends of mine. not anonymously and there's a reliable. way to know. that i'm real and they're real and that. we're connecting and though it's kind of. like um i liked it for the for the. reasons that people like linkedin i. guess. but like without the form like not. everybody is dressed up and being super.

polite like more like with friends. but then it became something much bigger. than that i suppose there's a feed it. it became this um. i mean it became a place to. get. discover content. to share content that's not just about. connecting directly with friends i mean. it becomes something else i don't even. know what it is really so you said. instagram is a place where you visually. share your.

life. what is facebook. well let's go back to the founding of. facebook and why it worked really well. initially at harvard and then dartmouth. and stanford and i can't remember. probably mit there were like a handful. of schools in that first tranche right. um. it worked because there are communities. that exist in the world. that want to transact and when i say. transact i don't mean commercially i. just mean. they want to share they want to. coordinate they want to communicate they. want a space for themselves.

and facebook at its best i think. is that and if actually you look at the. most popular products that facebook has. built over time. if you look at things that like groups. marketplace groups is enormous yeah and. groups is effectively like everyone can. found their own little stanford or. dartmouth or mit right and and find each. other and and. and share and communicate about. something that matters deeply to them.

that is the core of what facebook was. built around and i think today. is where it stands most uh most strongly. yeah it's brilliant the groups i wish um. i wish groups were done better it feels. like it's not a first-class citizen i. know. i may be saying something without much. knowledge but. it feels like it's uh it's kind of. bolted on. while being used a lot it feels like. there needs to be a little bit more. structure in terms of discovery.

in terms of. yeah like i mean look at reddit like red. is basically groups yeah public and open. and a little bit a little bit crazy. right in a good way yeah um but there's. clear product market fit for that. specific use case and it doesn't have to. be a college it can be anything it can. be a small group big group it can be. group messaging. facebook shines i think when it leans. into that i think when there are other. companies. that just seem exciting and now all of a. sudden the product shifts in some.

fundamental way to go. try to compete with that other thing. that's when i think consumers get. confused. um even if you can be successful like. even if you can compete with that other. company even if you can. figure out how to bolt it on eventually. you come back and you look at the app. and you're like i just don't know why i. opened this app like why like too many. things going on and that was always a. worry i mean you listed all the things. at instagram and it almost gave me a. heart attack like. way too many things but i don't know.

entrepreneurs get bored they want to add. things they want to like right um. i don't have a good answer for it except. for that um. i think being true to your original use. case and not even original use case but. sorry actually not use case original job. there are many use cases under that job. being true to that and like being really. good at it over time and and morphing as. as needs change. i think that's how to make a company. last forever and.

i mean honestly i like. my main thesis about why facebook is in. the position it is today. is. if if they have had a series of product. launches that delighted people over time. i think they'd be in a totally different. world so just like imagine for a moment. and by the way apple's entering this but. like. apple for so long just like product. after product you couldn't wait for it. you stood in line for it you talked. about it you got excited. amazon makes your life so easy it's like.

wow. i needed this thing and it showed up at. my door two days later and like. both of these companies by the way. amazon apple have issues right there are. labor issues. whether it's here in the us or in china. there are environmental issues there are. but like when's the last time you heard. like a large chorus being like. these companies better pay for what. they're doing on these things right. i think facebook's main issue today is. like i. you need to produce a hit if you don't.

produce hits. it's really hard to keep consumers on. your side then people just start picking. on you and for a variety of reasons. whether it's right or wrong i'm not even. going to place a judgment right here. right now i'm just going to say that. it is way better to be in a world where. you are producing hits and consumers. love what you're doing. because then they're on your side and i. i think that's it's. the past 10 years for facebook has been. fairly hard on this dimension so and by.

hits it doesn't necessarily mean. financial hits it feels like to me what. you're saying is something that brings a. joy yeah a product that brings joy to. some fraction of the population yeah i. mean. tick tock isn't just literally an. algorithm. in some ways tick tock's content uh and. algorithm have more sway now over the. american psyche than facebook's. algorithm right it's visual it's video. by the way it's not defined by who you. follow it's defined by some magical.

thing that by the way if someone wanted. to tweak to show you a certain type of. content for some reason they could right. um. but people love it. so as a ceo let me ask you a question. because leadership matters. it's a complicated question. why is mark zuckerberg distrusted. disliked and sometimes even hated by. many people in public. right that is a complicated question um.

well the premise. i'm not sure i agree with the premise um. and i can i can expand that to include. even a more mysterious question for me. bill gates hmm. what is the bill gates version of the. question. do you think people hate bill gates. no distrust ah. so uh take away one it's a checklist uh. there's. i think mark zuckerberg's distrust is.

the primary one but there's also like a. like a dislike maybe hate is too strong. award but just if you look at like. the articles that are being written and. so on. there's a dislike and it makes it's. confusing to me because it's like the. public picks certain individuals and. they. and they attach certain kinds of. emotions to those individuals yeah so. someone once uh. just recently said. there's a strong case that founder-led. companies have this problem and that a.

lot of mark's issues um come today come. from the fact that he is a visible. founder with this. story. that people have watched in both a movie. and they followed along and he's this. boy wonder kid who became one of the. world's richest people and. and he's no longer mark the person he's. marked this this image of of a person. with enormous wealth and power. and in today's world we we have issues. with enormous wealth and power for a.

variety of reasons one of which is we've. been stuck inside. you know for a year and a half two years. uh one of which is a lot of people were. really unhappy about not the last. election but the last last election. and where do you take out that anger who. do you blame but the people in charge. that's one example or one reason why i. think. um a lot of people. uh express anger or resentment or. unhappiness with. with mark at the same time.

i don't know i pointed out to that. person i was like well i don't know like. i think a lot of people really like elon. like. ilana arguably like he kept his you know. factory open here throughout covet. protocols which arguably a lot of people. would be against um. while saying a bunch of uh. crazy offensive things on the internet. they still like basically you know. gives the middle finger to the sec like. on twitter and like. i don't know i'm like well there's a. founder and like people kind of like him.

i so i do think that. the so like the the founder and slash. ceo of a company that's a social network. company is like an extra level of. difficulty if if life is a video game. you just chose the harder video game. so i mean that's why it's interesting to. ask you because you were the. founder and the ceo oh yeah of a social. network right challenge because exactly. so but you're one of the rare.

even jack dorsey's disliked. not to the degree but it just seems. harder when you're running a social. media company it's interesting i i never. thought of jack as just like i think. generally he's well respected um. yeah i think so i i think you're right. but like he's. but he's not loved. yeah. and i feel like you i mean to me twitter. is an incredible thing yeah. again can i just come back to this point. which seems over simplistic but like i.

really do think. how a product makes someone feel yeah. they ascribe that feeling to the founder. yep. uh. so so make people feel good so think. about it like let's just go with this. thesis for a second sure i like it. though um. amazon's pretty utilitarian right it. delivers brown boxes to your front door. sure you can have alexa and you can have. all these things right. but in general it delivers stuff quickly. to you at a reasonable price right.

