# Mike Krieger

Michel Krieger (born March 4, 1986) is a Brazilian entrepreneur and software engineer who co-founded Instagram in 2010 with Kevin Systrom, serving as its CTO until 2018. He later co-launched Rt.live and Artifact, and joined Anthropic as chief product officer in 2024.

Michel Krieger (born March 4, 1986) is a Brazilian entrepreneur and software engineer known for co-founding Instagram in 2010 with Kevin Systrom. He served as Instagram's chief technology officer (CTO) until 2018, during which time the platform's user base grew from a few million to 1 billion monthly active users. After leaving Instagram, Krieger co-launched two additional products with Systrom: Rt.live and Artifact. Since 2024, he has worked at [Anthropic](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/anthropic), an artificial intelligence safety and research company.

## Early life and education

Krieger was born in São Paulo, Brazil, and moved to California in 2004 to attend [Stanford University](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/stanford-ai-lab). At Stanford, he majored in symbolic systems, an interdisciplinary program combining computer science, linguistics, and philosophy. During his time there, he met Kevin Systrom, with whom he would later co-found Instagram. The two initially conceived of a check-in app before pivoting to focus exclusively on photo sharing.

## Instagram years

In 2010, Krieger and Systrom launched Instagram, with Krieger handling most of the engineering and user experience development in the early days. The app quickly gained traction, and in 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram for approximately $1 billion in cash and stock. Krieger remained as CTO, committed to building and growing Instagram independently within the larger company. Under his technical leadership, Instagram scaled from a small startup to a global platform with 1 billion monthly active users by 2018.

Krieger has recounted the intense early days of running the service, including an incident where he woke to find the site had gone down and was already fixed. Upon checking the terminal history, he discovered that he had revived the service himself at 3:30 AM in a drunken state, illustrating the demanding pace of the startup era.

On September 24, 2018, it was announced that Krieger would resign from Instagram, with his departure taking effect a few weeks later. His exit came amid reported tensions with Facebook leadership over the direction of the app.

## Post-Instagram ventures

On April 18, 2020, Krieger teamed up with Systrom again to launch Rt.live, their first collaborative product since leaving Facebook. Rt.live served as an up-to-date tracker of how fast COVID-19 was spreading in each US state, providing real-time data to the public during the pandemic.

On January 31, 2023, Krieger and Systrom launched Artifact, an AI-powered news app, on the App Store and Google Play. Artifact used [machine learning](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/machine-learning) to personalize news recommendations and featured tools for summarizing articles and detecting clickbait. Despite initial interest, the founders announced the shutdown of the app in January 2024, citing market challenges and the effort required to maintain a consumer news product.

## Anthropic and later work

On May 15, 2024, Krieger announced that he was joining [Anthropic](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/anthropic) as its chief product officer. At Anthropic, he has focused on product strategy for the company's AI systems, including the Claude family of [large language models](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/large-language-model). In January 2026, Krieger joined Anthropic's "Labs" team, a unit dedicated to applied research and experimental products.

In July 2025, Krieger joined the board of Figma, a collaborative design software company. He resigned from the board in April 2026.

## Philanthropy

In April 2015, Krieger announced a partnership with charity evaluator GiveWell, committing US$750,000 over two years. The funds were designated to support operations, with 90 percent allocated to grants identified and recommended through the Open Philanthropy Project process.

In 2021, Krieger and his wife helped fund the opening of the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco (ICA SF) in the Dogpatch neighborhood, alongside contributions from Pamela and David Hornik, and Deborah and Andy Rappaport.

## Personal life

Krieger married Kaitlyn Trigger in 2015. He is known for his interest in coffee and has invested in several specialty coffee ventures.

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Source: https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/mike-krieger
License: CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)
Last updated: 2026-09-07T21:29:11.62032+00:00