Name: Watch Instagram's COO Speak at Fortune’s MPW Summit
Uploaded: 2016-10-19
Duration: 15 min 52 s
Description: Marne Levine on tech and the election

Thank you for being here, Marne !>> Thank you, thanks for having me !>> Of course! I'm excited to dive in. We just did our first InstaGram stories, literally in the hall, walking. Walking down .>> And then, we went in the wrong door .>> Right, we're going the wrong way, yes! But, we're gonna get to that moment [ CROSSTALK ] You saw how easy it was .>> It's super easy! Very easy !>> And, a great way to relate To viewers, and truly authentic right, the definition of the word. So be sure to watch it, it's that little circle that's in the tray, right above your feed. [ LAUGH ] Someone taught me how to do it at dinner last night. [ LAUGH ] So let's dive into the business and then your fascinating story. Instagram, 500 million monthly active users. 80 % outside the United States which is fascinating 4. 2 billion likes daily. I check my likes all the time. [ LAUGH ] The number of advertisers has exploded. You've gone from 200, 000 six months ago. 500, 000 now. And you now say motion is the new filter. It's all about- Yep. Video. Interesting tidbit about you, you admit that you are a terrible photographer. Terrible And you feel pressure to post. I do feel pressure to post. So I've been on Instagram for nearly two years now. Instagram started in 2010, it was acquired by Facebook in 2012. And as you said, we're firing on all cylinders. It's truly a global community with more than 80 % of our 500 million outside The United States. I think most people, when they think about Instagram, think photo, but video, as you've said, really is exploding in the last six months. Consumption of video has increased by 150 %. So why do people come to Instagram? They come to Instagram to tell their visual story. They come to Instagram to experience the world through images. And they come to Instagram to connect around shared passions and interests. If you take a step back, you can really understand what's happening because of the rise of mobile visual communication. And images are just a powerful way to tell a story and to connect and never was this clear to me than when our CEO and co- founder Kevin Systrom went to go meet with the pope .>> Great. Let's pull up the image by the way, if you don't follow the point you should .>> Yes. Okay, well the pope The pope expressed an interest in joining instagram which we were pleasantly surprised about. And I'm not seeing that image. But anyways. It's on your screen. Great. He now joined instagram, when Kevin went to go talk with him about it he explained something that really brought it all home for me. Which is that When people come to see the Pope, often what they do is they hand him an image. That is the fastest way for them to connect, because images transcend borders, cultures, generations, mother. Tongues and it's just a great way to connect. But what is it about Instagram that will make it not fleeting. And not a fad. Because I mean Instagram stories, you have big competitors like SnapChat and others. What's going to make this stick? The reason why it's going to stick is the way that people have been communicating has fundamentally be changing over time. People communicate on the go. And they communicate in a very visual way. And we see that with public figures like the Pope. But we don't just see that with public figures. We see that with. I used to live in Washington, DC. I live in California now. This is the way I connect and share with my friends and family, how I keep in touch with them. And through images, photo or video I'm really able to feel more, I'm able to feel closer to them The other thing is that it's been great for businesses to be able to tell their stories in a really visual way. But they have to do it authentically. I can see as a journalist right through companies where it's just messaging messaging messaging and right through companies where is their authentic self or where their leaders actually posting them themselves Yes What can all the women who've From these big companies in this room learn from small businesses. Yup. That you say do it so effectively to use it the right way and the effective way and not just assign, I mean frankly I think sometimes businesses just assign someone like hey this is you you do it or a young millennial or 20 something When it really should be someone at the top overseeing that too. Yeah I think there's a variety of ways to come at it, so you mentioned small businesses, I think what's been amazing about small businesses is that many of them have started on Instagram, there's been an idea, a passion that somebody has had and it has actually turned into a business right on Instagram. But what I've learned is that. There was a woman, her name is Beth, and she's a baker. And she is in Brazil. It's easy to remember with all the Bs. And she told a really interesting story to me. She started her business. She'd always wanted to be a baker and really make a business out of it. And she'd post images of her. Creations, they look delicious, and she really started growing her business. But then, people starting saying to her turn the camera on yourself. Tell us about your story, your journey as an entrepreneur and what that's like. And, so what