After selling our company to Google, we planned to rebuild our photo roll idea with Google technology to create Google Photos, and I was optimistic about its success.

After realizing our initial product wasn't meeting user needs, we pivoted to focus on photo sharing, leading us to develop a new app called Flock.

We realized that the existing photos app on the iPhone wasn't very good, and if we designed it, we could make it much better.

Paul Graham encouraged us to think bigger and suggested we replace the entire photos app on the phone to increase usage of our photo sharing product.

Google Photos demonstrates how understanding the content of images can lead to successful product features, serving as a valuable lesson for startup founders.

Google Photos was a hit from day one, growing rapidly and becoming one of the fastest-growing products of all time, reaching over a billion users in less than four years.

In the early days of Google Photos, we observed that while many users dropped off quickly, a stable percentage remained engaged, which gave us confidence in the product's potential for growth.

After declining the offer, I felt fortunate that my belief in our direction paid off quickly, as we launched Newsfeed shortly after, which became one of the most used products globally.

I believed strongly that Google Photos would be a billion-user product, so I continued to work on it despite being told not to, which led to conflicts with my bosses.