Four years ago today, on a cold Menlo Park morning, we launched Instagram Stories to the world.

Below are some of my final “internal only” stories before we hit launch for everyone else

The entire company, which was much smaller at the time, came in early to be there when we pressed the button.

We alll grabbed some Delfina pizza and huddled around a conference room waiting for the big moment. You can see Kevin waiting patiently in the story below:

This was our launch video from that day. It’s crazy to look back at hous limited our creative tools were at launch.

The woman whose phone is prominently featured at the beginning of the video was @HeyBerna ! One of my awesome Community Team teammates are the time.

This was my first public story. Could you tell I was tired?

A few hours later we had our Facebook all hands in Hacker Square, just a few hundred feet from the conference room where Stories was launched. I remember @kevinweil posted a story from the stage when demoing the tool. It felt like a pep rally.

It’s hard to believe now but at the time we had no idea what to expect. There was tons of nervous anxiety bc we had no idea how the product would be received. We just knew we had made a BIG bet and the world would decide if it was the right move. We had to wait.

Did I mention the Opening Ceremonies for the Rio Olympics was just three days later? It was my job to figure out what that meant for Stories...especially on @Instagram where we hadn’t run a story yet! We did takeovers from the ceremony, w/the Final 5, and Ryan Seacrest.

There were a few other firsts in the next few weeks...but ultimately IG Stories became my life for 2+ years. I hit the streets and worked with partners to scale it, helped them innovate, and found ways to drive value. Hard to believe it is such a staple in the digital world today