Michel Krieger (born March 4, 1986) is a Brazilian-American entrepreneur and software engineer who co-founded
Instagram along with
Kevin Systrom
Kevin Systrom (born December 30, 1983) is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur. He co-founded Instagram, the world's largest photo sharing website, along with Mike Krieger.
Systrom was included on the list of America's Richest Entr ...
, and served as its CTO. Instagram expanded from a few million users to 1 billion monthly active users while Krieger served as CTO.
On September 24, 2018, it was announced that Krieger and Systrom were resigning from Instagram.
Life and career
Krieger was born in
São Paulo, Brazil, and moved to California in 2004 to attend
Stanford University. At Stanford, where he studied
symbolic systems
Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field concerned with the computational modelling of natural language, as well as the study of appropriate computational approaches to linguistic questions. In general, computational linguistics d ...
, he met Kevin Systrom, and the two co-founded Instagram in 2010. Krieger and Systrom had the idea of building a check-in app, before they made it exclusive for pictures. During the early days, most of the engineering and user experience were developed solely by Krieger. One of the stories related to Instagram’s early days that Krieger recalled is:
One time I woke up and there was an email saying that the site went down, and I was like, who fixed it? Shane, did you fix it? Kev, did you fix it? No. And eventually on the terminal, you press up and you get to see what was the last thing you typed. So, apparently, at 3:30 in the morning I somehow managed to, in a completely drunken state, revive Instagram. That’s how much we were struggling in those days.
After Instagram was acquired by
Facebook, Krieger was committed to building and growing Instagram independently.
On April 18, 2020, Krieger teamed up with Systrom again to launch
Rt.live, their first product together since leaving Facebook. Rt.live is an up-to-date tracker of how fast
COVID-19 is spreading in each US state.
Philanthropy
In April 2015, Krieger announced a partnership with charity evaluator
GiveWell
GiveWell is an American non-profit charity assessment and effective altruism-focused organization. GiveWell focuses primarily on the cost-effectiveness of the organizations that it evaluates, rather than traditional metrics such as the percenta ...
, committing US$750,000 over the next two years. The funds are to support operations, with 90% allocated to grants identified and recommended through the
Open Philanthropy Project process.
In 2021, the Krieger's helped fund the opening of the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco (ICA SF) in
Dogpatch
Dogpatch was the fictional setting of cartoonist Al Capp's classic comic strip '' Li'l Abner'' (1934–1977).
''Li'l Abner'' comic strip
The inhabitants of Dogpatch were mostly lazy hillbillies, who usually wanted nothing to do with progress ...
, alongside funds from Pamela and
David Hornik
David Martin Hornik is an American venture capitalist, lawyer, educator, art collector, and philanthropist. He is a founding partner at Lobby Capital, a Silicon Valley-based firm. Prior to founding Lobby Capital, Hornik was a General Partner at Au ...
; and Deborah and
Andy Rappaport
Andrew S. Rappaport (born 1957; New York City), also known as Andy Rappaport, is an American venture capitalist partner, and philanthropist. He is a partner emeritus at August Capital, a Silicon Valley information technology venture capital firm ...
.
Personal life
Krieger is married to Kaitlyn Trigger.
[Sarah Thornton]
"Kaitlyn Trigger On Her Wedding to Instagram Co-Founder Mike Krieger, Being a Woman in Tech, and Her Growing Art Collection"
August 11, 2015
References
External links
CEO Secrets: Instagram boss on how to avoid 'burnout' ''BBC News 2015''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Krieger, Mike
1986 births
Brazilian emigrants to the United States
Brazilian engineers
Brazilian people of German descent
Computer programmers
Facebook employees
Living people
People from São Paulo
Stanford University alumni
Technology company founders