I learned from that is, business is personal. They wanna know not only what it is that you're selling and who you're about, but who are you and what are your values? So, I think for any company, whether you're big or small, Telling your story in an authentic visual way is great. Now, let me just give you two examples. I heard the other night, I was talking to somebody who's here from Target, and she told me the story about how everybody has Target was, a lot of people at Target were on Instagram. And they were using it, but she wanted to be able to use them to be able to tell the story of the company. So they created all of these visual moments, these photo moments around the company. And what they did was they used a hashtag to organize, # wearetarget, and people were taking photos. And the employees were telling the story of the company, and that helps people understand the products and the values of the company. Brilliant. Not surprised a Minnesota company thought of that. [ LAUGH ] I'm very proud of my state. All right. There you go. We are on the eve of a historic election, aren't we? Yes. Eight years ago, you were part of a historic election. You literally open the doors to the White House, part of the transition team. And you said when you opened the doors on Inauguration Day you basically didn't leave for 2 years. That's a hard job in of itself. it's a really hard job when you have a 3 year old and a newborn at home. You almost, considered saying no to this opportunity. 2 people changed your mind. Your husband. And I read an astronaut. Yes well I'll tell you I'll tell you this story about this yes When I I was on maternity leave from a tech company and I started working on the transition team for the treasury department And then when Larry Summers, who was a long time mentor, I'd worked with him at the Treasury Department under the Clinton administration, I'd worked with him at Harvard when he was president of Harvard. Was named director of the national economic council at the White House he asked if I would come join the economic team. And then offered me a position at the white house and I was talking to my husband about it and I said this seems really hard. I had worked in [ INAUDIBLE ] Administration, I was in my 20s, I did not have any kids, I did have as much as responsibility then. Like how can we make this work? And he said we'll make this, we will make this work And the story about the astronaut, is that my neighbor had a friend who is a woman and she is an astronaut. And she told a story about how she had a lot of female friends who were also astronauts. And so her son had only been exposed to female astronauts. So one night when she was tucking him in bed He said to her, is it possible for boys to become astronauts? [ LAUGH ] Exactly. And so when I heard that story, I thought to myself, I want my boys to understand that anything is possible, not only for them, but for any girl or woman in the world. And I have a six month at home, and it's hard. I mean, I It's really hard and I feel bad sometimes being gone and for us new mom's it's just really helpful to see it worked and you've also been real about it and said you can't do it for indefinite amount of time. Like your life ebbs and flows and you did that for two years and then you went on to this role and your around more. That's just an important context, I think. I want to open it up for questions next in a moment, so let's get the mics ready. Let's talk about moving from government to Silicon Valley, because it's something we've seen you do, we've seen Sheryl Sandberg do. We've seen Katie Stanton do. We've seen Megan Smith, who I was talking to last night, going from Silicon Valley to government as the CTO of the United States. Talk to me about your path To yes, to going to Facebook for this role. And then if you think that's a good career trajectory that we should maybe see a little bit more of. Yeah, I'll tell you a little bit. I'll take you back in the journey and what I was thinking then. But then actually what I learned from it and why there's a connection. And you can see the flow between the two worlds. Sure. I was in, what was arguably my dream job working at The White House on Economic Policy, and I was very happy. I was there for basically for about two years, and Sheryl Sandberg called me and said, we're looking for somebody to run global policy at Facebook, would you ever be interested in talking to us about this role? And I said, No! Absolutely Not! And the reason was that I thought I would never want to do policy for a company, and I was also happy in my roll. That night, I wish I could say it was at dinner time, but it was more around 11 or 12 when I had arrived home from work, I was sitting there having a conversation with my husband, and I told him about the conversation with Sheryl. And he stop and he said, you did what? And I said, no. I'm really not interested in doing policy for a company. And he said, Marnie. You really need to be imaginative about what it would like to do policy for a company like Facebook. Actually I should pause. If I'm really being honest with you. What he said is, you're being a lazy thinker. [ LAUGH ] I like that. About what it's like- # DontBeLazy. Yeah. Don't be a lazy thinker. But that was some tough love. However, what it did was, it got me thinking about what it would be like to do policy for a company like Facebook. And when I started studying and learning about what the role was about I realize that Facebook at that time, this was 2010 was fundamentally and continues to, fundamentally changing the way people were communicating. It was giving voice to the voiceless. It was empowering anyone to connect with somebody else and to share. That it was making the world more open and transparent. It was doing a ton to fuel businesses. And it was doing a lot for human rights and those are many of the reasons why I went to the White House in the first place .