The co-founders of Instagram, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, have left the company they founded 8 years ago and was acquired by Facebook.
In an official statement, Systrom recounted their eight years at Instagram and six years with the Facebook team.
“We’ve grown from 13 people to over a thousand with offices around the world, all while building products used and loved by a community of over one billion. We’re now ready for our next chapter,” he said.
He said the duo is leaving Instagram to explore their curiosity and creativity again.
“Building new things requires that we step back, understand what inspires us and match that with what the world needs; that’s what we plan to do,” he stated. “We remain excited for the future of Instagram and Facebook in the coming years as we transition from leaders to two users in a billion. We look forward to watching what these innovative and extraordinary companies do next.”
What really happened
Various accounts exist and they all have one thing or another to do with the interference from Facebook. Verge reported tensions between the Instagram founders and their parent company had been simmering for months.
Recode reported a recent decision to remove Instagram branding from photos that are reshared to Facebook was among the slights that worsened the founders’ relationship with their parent company.
There were multiple reports indicating the most proximate cause of the founders’ exit was Zuckerberg’s decision this spring to reorganize all product divisions under Facebook’s chief product officer Chris Cox to whom Systrom would now report. This added a complicating layer between Systrom and Zuckerberg at a time when Instagram has become more important to Facebook’s future than ever before.
The Wall Street Journal described the situation differently. It noted how a death-by-a-thousand-cuts dynamic was playing out between Instagram and its parent company.
On the overall, Facebook had left Instagram more or less alone because Facebook was in hyper-growth mode, printing money thanks to its lucrative News Feed advertisements, and Zuckerberg was content to let his $1 billion acquisition grow at its own pace.
But when Facebook hit its saturation point in North America, the sharing of original posts declined, and a series of crises related to the 2016 US presidential election battered its image. Only Instagram survived with its reputation mostly intact.
As the crown jewel in Facebook’s product lineup, it became the subject of regular meddling from the parent organization.
But whichever account is true, one thing is clear about the founders exit. Some unknown thing changed for the founders this week, and it pushed them out the door months or even years before they were ready. Prior to this week, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger were nowhere done building Instagram. And whatever they build next will have Mark Zuckerberg’s full attention.
