An interesting story from the history of technology. You know, Kevin Systrom, along with Mike Krieger, created something truly revolutionary in 2010. They launched an app that simply allowed people to share photos. It sounds simple, but the idea turned out to be genius.

What’s striking about this story is that just two years later, in 2012, the company was bought for about a billion dollars. Imagine: Kevin Systrom and his team created a service that didn’t generate any revenue at all, yet attracted 30 million users. No monetization, no revenue streams, just people using the app.

At that time, it was one of the biggest deals in the tech industry. Many experts thought it was crazy to pay so much for an app with no profit. But investors saw the potential, saw the user base, saw the opportunities. Kevin Systrom’s story and his project showed that sometimes a bold idea and proper execution are more important than current earnings.

These kinds of stories are interesting to recall when thinking about the development of tech projects and startups.