Before Co-Founding Instagram, Kevin Systrom Missed Out On Millions Multiple Times

Getty Images/Paul ZimmermanKevin Systrom, co-founder of Instagram.Kevin Systrom sold his startup, Instagram, to Facebook last year for $1 billion in cash and stock.

Before the acquisition, Systrom missed out on millions multiple times.

Systrom attended Stanford. While at Stanford, Mark Zuckerberg tried to persuade Systrom to drop out and join Facebook. Had Systrom joined Facebook then, he would have been one of the many Facebook employees to make millions. Strike one.

Systrom also interned at a company that would grow to be Twitter, Odeo. He left and joined Google in 2008. Twitter is now worth multiple billions. Strike two.

Systrom left Google and joined a startup called Nextstop in 2009. He left Nextstop in 2010 to found Burbn, the first iteration of Instagram. Six months later, Facebook acquired Nextstop. Strike three.

"I was like, Great, I missed the Twitter boat. I missed the Facebook boat,” Systrom told Kara Swisher in a Vanity Fair feature.

Fortunately for Systrom, he more than made up for the losses.