Instagram co-founder: Zuckerberg saw us as a ‘threat’ to Facebook
When Instagram was acquired for $1 billion in 2012, co-founder Kevin Systrom believed that joining Facebook would help Instagram’s “skyrocketing growth†reach even greater heights.
In some ways, it did. Instagram now has billions of users and has since “generated many multiples of that price and then some,†Systrom said on Tuesday from a Washington, DC courtroom. But according to him, that success often came in spite of, not because of, Facebook’s help.
While testifying in the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit to force the spin-off of Instagram and WhatsApp from Meta, Systrom said that CEO Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly withheld critical resources from Instagram and constrained its growth to avoid harming Facebook’s engagement. To the chagrin of Meta’s attorneys, Systrom also made predictions about how, in hindsight, Instagram would have probably still succeeded on its own.
Over the course of about six hours, Systrom remained steady and confident on the witness stand. Zuckerberg himself sat in the same seat last week, describing how Instagram would likely not have become the social media powerhouse it is today without his help. In contrast, Systrom’s testimony …