Co-founder of Instagram, Instagram
Instagram Co-Founder Wants Data to Communicate Local Virus Information in U.S.
Apr.17 -- Kevin Systrom, Instagram co-founder and former chief executive officer, discusses the website he is launching which simplifies data about Covid-19 on a state by state basis. He speaks exclusively with Bloomberg's Emily Chang.
About Kevin Systrom
Kevin Systrom, co-founder of Instagram, appeared on the Goop podcast in June 2019, where he discussed the origins of Instagram and his views on technology and business. He described how the app pivoted from a check-in service to a photo-sharing platform, stating that the team identified photos as the feature with the most potential because they anticipated that everyone would carry a camera in their pocket. Systrom also recounted the company's fundraising experience, noting that after being "laughed out of the room" while seeking a $500 million valuation, they received an offer for twice that amount the next day. Systrom commented on the limitations of initial public offerings as a measure of company success, saying that "IPOs are very bad ways to judge whether or not a company will do well," and cited Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb as examples of services that many people find valuable. He also addressed the broader impact of social media, stating that "historians, when they look back, they will say no platform escaped election meddling, for instance. Even Instagram."
Transcript (14 segments)
✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
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Interviewer0:00
You've been doing this incredibly in-depth modeling of this virus, and now you and your Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger are unveiling a new website that will show the daily US infection rate and update live. What do you want people to look at this and take away from it?
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Kevin Systrom0:14
Well, the whole idea here is that there's this number called the effective reproduction rate, and it basically means how many people get infected per person who is currently infected. If that number is less than 1, then the infection is under control. If it's over 1, it means it's growing out of control. So we're trying to take what is a complex topic and boil it down to a simple number that anyone can view from their home just by visiting our site, RT.live. That's our hope, to make it simple for everyone.
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Interviewer0:47
Instagram was the epitome of viral in the online sense. What are you applying here that you learned from Instagram? Obviously you have some unique insights into how we all socialize and how does that apply to the model we're seeing?
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Kevin Systrom0:59
Well, I think there are two parts here. First, I want to say this website is simply the productionization, if I could call it that, of a notebook that I published and a model that I published. The idea was just that you could access it without having to press refresh every day on the model. Separately, the viral growth that I saw at Instagram, I think compares to the science of viral growth in general. Now, there are vast differences between an actual virus and the growth of a company, but they use similar math. And by using that similar math on this actual virus, you can actually come to some really interesting conclusions, including estimating this number, R, that we're talking about, that explains how fast the virus is growing.
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Interviewer1:50
So explain to us then, how much worse is this going to get? And how much worse will it get before it gets better?
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Kevin Systrom1:55
Now, here's the really interesting part about that question. You can't answer that question in general. Often you'll try to find people giving a very broad summary at the highest level across either the world, a region, or a country. But it turns out that this virus is very local. Louisiana may be doing far better than Massachusetts, which may be doing far better than, I don't know, Maine. You have to ask what's happening locally. And here at this website, RT.live, we're basically breaking that down on a state level so that you can see what's happening around you. So I can't answer specifically when this gets better, but what I can do is give you effectively a radar for seeing how it's going currently where you live.
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Interviewer2:42
Well, you do get really granular state by state. So let's take New York for example, and maybe California because we're both here. I want to know, if you look at those two states which have had vastly different kinds of outbreaks and different responses, what do you see?
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Kevin Systrom2:57
Well, what's super interesting about those two states is that number one, they've gone through a transformation and a lockdown. So you can actually see that R used to be something like 2 or 3, meaning for every person that got sick, they would make 2 or 3 other people sick. And that's the reason why a lockdown is so important. After the lockdown, you see the effective R number come down. It comes down as we all begin to social distance, we stop going to school, we stop going to the workplace, we stop shaking hands, we start wearing masks. The R number comes down. But what's super interesting is as we begin to become a little bit more relaxed, as we begin to open certain sectors of the economy back up, the question is going to be what happens to that number. Does it go back above 1? And I think that's why this dashboard is so important, because it gives you a live insight into the effects of the choices we all make. And I don't know exactly what's going to happen, but I'll be watching the dashboard just as closely as you will.
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Interviewer4:07
Now, you correctly predicted that the US would have 10,000 cases by March 19th. Meantime, you also point out you're not an epidemiologist. You have said you're showing this to policymakers. Who have you showed this to? How have they responded? Has anyone from the White House reached out?
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Kevin Systrom4:24
Well, I have sent it out broadly, mostly because I hope that people take the concepts largely into the work they're doing, not necessarily the conclusions that I'm making, because I'm one person and the math that I run is specific on the data that I'm using, and there are a bunch of different sources. But the idea that we can manage our country or a state on this idea of an effective reproduction number, basically that's the thing that I want people to understand. And if you watched Governor Cuomo's address yesterday, he got deep into the idea of this effective R number and the idea that we can watch our R as we start to make changes and as New York starts to open up again, and it can be that gauge that allows us to decide what to do. I don't think anyone sent my blog post or my model to Angela Merkel or her team, but she spent all of yesterday talking about the effective reproduction number as well. My whole goal is to build a vernacular around this concept of R and to have us realize that I believe, and I truly believe this, that it's the most effective way to manage coming out of this lockdown and manage the virus going forward.
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Interviewer5:41
Now, as you say, we're trying to balance economic prosperity with public safety. And you have President Trump outlining his plans to reopen the economy, some governors pushing back saying it's too soon, and others who say we need this now because the economic impact has been so dire. If you could say one thing to President Trump about how to manage this reopening, what would that be?
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Kevin Systrom6:01
Well, I think that it's customized. You have to look locally, and you have to give power to local government because the local government understands their current situation. And if you look at what he and his team have done, they've basically done that. They've said we realize that this infection and that this virus is a local epidemic as much as it is a global pandemic, and all of us have varying needs and all of us have varying levels of infection. So to give one medicine to every patient doesn't make sense. Instead, what we need to do is give customized guidelines and a framework to each local government and allow them to follow the best practices. And I think that's what they've done, and I think that's correct.
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Interviewer6:48
Is there something that scares you most about this in terms of people feeling not being concerned enough or not being careful enough?
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Kevin Systrom7:00
At the beginning, I felt strongly that people weren't concerned enough. And very quickly after California shut down, all the other states started following suit, and then I had a sigh of relief because I knew people were taking it seriously. That doesn't mean we're out of the woods. And the concern that I have now is that people think we're past, quote unquote, the peak. And all the models that you read are just as complicated, if not more complicated, than mine and rely on a bunch of assumptions, and no one really understands where we are. So instead of trying to predict the future, what we're trying to do at RT.live is understand where we currently are. Because the second we start opening up, it might go well, but it might not. And depending on where you live and the type of industry you're in, it could go a bunch of different directions. So the most important thing we can do is effectively have this radar to know where we're headed and what's in front of us. And that's what we're trying to do at RT.live.