9781422277294

K evin Systrom (left) and Mark Krieger, the co-founders of Instagram, first met when theywere both students at Stan- ford University in Northern California. Systrom grewup inMassachusetts and was always known as a bright kid. His love for programming and computer languages began when he first had access to a computer at home. The year was 1995, and he was twelve years old. Systrom loved playing video games on the computer, especially a game called Doom II. It interested him so much that he tried his hand at editing the different levels found in the game. “That was how I got into it, actually. I’ll credit Doom II for everything,” he said in an interview, referring to how he first began programming. His interest in programming did not end with Doom II, though. Systrom learned complex computer languages as his expertise grew. One program he wrote allowed him to boot his friends offline when they were using America Online (AOL), a popular internet-browsing and social-networking tool at the

WORDS TO UNDERSTAND

antics hijinks, acts of mischief entrepreneurship the process of starting and running a business independently launch in this case, the first release of an app or program to the public venture capital money provided by an investor to a young or startup company

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