i think jeff bezos is wonderfully. wealthy thoughtful smart guy right but. like people kind of feel that way about. them they're like wow this is really big. we're impressed that this is really big. and. but they he's doing the same space stuff. elon's doing but they don't necessarily. describe the same sense of wonder right. um now let's take elon uh and again this. is pet theory i don't have much proof. other than my own intuition um. he is literally about living the future. mars space it's about wonder it's about.

going back to that feeling as a kid when. you looked up to the stars and asked is. there life out there people get behind. that because it's a sense of hope and. excitement and and innovation and like. you can say whatever you want but we. ascribe that emotion to that person. now let's say you're on a social network. and people make you kind of angry. because they disagree with you or they. say something ridiculous or they're. living. a fomo type life where you're like wow i. wish i was doing that thing.

i think instagram if i were to think. back by and large when i was there was. not about fomo was not about this. influence or economy although it. certainly became that way closer to the. end. it was about the sense of wonder and. happiness and beautiful things in the. world and. i don't know i mean like i don't want to. have a blind spot but i don't think. anyone had a strong opinion about one. way or the other for the longest time. the way people explain to me i mean if. you want to go for toxicity you go to. facebook or twitter if you want to go to.

make feel good about life you go to. instagram to enjoy celebrate life though. and my experience when talking to people. is they gave me the benefit of the doubt. because that but if your experience of. the product is kind of makes you angry. it's where you argue. i mean a big part of jack might be that. he wasn't actually the ceo for a very. long time and only became recently so. i'm not sure how much of the connection. got made. um. but in general i mean if you hate you. know. i'm just thinking about other companies. that aren't tech companies if you hate.

like what a company is doing or it makes. you not feel happy. i don't know like people are really. angry about comcast or whatever are they. even called comcast anymore it's like. xfinity or something right they had to. rebrand they they became meta right um. it's like uh but my point is if it makes. you that's beautiful yeah. but the thing is. this is me saying this i think your. thesis is very. strong and correct. has elements of correctness but i still.

personally. put some blame on individuals of course. i think uh. you said. elon looking up there's something about. childlike wander to him. like to to his personality his character. something about. i think more so than others where people. can trust them and there's uh i don't. know santa pachai is an example of. somebody who's like. there's some kind. it's it's hard to put into words but. there's something about the human being.

where he's trustworthy yeah he's he's. human. in a way that uh connects to us and the. same with uh. sadji nadella i mean some of these folks. um something about. us is drawn to them even when they're. flawed even like um so like your thesis. really holds up for steve jobs because i. think people didn't like steve jobs but. like he delivered products. that and then they fell in love every. time.

i guess you could say that the ceo the. leader is also a product. and if they keep delivering a product. that people like. by being in public and saying things. that people like that's also a way to. make people happy. but from a social network perspective it. makes me. wonder how difficult it is. to explain to people why certain things. happen like how to explain machine. learning to explain why. certain. uh. the.

the woke mob effect happens or the. certain kinds of like bullying happens. which is like. it's human nature combined with. algorithm and it's very difficult to. control for how the spread of. quote-unquote misinformation happens. it's very difficult to control for that. and to you so you try to decelerate. certain parts and you create more. problems then you solve and anything. that looks at all like censorship can. create huge amounts of problems that's. the slippery slope and then you have to. inject humans to oversee the machine.

learning algorithms and anytime you. inject humans into the system it's gonna. create a huge number of problems and i. feel like it's up to the leader to. communicate that effectively to be. transparent. uh first of all design products that. don't have those problems and second of. all when they have those problems to be. able to communicate with them i guess. that's all going to. when you run a social network company. your job is hard. yeah. i will say the one element that you. haven't named that i think you're. getting at is just bedside manner.

which steve jobs. i never worked for him i never met him. in person um. had an enor like. an uncanny ability in public to have. bedside manner i mean some of the best. clips of steve jobs. are from like i would say. maybe the 80s when he's on these stage. and getting questions from the audience. about life or. and he'll take this question that is. like how are you going to compete with. blah and it's super boring and i don't. even know the name of the coming and his.

answer is is if you just asked like your. grandfather the meaning of life yeah. yeah and you sit there and you're just. like what like yeah and there's that. bedside manner um. and if you lack that or if that's just. not intuitive to you. uh i think that. it can be a lot harder to gain the trust. of people and then add on top of that. missteps of companies right. it's i don't know if you have any. friends from the past where like maybe.

they crossed you once or like. maybe you get back together and you're. friends again but you just never really. forget that thing it's human nature not. to forget i'm russian you cost me one. we solve the problem. so my point is. it there's. humans don't forget and if there are. times in the past where they feel like. they don't trust the company or the. company hasn't had their back. that is really hard to earn back. especially if you don't have that. bedside manner um and again like i'm not.

attributing this specifically to mark. because i think a lot of companies. have this issue where. one you have to be trustworthy as a. company and live by it and live by those. actions and then two i think you need to. be able to be really relatable in a way. that's very difficult if you're worth. like what these people are it's really. hard. yeah. jack does a pretty good job of this. by being a monk but i also like jack. issues attention like he's not out there.

almost on purpose he's just working hard. doing square right like. i literally shared a desk like this with. him at audio i mean just normal guy who. likes painting i like i remember he. would leave early on like wednesdays or. something to go to like a painting class. yeah and he's creative he's thoughtful i. mean. money makes people like more creative. and more thoughtful like extreme. versions of themselves right um and this. was a long long time ago. uh you mentioned that he uh he asked you.

to do some kind of javascript thing. we were working on some javascript. together i like that's hilarious like. pre-twitter early twitter days you and. jack dorsey are in a room together. talking about javascript solving some. kind of menial problem terrible problems. yeah i mean not terrible just like. boring boring widget probably i think it. was the odo widget we were working on at. the time. i'm surprised anyone paid me to be in. the room as an intern because i didn't. really provide any value i'm very. thankful. to anyone who included me back in the.

day uh it was very helpful so thank you. for listening i mean is there uh. odia that's a precursor to twitter. first of all did you have any. anticipation that this jack dorsey guy. could be. also a head of a major social network. and um second did you learn anything. from the guy that like did do do you. think it's a coincidence that you two. were in the room together. and it's. the coincidence meaning like. why does the world play its game in a.

certain way were these two founders of. social networks i don't know it's so. weird right like i i mean it's also. weird that. mark showed up. you know in our fraternity my sophomore. year and. we got to know each other then like long. before instagram it's. it's a small world but. let me tell a fun story about jack um. we're at odio and i don't know i think. ev was feeling like people weren't. working hard enough or something.