>> You had to be imaginative about what it could be, which is kind of harkening back to Patty's great interview with Angela Ahrens who said to Tim Cook , 'Okay, well if you make it this way, then I'll take the job.' and he said, 'Great idea let's do it.' So be imaginative about what the role can be .>> Exactly, and the thing you were asking about the two worlds is that I had gone into policy and politics, because I wanted to be able to use policy to affect people's lives positivity on a broad scale. And what I was realizing is that technology, platforms like Facebook, like Instagram, gave the same potential and ability. Questions. Do we have any? All right, as you think of smart, great, we have one, right here. What impact are you seeing Facebook and Instagram having on political elections? Wow, one thing is that I'm really excited for November 8 to come. And I really cannot wait to see the sea of I Voted stickers in my feed on both. Because that will mean that this is all over. [ LAUGH ] I think this election is gonna be remembered for a lot of things. But one thing I think this election is gonna be remembered for is that this is the most visual election that we've had to date. We're seeing. All candidates using Instagram and Facebook in really interesting ways. On Instagram, you would see Hillary Clinton posting a photo of herself watching Chelsea Clinton introduce her at the Democratic National Convention. She's beaming with pride. You connect with her as a mother because That's what you connect with. You see Donald Trump. And you've also seen Ivanka Trump doing that as a new mother. You see Donald Trump celebrating a victory with McDonald's on his plane, the American Way. So you see them telling their stories in their own way. But I think something else that's been super interesting is how engaged the electorate Has been around this election. You see it play out on Facebook. There have been around, I think it's 105 million people have driven billions of interactions on Facebook. And on Instagram, people are telling stories in interesting ways. So a colleague of mine from Instagram Did an Instagram story. He had received his ballot in the mail. He showed who he was gonna vote for and then what he showed, very visually, is that there were all these propositions in California that he had to vote on. And he didn't know what to do, so he crowdsourced, Information about what to do on all these various propositions. So it's been really interesting to see how engaged and how people are telling that story about engagement around the election. Do we have one final quick question? Right there. Hi, Suzanne from Sales Force, can you just talk a little bit about your user demographics and what you're doing around security and privacy for the under 18 set? So, we we're doing a lot and it's something that's really important to me as COO of Instagram but it's also really important to me as a mother, as a woman like I really think about this a lot. So one we did just a few weeks ago is we offered a new tool which is around comment filtering And what this does is it allows you to filter out words you might not wanna see in the comments and that creates a much more positive experience for the person who is actually telling their story and what we want people to do is to feel safe, to feel like they can express themselves because when they feel safe and when they express themselves they put their story out there. The reactions they get are overwhelmingly positive and that is the way that they can find communities of support. Teens are really good about telling their stories really authentically. You see them with these really positive messages. One woman who I love is this young woman named Gigi Crouch. Who here account is scholerina. She has Scoliosis, but she's a ballerina. And so her message is that, if you have a passion and a dream, you can overcome adversity. She post these photos of her doing these really complicated, beautiful poses. When she decided that she was gonna stop dancing, she also post on Instagram, and the overwhelming support that she got. Is what she said helped her to feel comfortable with her decision to go to college and stop dancing. So, that's an incredible thing. We also just recently launch a campagne around it's called hashtag perfectly me. Right. And a number of teens you know, talk about how they have taken what would be proceed as a weakness and turned it into a string And accepted themselves, body positivity. So those are the kind of things we really try to do is to teach people great behavior. Create a safe and welcoming community. And really encourage people to tell their stories so that they can find those communities of support.