systrom – Data, Machine Learning and Technology

It’s Easter. A couple weeks ago, this was the target for returning to normal. Hospitals are now full of patients, cities bloom as new hotspots, and politicians wrestle with the balance of human and economic costs. We’re left to wonder if we are equipped...

Here in California, we’re finishing our first week of shelter in place. Governments around the world have implemented a variety of similar policies, from complete quarantines to simple travel advisories. As I wrote Tuesday, I believe swift quarantine...

Today, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator said something you should hear:
The only data that we all have [is that] the two areas that have moved through their curve [are] China and South Korea. […] Those were 8-10 week curves. Each state and each hot spot in the US will be its own curve because the seeds came in at different...

Of all the first posts I’d write, this was the least likely. But then again, we’ve all been caught off guard by the last two weeks. That’s the thing about probability; rare still means possible. So here we are.
Instagram, in its own way, was a black swan. In 2010 we launched and 25,000 people signed up the first day. One million were using it three months in. By the time I left a year ago, over a billion users used it every month. Watching this growth, I became...