nice and. i can't remember exactly what he he. created this thing where every friday. i don't know if it was every friday i. only remember this happening once. but he had us like a statuette it's like. of mary and in the bottom it's it's. hollow right and. i remember on a friday he decided. decided he was going to let everyone. vote for who had worked the hardest that. week. we all voted closed ballot right we all.

put in a bucket and he tallied the votes. and then whoever got the most votes as i. recall got the statuette. and in the statue it was a thousand. bucks whereas i recall there was a. thousand bucks tonight it might have. been a hundred bucks but let's call it a. thousand it's more exciting that way it. felt like a thousand yeah it did to me. for sure i actually got two votes i was. very happy we were a small company but i. as the intern i got at least two votes. so everybody knew how many votes they. got individually yeah yeah i think it. was one of these self-accountability. things anyway i remember jack just.

getting like the vast majority of votes. from everyone. and i remember just thinking like. like i couldn't imagine he would become. what he'd become and do what he would do. but i had a profound respect that. the new guy. who i really liked. worked that hard and you could see his. dedication even then and that people. respected him. that's the one story that i remember of. him like working with him specifically. from that summer can take a small. tangent on that of course there's kind.

of a push back in silicon valley a. little bit against hard work. can you speak to the sort of. the thing you admire to see the new guy. working so hard that thing. what is the value of that thing in a. company see this is i like just to be. very frank it drives me nuts like. i saw this really funny video on tick. tock was it on tick tock it was like i'm. taking a break from my mental health to. work on my career i thought that was. funny. um. [Laughter]. yeah so it's like oh it is kind of.

phrased that way the opposite often. right yeah um okay so a couple things. uh. i uh. i have worked so hard. to do the things that i did like. mike and i lost years off of our lives. staying up late figuring things out. the stress that comes with the job i. have a lot more gray hair now than i did. back then. it requires an enormous amount of work. and most people aren't successful right. but even the ones that do don't skate by.

um. i am okay if people choose not to work. hard because i don't actually think. there's anything in this world that says. you have to work hard um. but i do think that great things require. a lot of hard work so there's no way you. can expect to change the world without. working really hard and by the way. even changing the world. you know the folks that i respect the. most have nudged the world in like a. slight direction. slight. very very slight.

like. even if elon accomplishes all the things. he wants to accomplish we will have uh. have nudged the world in a slight. direction but it requires enormous. amount there was an interview with him. where he was just like. he was interviewed i think at the tesla. factory and he was like. work is really hard this is actually. unhealthy. and i can't recall the exact but he was. like visibly shaken about how hard he. had been working and he was like this is. bad. and unfortunately i think to have great. outcomes you actually do need to work at. like three standard deviations above the.

mean. but there's nothing saying that people. have to go for this the thing is but. what i would argue this is my personal. opinion is nobody has to do anything. first of all exactly they certainly. don't have to work hard exactly but. i think. hard work in a company should be admired. i do too and you should not feel. like. you shouldn't feel good about yourself. for not working hard. like. so for example i don't have to work out.

i don't have to run. i hate running. but like i certainly don't feel good if. i don't run because i know for my health. like there's certain values i guess is. what i'm trying to get right the the. certain values that you have in life it. feels like there's certain values that. companies should have and hard work is. one of the things um. i think that should be admired i often. ask this kind of silly question. uh just just to get a sense of people. one that like if i'm hiring and so on i. just ask if they uh think it's better to.

work hard or work smart. it was helpful for me to. get a sense of people from that. because you think like the right both. was that the answer was the answer's. both i usually try not to give them that. but sometimes i'll say both if that's an. option but a lot of people kind of. a surprising number will say work smart. and they're usually people who don't. know how to work smart. and uh they're they're literally just. lazy. not just there's two there's two effects.

behind that it's one is laziness and the. other. is. ego. when you're younger and you say it's. better to work smart it means. you think you know what it means to work. smart at this early stage. to me people that say work hard or both. they have the humility to understand. like i'm going to have to work my ass. off because i'm too dumb to know how to. work smart and people who are. self-critical in this way in some small. amount you have to have some confidence.

but. you have if you have humility that means. you're going to actually eventually. figure out what it means to work smart. and then to actually be successful you. should do both. so. i have a very particular take on this. which is that um. no one's forcing you to do anything all. choices have consequences. so. if you major in. i don't know theoretical literature i i. don't even know if that's a major i'm. just making something up as opposed to.

regular literature like if but like. literature yeah think about like like. theoretical yeah. spanish lit from the 14th century like. just make make up your esoteric thing. and then the number of people i went to. stanford with who get out in the world. are like wait what i can't find a job. like no one wants a theoretical like. there are plenty of counter examples of. people have majored in esoteric things. and gone on to be very successful so i. just want to be clear it's not about the. major but. every choice you make. whether it's to have kids like.

i love my children it's so awesome to. have two kids and it is so hard to work. really hard and also have kids it's. really hard and there's a reason why. certain very successful people like. don't have are not successful but people. who run very very large companies or. startups have chosen not to have kids. for a while or chosen not to like. prioritize them. everything's a choice and like i choose. to prioritize my children because like i. want to do that right. so everything's a choice.

now once you've made that choice. i think it's important that the contract. is clear which is to say let's imagine. you were joining a new startup. it's important that that startup. communicate that like the expectation is. like we're all working really really. hard right now you don't have to join. the startup. but like if you do just know like you're. it's almost as if you join i don't know. pick your uh. pick your pick your like sports team. like let's go back to the yankees for a. second.

you want to join the yankees but you. don't really want to work that hard you. don't really want to do batting practice. or pitching practice or whatever for. your position right. um. that to me is wacko and that's actually. the world that it feels like we live in. in tech sometimes where people both want. to work for the yankees because it pays. a lot but like don't actually want to. work that hard. that i don't fully understand because if. you sign up for some of these things. just sign up for it but it's okay if you. don't want to sign up for it there's so. many wonderful careers in this world.

that don't require 80 hours a week but. when i read about companies going to. like four day work weeks and stuff i. just like i chuckle because i can't get. enough done with a seven day week i. don't know how. and people will say oh you're just not. working smart and it's like no i i work. pretty smart i think in general like i. would have gotten to this point if i. hadn't like some amount of working smart. and there is balance though so i used to. be like a pretty big cyclist i don't do. it much anymore just because of kids and. like prioritizing other things right.

but one of the most important things to. learn as a cyclist is to take a rest day. but to me and to cyclists like resting. is a function of optimizing for the long. run. it's not like a thing that you do for. its own merits. it's actually like if you don't rest. your muscles don't recover and then. you're just not as like you're not. training as efficiently you should. probably the the successful people i've. known in terms of athletes they hate. rest days. but they know they have to do it for the. long term like absolutely they think.

