Beyond the product’s mechanics, the founders excelled in playing off the strengths of other people and other companies. They realized they weren’t starting from scratch. The technology industry already had winners; if Instagram made the giants look good, they’d get a boost in the process. Instagram was a crown jewel of Apple’s app store, later featured onstage at iPhone launches. It became one of the first startups to thrive on Amazon’s cloud computing. It was the easiest way to share photos on Twitter.
