Immediately after the launch of Threads, the question everyone seemed to be asking was who is the CEO and co-founder of Threads? A former Facebook employee, Rousseau Kazi is the co-founder and CEO of Threads, a text-based conversation app.
It is a collaboration software used at workplaces designed to help companies have thoughtful discussions and make decisions through online conversation.
It helps teams inform, discuss, and make decisions at scale. And now it is being used in Instagram as Insta Threads. San Francisco-based start-up Threads has raised nearly $11.5 million in funds. Sequoia Capital is leading the funding with $10.5 million series in the A round.
Threads will tap Instagram’s existing 2.35 billion-strong user base. As Instagram Threads, it already has 5 million users already in record time. It has left ChatGPT behind which reached 1 million users in 5 days. Threads is now widely available on Apple App Store and Google Play Store in India. You just need to download it. Tap on ‘Log in with Instagram’ button and then hit on the ‘Import from Instagram’ button to get started. Kazi and his team have been working on Threads since 2017. With an Asian origin with Bangladeshi immigrant parents, he started his career young. He graduated early from UC Berkeley and as an intern, he became a consultant and then a full-time employee at Facebook by 21.
He worked with Facebook for six years working in different teams dealing with core mobile infrastructure and search, and Pages. Kazi, along with his colleagues, worked on Workplace, Facebook’s internal version of its social network where he wished he could introduce his own features. Now, his own start-up Threads will be directly competing against Facebook’s Workplace. He talks about his family influences which his two sisters in business gave him firsthand knowledge.
The driving philosophy at Threads includes creating an environment where people can be themselves. His highly recommended books are Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston, High Growth Handbook by Elad Gil, and Impossible to Inevitable authored by Aaron Ross and Jason Lemkin.