their opposition is getting stronger and. stronger and that's the feeling but you. know it's the right thing and usually. you need a coach to help you yeah. totally so i mean i use this thing. called training peaks and it's. interesting because it actually. mathematically shows like where you are. on the curve and all this stuff. yeah but you have to re like you have to. have that rest but it it's a function of. going harder for longer again it's this. reinforcement learning like planning the. aggregate and long but a lot of people. will hide behind laziness by saying that. they're trying to optimize for the long.

run and they're not they're just not. working very hard but again you don't. have to sign up for it it's totally cool. like i don't think less of people for. like not working super hard just like. don't sign up for things that require. working super hard and some of that. requires for the leadership to have the. guts the boldness to communicate. effectively at the very beginning i mean. sometimes i think. most of the problems arise from the fact. that the. leadership is kind of hesitant. to to communicate this the socially. um difficult.

truth of what it takes to be. at this company so they kind of. say hey come come with us there's we. have snacks you know. but unlimited vacation and yeah you know. uh ray at bridgewater is always. fascinating because you know people. it's been called like a cult on the. outside or cultish and. but what's fascinating is like they just. don't give on their principles they're. like listen this is what it's like to. work here we record every meeting. we're like brutally honest. and that's not gonna feel right to.

everyone and if it doesn't feel regular. totally cool. just go work somewhere else but if you. work here you are signing up for this. and that's that's been fascinating to me. because it's honesty up front it's a. system in which you. operate. um and if it's not for you like no one's. forcing you to work there right. i i actually did so i i did a. conversation with him and uh. kind of got stuck in a funny moment. which is uh. at the end i asked him you know to give. me honest feedback of how i did on the.

interview. and um. i don't think so he was super nice. he asked me. he's like well tell me did you. accomplish what you were hoping to. accomplish i was like that's not that's. not. i'm asking you as an objective observer. of two people talking how do we do today. and then he's like well um he gave me. this politician answer well i feel like. we've accomplished successful. communication of like ideas which is i'd.

like i've loved to spread some of the. ideas. in that like in principles and so on. back to my original point it's really. hard to get even for ray. it's really hard to give feedback. and one of the other things i learned. from him and and. just people in that world is like. man humans really like to pretend like. they've come to. uh. that they've come to some kind of. meeting of the minds like if there's. conflict if you and i have conflict. it's always better to meet face to face.

right we're on the phone slack is not. great right email's not great but face. to face what's crazy is you and i get. together and we actively try to even if. we're not actually solving the conflict. we actively try to paper over the. conflict oh yeah it didn't really bother. bothering me that much oh yeah i'm sure. you didn't mean it i'm sure but like. no in our minds we're still there yeah. um so this is one of the things that as. a leader you always have to be digging. especially as you straight to the.

conflict yeah but as you ascend no one. wants to tell you you're crazy no one. wants to tell you your idea is bad. and you can you're like oh oh i'm going. to be a leader and the idea is well i'm. just going to ask people no one tells. you. so like you have to look for the markers. knowing that literally just people. aren't going to tell you along the way. and be paranoid i mean you asked about. selling you know the company i think one. of the biggest differences between me. and a lot of other entrepreneurs is like. i wasn't completely confident we could. do it like we could be.

alone and and. and actually be great and if any. entrepreneur is honest with you they. also feel that way but a lot of people. are like well i have to be cocky and. just say. i can do this on my own we're going to. be fine we're going to crush everyone. some people do say that and then it's. not right and they and they fail. but um. being honest in that moment. with yourself with the those close to. you and also uh you talked about the. personality of leaders and and who.

resonates and who doesn't. it's rare that i see. leaders be vulnerable. rare. and. one thing i tried to do at instagram at. least internally. was like say when i screwed up. and like point out how i was wrong about. things and point out where my judgment. was off. everyone thinks they have to bat a. thousand. right like. that's crazy the best quant hedge funds. in the world bat. 50.001 percent they just take a lot of.

bets right renaissance. they might they might bat fifty one. percent right but. holy hell like the question isn't are. you right every single time and you have. to seem invincible. the question is how many at-bats do you. get and on average are you are you. better on average. right. with enough bets and enough at bats that. your aggregate can be very high. i mean steve jobs was wrong at a lot of.

stuff. the newton was too early right next not. quite right. um there was even a time when he said. like no one will ever want to watch. video. on the ipod. totally wrong. but who cares if you come around and. realize your mistake and fix it. it becomes just like you said harder and. harder when your ego grows and the. number of people around you that say. positive things towards you. grows and i actually think it's really. valuable that. like let's manage and a counter factual.

where instagram became worth like 300. billion or something crazy right. um. i kind of like that my life is. relatively normal now when i say. relatively you get what i mean i'm not. making a claim that i live a normal life. but like i certainly don't live in a. world where there are like 15 sherpas. following me like fetching me water or. whatever like that's not how it works i. actually like that i. have a sense of humility of like i may. not found another thing that's nearly as. big so i have to work twice as hard.

or i have to like learn twice as much i. have to re. my we haven't talked about machine. learning yet but my favorite thing is. all these like famous. you know uh tech guys who have worked in. the industry pontificating about the. future of machine learning and how it's. gonna kill us all and right like. and like i'm pretty sure they've never. tried to build anything with machine. learning themselves yes. so there's a nice line between people. that actually built stuff with the. machine like actually program something.

or at least understand some of those. fundamentals and the people they're just. saying philosophical stuff for. journalists and so on it's it's a it's. an interesting line to walk because the. people who program. are often not philosophers. or don't have the attention they can't. write an op-ed for the wall street. journal like it doesn't work so like. it's nice to be both a little bit like. to have elements of both my point is the. fact that i have to learn stuff from. scratch or or that i choose to are like. it's humbling uh. yeah i mean again.

i have a lot of advantages i like. but my point is it's awesome to be. back in a game where you have to fight. that is that's fun so being humble being. vulnerable. it's an important aspect of leader and i. hope it serves me well but like i can't. fast forward 10 years to now i'm just. that's my game plan. before i forget i have to ask you one. last thing on instagram. what do you think about the. whistleblower francis.

hogan recently coming out and saying. that facebook is aware for instagram's. harmful effect on teenage girls. as per their own internal research. studies and the matter what do you think. about this. baby of yours instagram being under fire. now as we've been talking about. under the leadership of facebook. you know i often question. where does the blame lie. is the blame at the people.

that originated the network me. right. uh is the blame. at like the decision to combine the. network with. another network with a certain set of. values. is the blame. at how it gets run after i left like is. is it the driver or is it the car. right. um. is it that someone enabled these devices. in the first place if you go to an.

extreme right. or is it the. users themselves just human nature is it. is it just the way of human nature sure. and like the idea that we're gonna find. a mutually exclusive answer here is. crazy there's not one place it's a. combination of a lot of these things. and then the question is like is it true. at all right like i'm not actually. saying that's not true or that it's true. but. there's always more nuance here. do i believe that social media has an. effect on young people well it's got it.

