March 4: Instagram

Mike Krieger, a software engineer who was one of two co-founders of the social media service Instagram, was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil on this date in 1986. Instagram, which enables mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing, and social networking, was launched in October, 2010, and today has some 400 million users worldwide. It was acquired by Facebook in 2012 for $1 billion. The Instagram format was inspired by old Polaroid pictures, which Kreiger and his partner Kevin Systrom (they met at Stanford) recognized as the first widely-accessible instant photos. Krieger is a libertarian and an outspoken opponent of the Federal Reserve, which he blames for “debauching the currency” and demolishing the American middle class. In 2015, Krieger and his wife Kaitlyn Trigger established a partnership with GiveWell, a charity evaluator to which they donated $750,000, to support its Open Philanthropy project and help “identify and champion,” in her words, “forward-thinking ideas, and help scale solutions that work. To create significant, sustainable change, we are committed to systems-level thinking and rigorous analysis. We advocate collaboration and transparency to engage a broader community and magnify our impact.” “Every country we every go after militarily relates to defending the Federal Reserve system. Since oil being priced in dollars is the key to the system, we are always on the verge of invading oil producing countries that we do not already have under puppet control. Israel is merely another U.S. colony. We defend it so vociferously not because of the Jewish lobby but because they are a strategic asset in the oil rich Middle East that we use to defend the Federal Reserve system and the American empire.” —Mike Krieger