No Filter

Literature Review | Film Review | Training

6 February 2021

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I joined Instagram in 2010. My first photo was unexceptional. I think I heard about the app's incredibly fast growth on NPR. I'd heard about Facebook years earlier on NPR when they purchased their domain name and switched from thefacebook.com. Although at the time I made money on YouTube and Twitter at the time, I never became an Instagram influencer.

Reading Sarah Frier's book on Instagram, No Filter, this past week week was something of a trip down memory lane. My life has intersected that of the app and it's CEO Systrom in several places, beginning with Stanford. Of course, I never accomplished anything remarkable. Although I'd caught the startup bug living in Silicon Valley in 2006, I was still pursuing the physicist path. It's interesting that Zuckerburg tried to get Systrom to come develop picture uploads at Facebook years before Instagram existed. And that he bonded with Jack Dorsey as his intern at Odeo, the company that would pivot into Twitter. Sometimes timing is everything and being able to be in the right room at the right time. Frier tells the story masterfully and it's hard to believe this is only her first book!