they use it a lot. and i bet you there are a lot of. positive effects and i bet you there are. negative effects just like any. technology. and where i've come to in my thinking on. this is that i think any technology has. negative side effects the question is as. a leader what do you do about them and. are you actively working on them or do. you just like not really believe in them. if you're a leader that sits there and. says well we're going to put an enormous. amount of resources against this we're. going to acknowledge when there are. true criticisms we're going to be.

vulnerable that we're not perfect. and we're going to go fix them and we're. going to be held accountable along the. way. i think that people generally really. respect that. but i think that where facebook i think. has had issues in the past is where they. say things like i can't remember what. mark said about misinformation during. the election there was that like famous. quote where he's like. it's pretty crazy to think that facebook. had anything to do with this election. like that was something like that quote. and i don't remember what stage he was. on and yeah yeah.

but ooh that did not age well right like. you have to be willing to say well maybe. there's there's there's something there. and and wow like i want to go look into. it and truly believe it in your gut but. if people look at you and how you act. and what you say and don't believe. you truly feel that way. it's not just the words you say about. how you say them and that people believe. that you actually feel the pain of. having caused any suffering so to me. it's um it's much more about your. actions. and your posture post event than it is.

about debugging the why because i don't. know is it. like i don't know this research it was. written well after i left right like. is it the algorithm is it the explorer. page is it the people you might know. unit connecting you to you know ideas. that are dangerous like i i really don't. know yeah um. so we'd have to have a much deeper. i think dive to understand where the. blame lies what's very unpleasant to me. to consider now i don't know if this is. true but to consider the very fact that.

there might be some complicated games. being played here for example you know. as somebody i really love psychology. and. i love it enough to know that the field. is pretty broken in the following way. it's very difficult to study human. beings well at scale because the. questions you ask affect the results you. can you can basically get any results. you want and so you have an internal. facebook study that asks some question. of which we don't know the full details.

there's some kind of analysis. but that's just the one little tiny. slice into a some much bigger picture. and so you can have. thousands of employees of facebook one. of them comes out and picks whatever. narrative knowing that they become. famous coupled with the other really. uncomfortable thing i see in the world. which is journalists seem to understand. they get a lot of click-bait attention. from saying something negative about. social networks certain companies like. they even get some.

some click-bait stuff. about tesla or about. especially when it's like when there's a. public famous ceo type of person if they. get a lot of views on the negative not. the positive the positive they'll get i. mean it actually goes to the thing you. were saying before if there's a hot sexy. new product. that's great to look forward to they get. positive on that but absent the product. it's nice to have. uh like the ceo messing up with some. kind of way and so.

couple that with the whistleblower and. with the. uh. this whole dynamic of journalism and so. on you know uh with social dilemma being. a really popular documentary it's like. all right. my concern is there's deep. flaws in human nature here in terms of. things we need to deal with like the. nature of hate yeah of bullying all. those kinds of things and then there's. people who are trying to use that. potentially to become famous and make.

money off of. off of blaming others for causing more. of the problem as opposed to helping. solve the problem so i don't know what. to think i'm not saying this is like i'm. just uncomfortable with i guess not. knowing what to think about any of this. because a bunch of folks i know that. work at facebook. on the machine learning side so young. lacoon i mean they they're quite upset. by what's happening because there's a. lot of really brilliant good people. inside facebook they're trying to yeah.

do good and so like all of us impressed. jan is one of them and he has an amazing. team of the machine learning researchers. like. he's really upset with the fact that. people don't seem to understand. that this this is not the portrayal does. not represent the the full nature of. efforts that's going on facebook so i. don't know what to think about that well. you just i think. very helpfully explained the nuance of. the situation and why it's so hard to. understand. but a couple things one is um.

i think i i have been surprised at. the scale with which. some. product manager. can do an enormous amount of harm to a. very very large company. by releasing a trove of documents like i. i think i read a couple of them when. they got published i haven't even spent. any time going deep part of it's like i. don't really feel like reliving a. previous life but um. wow.

like talk about. challenging the idea of open culture and. like what that does to facebook. internally if facebook was built like i. remember um. like my office. uh. we had this like no visitors rule around. my office because we always had like. confidential stuff up on the walls and. never was super angry because they're. like that goes against our culture of. transparency and like mark's in the fish. cube or whatever they call it the. aquarium i think they called it um where. like literally anyone could see what he. was doing at any point and.

um. and i don't know i mean other companies. like apple have been. quiet slash lockdown snapchats the same. way for. a reason and. i don't know what this does to. transparency on the inside of startups. that value that i think that it's a. seminal moment. and you can say well you should have. nothing to hide right but to your point. you can pick out documents that show. anything right. um but i don't know so. what happens to transparency inside of.

startups and the culture that. will have. that that startups or companies in the. future will grow like the startup of the. future that becomes the next facebook. will be locked down and what does that. do. right so that's part one part two. like i i don't think that you could. design. a more like. uh uh. well-orchestrated. handful of events from the like 16. minutes to. um releasing the documents in the way.

that they were released at the right. time. that takes a lot of planning and. partnership and it seems like she has a. partner at some firm right that probably. uh helped a lot with this but. man as at a personal level if you're her. you'd have to really believe in what you. are doing. really believe in it because you are. personally putting your ass on the line. right like you've got a. very large company. that that doesn't like enemies right um.

it takes a lot of guts. uh and. i don't love these conspiracy theories. about like oh she's being financed from. some person or people like i don't love. them because that's like the easy thing. to say. i think the the the occam's razor here. is like someone thought they were doing. something wrong. and was like very very courageous in in. i don't know if courageous is the word. but like so. without getting into like is she a.

martyr is she courageous is she right. like let's put that aside for a second. yeah. then there are the documents themselves. they say what they say. to your point. a lot of the things that like people. have been worried about. already in the documents are or they're. already been said externally and. um. i don't know i'm just like i'm i'm. thankful that i am focused on new things. with my life. well let me just say i just think it's a. really hard problem that probably. facebook and twitter are trying to solve.

i'm actually just fascinated by how hard. this problem is there are fundamental. issues at facebook in tone and in an. approach of how product gets built and. the objective functions and. um. and since people uh uh organizations are. not people so yawn and fair right like. there are a lot of really great people. who like literally just want to push. reinforcement learning forward they. literally just want to teach a robot to. touch feel lift right like.

they're not thinking about political. misinformation right yeah but there's a. there's a strong connection between what. funds that research and an enormously. profitable machine. uh that has trade-offs and. uh one cannot. one cannot separate the two you are not. completely separate from the system. so. i agree it can feel really frustrating. to feel if you're internally internal. there that you're working on something. completely unrelated and you feel like.

your group's good i can understand that. but there's some responsibility still. you have to acknowledge it's like the. ray dalio thing you have to look in the. mirror and see if there's problems and. you have to fix those problems. you mentioned machine learning. reinforcement quite a bit i mean to me. social networks is one of the exciting. places. recommender systems where machine. learning is applied where else in the. world. in space of possibilities over the next. 5 10 20 years do you think we're going. to see impact of machine learning.

