TechBuzr
The founders of Instagram, the world’s largest photo- and video-sharing website, has announced that they will be leaving the company. Through an official press release posted on their website, the Instagram co-founders, CEO Kevin Systrom and CTO Mike Krieger, made their resignation public.
Systrom said that they are grateful at how Instagram has grown for the last eight years and the last six years with the Facebook team. Recalling their humble beginnings as a start-up with 13 people to now having over a thousand offices around the globe.
Former Facebook Vice President of Newsfeed, Adam Mosseri, has since taken over as the new Head of Instagram since the founders’ step down in September 2018. There are many speculations as to what made Systrom and Krieger finally pull the trigger.
Here are a couple of seemingly sound theories that we have gathered so far.
The creative versus the business side
Instagram was the brainchild of Systrom and Krieger who were classmates previously at Stanford University. Originally named Burbn after Systrom’s favorite drink, it was initially a social location app until they discovered that it was mostly used for its cool photo filters, which made dull photos from early smartphones become 10 times cooler. The rest, as they say, is history.
There is no arguing that Instagram is such a huge success that Systrom and Krieger are probably going to need all their creative juices going to be able to top that and outdo themselves.
An article by Forbes suggests that the Instagram founders who have been initially focused with the creative process of building an awesome social media platform that a billion people would sign up to may not be too keen on tackling the business matters that are necessary to run the company.
“We’re planning on taking some time off to explore our curiosity and creativity again,” Systrom wrote in the official press release. “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 continued.
This part of his statement somehow confirms this theory. With their meteoric success and proven marketability, it is almost a guarantee that whatever the creators of Instagram have in store for us in the future is definitely worth looking forward to.
The broken promise of full autonomy
Since its billion-dollar acquisition in 2012, Instagram was left alone by its parent company, Facebook.
This, however, changed when things turned sour for Facebook after the 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections. Among all the social media platforms under Facebook, Instagram was the only one that got out of that unscathed and still loved by users. Facebook, on the contrary, hit a low point and has seen a decline in the sharing of original posts from users. It was after this time that many have started noticing new connecting features of Instagram to Facebook. Facebook was also pushing Instagram to be part of its big data repertoire.
Insiders hint that all of these did not sit well with Systrom who has been outspoken about how he values the independence of Instagram. As a matter of fact, he discussed this in his 2017 podcast with Recode’s editor-at-large, Kara Swisher.
“The thing that made it work was actually not what they did, it’s what they didn’t do,” he said. “I see Mark practice a tremendous amount of restraint in giving us the freedom to run, but the reason why I think he gives us the freedom to run is because when we run, it typically works,” he added.
Why it’s not so bad at all for Instagram
Despite all the speculations, conspiracy theories, and everything evil being said about these recent changes, the truth is that things are still looking good for Instagram. It still continues to be Facebook’s most successful products and the one with the lowest risk for controversy as well.
While Facebook is being painted as the bad guy or the bully in this scenario, there is no denying, thanks to its solid infrastructure, that Instagram really soared in terms of profits and number of users. From 30 million active users, Facebook has helped them reach one billion active users in six years. Truth be told, this is a tough call for Instagram to achieve on its own.
And with no more resistance from its original founders, there is a higher likelihood that we will be seeing more hardcore integration of Instagram into Mark Zuckerberg’s social media empire, which is estimated be to around 2.2 billion users.
This will set the stage for a bigger playing field for advertisers to connect with potential consumers, not to mention an even bigger and stronger revenue stream for Facebook. Add this to the fact that the same integrated shopping experience from Facebook is now in full operation on Instagram as well. By simply tapping on the tagged product in the photo, you will be able to see the full details of the merchandise and buy it through the shoppable tags.
With its ambition to compete and overthrow YouTube, it is highly possible that Facebook will use everybody’s favorite Stories feature from Instagram to work for its advantage.
Instagram founders are not the first to leave
Interestingly, the founders of Instagram are not the first to resign from the social media giant, but in fact, the third in a row. Other founders of platforms under the Facebook umbrella who have called it quits recently include Jan Koum, one of the brains of WhatsApp who left in April allegedly due to arguments on privacy and encryption issues. Oculus VR, a virtual reality firm, also let go of its founder Palmer Luckey in March last year due to controversies and scandals.
Facebook has come under fire lately and was even asked to face an official Senate inquiry due to allegations of questionable practices when it comes to how it handles user privacy and internet security. Zuckerberg and his team are also being grilled for their failure to do something about the rampant spread of malicious fake news through the online platform, particularly during the 2016 elections.
Because of this, a slow but significant decline has been noticed in Facebook shares lately.
