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Instagram CEO just made $400 million, or $725,000 per day

Instagram CEO just made $400 million, or $725,000 per day

Instagram chief executive Kevin Systrom just netted $400 million for selling his two-year-old startup to Facebook for $1 billion. That's according to a report by Wired, which cites sources indicating that Systrom holds 40 percent of the company he founded.

Instagram founder Kevin Systrom at Le Web 11

Instagram chief executive Kevin Systrom just netted $400 million for selling his two-year-old startup to Facebook for $1 billion.

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That’s according to a report by Wired, which cites sources indicating that Systrom holds 40 percent of the company he founded — an impressively large chunk for any entrepreneur at the time of exit, let alone one on his first company.

If true, that amounts to a personal windfall for Systrom of $725,000 for every day since the Instagram app launched on October 6, 2010.

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Cofounder Mike Krieger holds a 10 percent stake, according to Wired, which will net him $100 million. The rest of the company’s 13 employees will get a portion of a $100 million stock option pool, depending on how long each has worked at the company.

Investors will do nicely also. Benchmark Capital, which led Instagram’s $7 million first funding round in 2011, has an 18 percent stake, while Andreessen Horowitz and Baseline Ventures each hold about 10 percent, Wired reports.

If Instagram’s Sequoia-led $50 million second round of funding last week actually closed (we’re still looking for confirmation on this), then those investors essentially doubled their money in under a week, because that round valued Instagram at half the $1 billion Facebook is paying for the company this week.

Systrom graduated from Stanford University in 2006 with a BS in management science and engineering, according to Instagram’s executive biography. He interned at Odeo, the startup laboratory Evan Williams founded after he sold Blogger to Google but before he launched Twitter. Systrom also spent two years at Google before founding Instagram in 2010.

Photo credit: Le Web/Flickr

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