when you try on the philosophical level. on a technical level what do you think. or or within social networks themselves. well i think the obvious answers are. climate change right like think about. how much fuel. or or just waste there is in energy. consumption. today because. we don't plan accordingly because we. take the least efficient route or the.

logistics and stuff the supply chain all. that kind of stuff yeah i mean. listen if we're going to fight climate. change like. one really way. one awesome way to do it is figure out. how to optimize how we operate as a. species and. and minimize the amount of energy we. consume to maximize whatever economic. impact we want to have. because right now those two are very. much tied together and. i don't believe that has to be the case. there's this really interesting you've. read it um. for people who are listening there's.

this really interesting paper on. reinforcement learning and energy. consumption inside buildings it's like. one of the seminal ones right um but. imagine that at massive scale that's. super interesting i mean they've done. like resource planning for servers for. peak load using reinforcement learning i. don't know if that was at google or. somewhere else but like okay great you. do it for servers but what if you could. do it for just capacity and general. energy capacity for cities and planning. for traffic and of course there's all. the um self-driving cars and.

i don't know like i'm not going to. pontificate like crazy ideas. using reinforcement learning or machine. learning it's just so clear to me that. humans don't think quickly enough so. it's interesting to think about machine. learning. helping a little bit. at scale so a little bit to a large. number of people that has a huge impact. so if you optimize. say google maps something like that. trajectory planning or would it map. quest first.

uh yeah getting here i looked and it was. like here's the most energy efficient. route i was like i'm gonna be late i. need to take the fastest route as. opposed to unrolling the map yeah yeah. like and that's going to be very. inefficient no matter what i was. definitely the other day like part of. the epsilon of epsilon greedy with waze. where like i was sent on like a weird. route that i could tell they're like we. just need to collect data of this road. like we just kevin's the ant they sent. out kevin's definitely gonna be the. guinea pig and great now we have did you.

at least feel pride oh going through it. i was like oh this is fun like now they. get data about this weird shortcut and. actually i hit all the green lights and. it worked and i'm like this is a problem. data bad data they're just going to. imagine i could see you slowing down and. stopping in a green light just to give. them the right kind of data yeah. um but to answer your question like i. feel like that was fairly unsatisfying. and it's easy to say climate change but. what i would say is. at instagram everything we applied. machining learning to uh got better for.

users and it got better better for the. company i saw the power i didn't fully. understand it as an executive and i. think that's actually one of the issues. that uh. and when i say understand i mean the. mathematics of it like i understand what. it does i understand that it helps. but um there are a lot of executives now. that. talk about it and the way that they talk. about the internet or they talked about. the internet like 10 years ago they're. like we're gonna build mobile and you're. like what does that mean they're like. we're just gonna do mobile and you're. like okay.

um so my sense is the next generation of. leaders will have grown up having had. classes. in reinforcement learning supervised. learning whatever. and they will be able to thoughtfully. apply it to their companies and the. places it it is needed most. and that's really cool because i mean. talk about efficiency gains. i it's. that that's what excites me the most. about it yeah so there's it's. interesting just to get a fundamental. first principles understanding of. certain concepts of machine learning so.

supervised learning from an executive. perspective supervised learning you have. to have a lot of humans label a lot of. data so the question there is okay can. we gather. a large amount of data that can be. labeled well. and that's the question tesla asks like. can we create a data engine that keeps. um. sending an imperfect machine learning. system out there whenever it fails it. gives us data back we label it by human. and we send it back and forth so this. way then there is uh yamaha coons.

excited about this self-supervised. learning where. you do much less human labeling and. there's some kind of mechanism for the. system to learn it by itself on the on. the human generated data and then. there's the reinforcement learning which. is like. basically allowing it's it's applying. the alpha zero uh technology that uh. allowed through self-play. to learn how to solve the game of go and. and. achieve incredible levels at the game of.

chess. it can you formulate the problem you're. trying to solve in a way that's amenable. to reinforcement learning and can you. get the right kind of signal at scale. because you need a lot a lot of signal. and that that's that's kind of. fascinating to see which part of a. social network can you convert into a. reinforcement learning problem the. fascinating thing about reinforcement. learning i think. is that we now have learned to apply. uh neural networks to guess.

uh. you know q func like the q function. basically the values for any state in. action. and that is fascinating because we used. to just like i don't know have like a. linear regression like hope it worked. and that was the fanciest version of it. but now you look at it i'm like trying. to learn this stuff and i look at it i'm. like there are like 17 different. acronyms of different ways you can try. to apply this no one quite agrees like. what's the best generally if you're. trying to like build a neural network. they're pretty well-trodden ways of.

doing that. you use atom you use relu you use like. there's just like general good ideas and. in in reinforcement learning i feel like. the consensus is like it totally depends. and by the way it's really hard to get. it to converge and it's noisy and it. like. so there are all these really. interesting ideas around building. simulators um. you know like for instance in. self-driving right like you. don't want to like actually have someone. get in an accident to learn that an.

accident is bad so you start simulating. accidents simulating aggressive drivers. they're simulating crazy dogs that run. into the street and. wow fascinating right like that my mind. starts racing and then the question is. okay forget about uh self-driving cars. let's talk about uh social networks. um how can you produce a better more. thoughtful experience using these types. of of algorithms and. honestly in talking to some of the. people that work at facebook and and old.

instagramers. most people are like yeah we tried a lot. of things didn't quite ever make it work. i mean for the longest time facebook ads. was effectively a logistic regression. okay i don't know what it is now but. like if you look at this paper they. published back in the day it was. literally just a logistic regression. made a lot of money um. so even at these like extremely large. scales if we are not yet touching what. reinforcement learning can truly do. imagine what the next 10 years looks. like yeah how cool is that it's amazing. so i really like the use of.

reinforcement learning as part of the. simulation for example. like with self-driving cars it's. modeling pedestrians so the nice thing. about reinforcement learning. it can be used to. learn agents within the world. so they can learn to behave properly. like you can teach pedestrians to. like you don't hard code the way they. behave they learn how to behave in that. same way i do have a hope was it jack. dorsey talks about healthy conversations. you talked about uh meaningful.

interactions i believe yeah. like. simulating interactions. so you can learn how to manage that it's. fascinating so where most of your. algorithm development happens on in. virtual worlds. and then you can really learn how to. design the interface how you design much. of aspects of the experience. in terms of the how you select what's. shown in the feed all those kinds of. things that. it feels like if you can connect. reinforce some learning to that that's. super exciting yep and uh.

i think if you have if you have a. company and leadership that believe in. doing the right things and can apply. this technology in the right way some. really special stuff can happen. it is mostly like. likely going to be a group of people. we've never heard about startup from. scratch. right um. and and you asked if like new social. networks could be built i. i've got to imagine they will be and. whoever starts it it might be some kids. in a garage that took these classes from. these people you right like.

