[zdgman]

I would like to believe that his skill at coding had less to do with it versus the connections he had and the people he surrounded himself with.

As quite a few people have pointed out here going to Stanford in any capacity and graduating gives you a huge leg up in terms of the potential Alumni you can now reach out to.

Right place/Right Time/Right Product is what this boils down to. I am also assuming that he did not write most of what is the current Instagram code. Funny that no one mentions that Mike Krieger as his Cofounder in addition to the other engineers on the team.

[zdgman]

I am going to reply to my own comment and also note that their first engineering hire, Shayne Sweeney also didn't go to college for programming.