and they're building. all of these things with this tech at. the core so i'm trying not to be someone. who just like throws around. reinforcement learning as a buzzword i. truly believe that it is. the most cutting edge. in what can happen in social networks. and i also believe it's super hard. like it's super hard to make it work. it's super hard to do it at scale it's. super hard to find people that truly. understand it. so i'm not gonna say that like. i think it'll be applied in social.

networks before we have true. self-driving. yeah. let me put it that way we could argue. about this for a long time but yes i. agree with you so i think self-driving. is way harder than people realize oh. absolutely uh let me ask you in terms of. that kid in the garage or those couple. of kids in the garage what advice would. you give to them if they want to start a. new social network or. a business what advice would you give to. somebody with a big dream and a young. startup. to me you have to choose to do something. that even if it fails like you you it.

was so fun right like. we never started instagram knowing it. was going to be big we started instagram. because we loved photography we loved. social networks i had seen what other. social networks had done and i thought. hmm maybe we did a spin on this but like. nowhere was our feet predestined like it. wasn't like. it wasn't written out anywhere that. everything was going to go great and i. often think the counterfactual like what. if it had not gone well i would've been. like i don't know that was fun we raised.

some money we learned some stuff and. and does it position you well for the. next experience. that's the advice that i would give to. anyone wanting to start something today. which is like. does this meet with your ultimate goals. not wealth not fame none of that because. all of that by the way is bullshit like. you can get super famous and super. wealthy and. i like i think generally those are not. things that. again it's easy to say with like a lot. of money that somehow like it's not good.

to have a lot of money it's just. i think that complicates life enormously. in a way that people don't fully. comprehend so i think it's way more. interesting to shoot for can i make. something that people love. that provides value in the world that i. love building that i love working on. that i write that's um. that's what i would do if i were. starting from scratch and by the way. like in some ways that i will do that. personally which is like choose the. thing that you get up every morning. you're like i. love this.

even when it's painful. even when it's painful what about a. social network specifically if you were. to imagine. put yourself in the mind of someone. compete against myself i can't give out. ideas okay i gotcha. no but it's like high level you like. focus on community yeah. and yeah. i i said that as a as a half joke um in. all honesty i think these things are so. hard to build that like ideas are a dime. a dozen but um.

you have to i talked about keeping it. simple. can i tell you which is a liberating. idea that model is yes it's three. circles and they overlap one circle is. uh what do i have experience at slash. what am i good at i don't like saying. what am i good at because it just like. seems like. what do i have experience in right what. can i bring to the table what am i. excited about is the other circle what. gets what's just super cool right that i. want to work on because even when this. is hard. um. i think it's so cool i want to stick.

with it. and the last circle is like what does. the world need. and if that circle ain't there it. doesn't matter what you work on because. there are a lot of startups that exist. that just no one needs. or very small markets need. but if you want to be successful i think. if you're like if you're good at it you. have it sorry if you're good at it if. you're passionate about it and the world. needs it i mean this sounds simple but. not enough people sit down and just. think about those circles and think. do these things overlapping can i get. that middle section it's small but can i.

get that middle section. um i think a lot about that personally. and then you have to be really honest. about the circle that you're good at. and really honest about the circle. that uh the world needs. and i suppose really honest about the. passion like what you actually love yeah. as opposed to like some kind of dream of. making money all those kind of stuff. like literally love i had a former. engineer who decided to start a startup. and i was like are you sure you want to.

start a company versus like join. something else. because um. being a coach of an nba team and playing. basketball are two very very different. things. and like not everyone fully understands. the difference. i think you can kind of do it both. um. and i don't know jury's out on that one. because like they're in the middle of it. now so but it's really important to. figure out what you're good at not be. full of yourself like truly look at your.

track record. um what's the saying like it ain't. bragging if you could if if you can do. it um. but too many people. are delusional and like think they're. better at things than they actually are. or think there's a bigger market than. there actually is just. when you confuse your passion for things. with a big market that's really scary. right like just because you think it's. cool doesn't mean that it's a big. business opportunity so like what. evidence do you have again i'm a fairly. like i'm a strict rationalist on this.

and like sometimes people don't like. working with me because i'm pretty. pragmatic about things like i'm not. i'm not elon like i don't sit and make. bold proclamations about visiting mars. like that's just not how i work. i'm like okay i want to build this. really cool thing that's fairly. practical and i think we could do it and. it's in this way and what's cool though. is like that's just my sweet spot i'm. not like. i just i can't i can't with a straight. face talk about the metaverse i can't i.

just it's not me. uh what do you think about the the. facebook renaming it. and that is a dick i just literally know. like i'm i'm fairly. i like to live in the next five years. and like what what things can i get out. in a year that people will use at scale. and. um. so it's just again those circles i think. are different for different people but. it's important to realize that like. market matters you being good at it. matters and having passion for it. matters uh your question sorry. well unless.

on this topic in terms of funding. is there. by way of advice. was funding in your own journey helpful. unhelpful. like is there a right time to get. funding for funding venture funding or. anything borrow some money from your. parents i don't know. like is money get in the way does it. help is the timing important is there. some kind of wisdom you can. give there because you were.

exceptionally successful very quickly. funding helps as long as it's from the. right people. that includes yourself and i'll talk. about myself funding myself in in a. second which is like because i can fund. myself doing whatever projects i can do. i don't really have another person. putting pressure on me except for myself. and that creates. strange dynamics right but let's like. talk about people getting funding from a. venture capitalist initially. uh we raised money from matt kohler at.

benchmark he's brilliant. amazing guy very thoughtful. and he was very helpful early on but i. have stories from entrepreneurs where. they raise money from the wrong person. or the wrong firm where incentives. weren't aligned. they didn't think in the same way. um. and bad things happened because of that. the border room was always noisy. there were fights like we just never had. that matt was great. i think usu like capital these days is. kind of a dime a dozen right like as.

long as you're fundable like it seems. like there's money out there this is. what i'm hearing. um. it's really important that you are. aligned and that you think of raising. money as hiring someone for your team. rather than taking money. if capital is plentiful right. it provides a certain amount of pressure. to do the right thing that i think is. healthy for any startup and it keeps you. real and honest because they don't want. to lose their money they're paid to not. lose their money. the problem you know.

maybe i could de-personalize it but like. i remember having lunch with elon it's. only happened once. and i asked him. like i was trying to figure out what i. was doing after instagram right. and i asked him something about like. angel investing and he looked at me with. a straight face and was like why the f. would i do that like why like i was like. i don't know like you're connected like. seems like he's like i only invested. myself i was like. okay you know like not the confidence i. was just like what a novel idea it's.

like. yeah if you have money like why not just. put it against your bag and like yeah. enable. you. visiting mars or something right like. that's awesome great but i had never. really thought of it that way. but also with that comes an interesting. dynamic where. um. you don't actually have. people who are gonna lose that money. telling you hey don't do this or hey you. need to face this reality so you need to. create other versions. of that truth teller.

and i. whatever i do next that's going to be. one of the interesting challenges is how. do you create that truth-telling. situation um and that's part of why by. the way i think someone like jack when. you start square you have money but you. still. you bring on partners because i think it. creates. a truth-telling type environment um i'm. still trying to figure this out like i. like. it's an interesting. it's an interesting diamond so you're. thinking of. perhaps launching some kind of venture. where you're investing in yourself.

i mean. is there in the books potentially i'm 37. going on 38 next month i have a long. life to live i'm not definitely not. gonna sit on the beach right. so. i'm gonna do something at some point and. i gotta imagine i will i will like help. fund it right so the other way of. thinking about this is you could park. your money in the smp and this is bad. because the smp has done wonderfully. well in the last year right. or you can invest in yourself and um. if you're not going to invest in.

yourself you probably shouldn't do a. startup it's kind of the way of thinking. about it. and you can invest in yourself in the. way elon does which is basically uh go. all in on this investment maybe that's. one way to achieve accountability is. like you're kind of screwed if you're if. you fail. yeah that's. yeah i i personally like that i like. burning bridges behind me so that i'm. fucked if it fails. yeah yeah yeah. it's really important though.

one of the things i think mark said to. me early on. that that sticks with me that i think is. true uh we were talking about people who. had left like operating roles and. started doing venture or something it. was like a lot of people convinced. themselves they work really hard like. they think they work really hard and. they they put on the show and in their. minds they work really hard but they. don't work very hard. there is something about lighting a fire. underneath you and burning bridges such. that you can't turn back yeah that i. think. you know we didn't talk about this.

specifically but i think you're right. there is. you need to have that because there's. this self-delusion at a certain scale. oh i have so many board calls oh like we. have all these things to figure out it's. like. [Music]. this is one of the hard parts about it. being an operator is like. there are so many people that have made. a lot of money not operating. but operating is just one of the hardest. things on earth it is just so effing. hard. it is stressful it is you're dealing.

with real humans you're not just like. throwing capital in and hoping it grows. i'm not undermining the vc mindset i. think it's a wonderful thing and needed. and and so many wonderful vcs i've. worked with. but um. yeah like when your ass is on the line. and it's your money it's. talk to me in 10 years we'll see how it. goes. yeah but like you're saying that is a. source when you wake up in the morning. as uh. you look forward to the day full of. challenges that's also where you can. find happiness let me ask you about love.

and friendship sure what's the role. in this heck of a difficult journey. you've been on. of love. of uh friendship what's the role of love. in the human condition. well first things first the woman i. married my wife nicole. no way i could do what i do. if we weren't together she had the. filter idea yeah yeah exactly we didn't. go over that story. um. everything is a partnership right and.

to achieve great things it's not about. like someone pulling their weight in. places like it's not like someone's. supporting you. so that you could do this other thing. it's literally like. you know i mike and i and our. partnership. as co-founders. is fascinating because i don't think. instagram would have happened without. that partnership like. either him or me alone no way. we pushed and pulled each other in a way. that. allowed us to build a better thing.

because of it. nicole sure like she pushed me to work. on the filters early on and yes that's. exciting it's a fun story right. but the truth of it is. being able to like level with someone. about how hard the process is and have. someone see you for who you are before. instagram. and know that there's a constant you. throughout all of this. and be able to call you when you're. drifting from that. but also support you when you're trying. to stick with that that's. i mean that's that's true.

friendship slash love whatever you want. to call it um. but also for someone not to care i. remember nicole saying hey like i know. you're gonna do this instagram thing you. should. i guess it was bourbon at the time you. should do it because um. you know even if it doesn't work we can. move to like a smaller apartment and. it'll be fine like we'll make it work. how beautiful is that right yeah that's. almost like a superpower it gives you. permission to fail and somehow that. actually leads to success but also she's.

like the least impressed about instagram. of anyone she's like yeah it's great but. like i love you for you like i like that. you're like a decent cock beautiful. it's beautiful. with the uh with the gantt chart and. thanksgiving which i still think is a. brilliant effing idea thank you um big. ridiculous question. have you uh. you're you're old and wise at this stage. so have you discovered meaning to this. whole thing why the hell are we. descendants of um. apes here on earth what's the meaning of.

it what's the meaning of life i haven't. and it and i i am inco so the crazy so. the best learning. for me has been like no matter what. level of success you achieve. you're still worried about similar. things maybe on a slightly different. scale you're still. concerned about the same thing you're. still self-conscious about the same. things it's like. and. actually that moment going through that. is what makes you believe there's got to. be like more machinery to life or.

purpose to life and that that we're all. chasing these materialistic things but. you start. start realizing like um it's almost like. you know the truman show when he gets. the edge and he like knocks against it. he's like what like there's this. awakening that happens when you get to. that edge that you realize oh. like sure it's great it's great that we. all chase money and fame and and success. but you hit the edge and and i'm not. even claiming i hit an edge like like. elon's hit an edge like there's clearly. larger scales.

but what's cool is you learn that like. it doesn't actually matter and that. there are all these other things that. truly matter. um that's not a case for working less. hard that's not a case for taking it. easy that's not a case for the four day. work week. what that is a case for is designing. your life exactly the way you want to. design it because. i don't know i i think we go around the. or you know the sun a certain number of. times and then we die and then that's it. that's me are you afraid of that moment. no not at all in fact.

at least not yet. listen i'm like a pilot like i do. crazy things and i like. um no i like if anything i'm like oh. i gotta choose uh uh mindfully and. purposefully the thing i am doing right. now. and not just fall into it because you're. gonna wake up one day and ask yourself. why the hell you spent the last 10 years. doing x y or z yeah so i guess.

my like shorter answer to this is. doing things on purpose. because you choose to do them. so important in life. and not just like floating down the. river of life hitting branches along the. way because you will hit branches right. but rather like literally plotting a. course and not having a 10-year plan but. just choosing every day to opt in. that i think has been more. like i haven't figured out the meaning. of life by any stretch of the.

imagination but it certainly isn't money. and it certainly isn't fame and it. certainly isn't travel and it's like and. it's way more of like opting into the. game you love playing. every day opting in just opting in and. like it's don't let it happen you opt in. kevin uh it's great to end on the. love. and the meaning of life this is an. amazing conversation a lot of fun thank. you you gave me like a light into some. fascinating aspects of this of the. technical world and i can't honestly.

wait. to see what you do next thank you so. much thanks for having me. thanks for listening to this. conversation with kevin systrom. to support this podcast please check out. our sponsors in the description. and now let me leave you with some words. from kevin systrom himself. focusing on one thing. and doing it really really well can get. you very far. thank you for listening and hope to see. you next time.

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