{"id":663841,"date":"2025-04-19T17:17:03","date_gmt":"2025-04-19T14:17:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/read-what-mark-zuckerberg-and-facebook-execs-said-about-instagram-before-buying-it\/"},"modified":"2025-04-19T17:17:03","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T14:17:03","slug":"read-what-mark-zuckerberg-and-facebook-execs-said-about-instagram-before-buying-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/read-what-mark-zuckerberg-and-facebook-execs-said-about-instagram-before-buying-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Read what Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook execs said about Instagram before buying it"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a417aa82fbce\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a417aa82fbce\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/read-what-mark-zuckerberg-and-facebook-execs-said-about-instagram-before-buying-it\/#Mark_Zuckerberg_and_others_worry_about_Instagrams_rapid_growth\" >Mark Zuckerberg and others worry about Instagram\u2019s rapid growth<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/read-what-mark-zuckerberg-and-facebook-execs-said-about-instagram-before-buying-it\/#Facebook_considers_an_Instagram_acquisition_stopping_its_development_and_growth\" >Facebook considers an Instagram acquisition, stopping its development and growth<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first week of the <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ftc.gov\/legal-library\/browse\/cases-proceedings\/191-0134-facebook-inc-ftc-v-ftc-v-meta-platforms-inc\">Meta antitrust trial<\/a> brought new revelations about how the company formerly known as <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>roached the competitive threat posed by Instagram in the early 2010s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The U.S. government is accusing Meta of violating competition laws by acquiring companies like Instagram and WhatsApp that threatened the Facebook monopoly. If lawyers for the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are successful, the government could force Meta to break up its business by selling off Instagram and WhatsApp.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As part of the trial, the FTC shared compelling evidence to demonstrate that Facebook was very much aware of the risk Instagram created for its business as the photo-sharing app grew in popularity. In documents containing Facebook\u2019s internal emails, Facebook execs fret over Instagram\u2019s growth and discuss how much to pay for the app, if Facebook were to acquire it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The company execs also discuss other strategies for limiting Instagram\u2019s growth, including copying its functionality and releasing an app of their own, or buying the app and then no longer adding new features to it while working on its own products.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Facebook\u2019s strategy to either buy or bury its competition is on display in these conversations, according to the government\u2019s arguments. In addition to showing how the company was thinking about its competition at the time, the messages are indicative of the cutthroat strategies that have allowed Meta to become the social networking behemoth it is today.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some of the highlights from these messages are below. <\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-mark-zuckerberg-and-others-worry-about-instagram-s-rapid-growth\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Mark_Zuckerberg_and_others_worry_about_Instagrams_rapid_growth\"><\/span>Mark Zuckerberg and others worry about Instagram\u2019s rapid growth<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"wp-block-list-item\">\u201cInstagram seems like it\u2019s growing quickly. In 4 months they\u2019re up to 2m users and 30k daily photo uploads. That\u2019s a lot. We need to track this closely. Also, apparently Dropbox\u2019s next big push is going to be in photo sharing.\u201d \u2014 Mark Zuckerberg, February 2011<\/li>\n<li class=\"wp-block-list-item\">\u201cIf Instagram continues to kick ass on mobile, or if Google buys them, then over the next few years they could easily add pieces of their service that copy what we\u2019re doing now, and if they have a growing number of people\u2019s photos then that\u2019s a real issue for us. They\u2019re growing extremely quickly right now. It seems like they double every couple of months or so, and their base is already ~5-10m users. As soon as we launch a compelling product a lot of people will use ours more and future Instagram users will find no reason to use them. But at the current rate, literally every couple of months that we waste translates to a double in their growth and a harder position for us to work our way out of.\u201d\u00a0 \u2014 Mark Zuckerberg, September 2011<\/li>\n<li class=\"wp-block-list-item\">\u201cThe photos team is now focused almost exclusively on a new mobile photo app as we gawk at Instagram\u2019s simple photo-sharing app taking off (and even our own app sees fat growth\u00a0\u2026 mobile uploads increased to 17.7M day, +5.3 w\/w). Like Beluga, watching these guys explode validates our strategy of de-cluttering our mobile experience and offering standalone messaging and photos products outside from the monolithic app garden<em>.<\/em>\u201d \u2014 Chris Cox, chief product officer, February 2011<\/li>\n<li class=\"wp-block-list-item\">\u201cOne concerning trend is that a huge number of people are using Instagram every day \u2014 including everyone ranging from non-technical high school friends to even FB employees \u2014 and they\u2019re only uploading some of their photos to FB. This creates a huge hole for us and one that I\u2019m sure anything we\u2019re going to do on platform or with social dynamics will completely solve.\u201d \u2014 Mark Zuckerberg, February 2012<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-facebook-considers-an-instagram-acquisition-stopping-its-development-and-growth\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Facebook_considers_an_Instagram_acquisition_stopping_its_development_and_growth\"><\/span>Facebook considers an Instagram acquisition, stopping its development and growth<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"wp-block-list-item\">\u201cI wonder if we should consider buying Instagram, even if it costs ~500M. Right now they seem to have two things that we don\u2019t: a really good camera and a photo-centric sharing network.\u201d \u2014 Mark Zuckerberg, February 2012<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"wp-block-list-item\">\u201cI think it\u2019s quite possible that our initial thesis was wrong and theirs is right \u2014 that what people want is more to take the best photos than to put them on FB\u00a0\u2026 we might want to consider paying a lot of money for this.\u201d \u2014 Mark Zuckerberg, February 2012<\/li>\n<li class=\"wp-block-list-item\">\u201cI actually think that there is a serious argument to be made that we should buy Path, Pinterest, Instagram, Evernote, and whomever else we really admire\/are doing great things right now if (1) we can structure it in a way that we keep their products up &amp; running but transition the teams to working on FB proper; (2) we think the people deeply care about building great things and we think we can lock them up for 4+ years to work on our platform.\u201d \u2014 Samuel W. Lessin (former Facebook VP of Product), corresponding with Mark Zuckerberg in February 2012<\/li>\n<li class=\"wp-block-list-item\">\u201cI think what we\u2019d do is keep their product running and just not add more features to it, and focus future development on our products, including building all of their camera features into ours. By not killing their products we prevent everyone from hating us and we make sure we don\u2019t immediately create a hole in the market for someone else to fill, but all future development would go towards our core products.\u201d \u2014 Mark Zuckerberg, February 2012<\/li>\n<li class=\"wp-block-list-item\">\u201cOne way of looking at this is that what we\u2019re really buying is time. Even if some new competitors springs [sic] up, buying Instagram, Path, Foursquare, etc now will give us a year or more to integrate their dynamics before anyone can get close to their scale again.\u201d \u2014 Mark Zuckerberg, February 2012<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMN63nwsw68G3Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more like this article, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/category\/technology\/\" target=\"_blank\" >Technology<\/a><\/span> category.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/04\/19\/read-what-mark-zuckerberg-and-facebook-execs-said-about-instagram-before-buying-it\/\" target=\"_blank\" >Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first week of the Meta antitrust trial brought new revelations about how the company formerly known as Facebook approached the competitive threat posed by Instagram in the early 2010s. The U.S. government is accusing Meta of violating competition laws by acquiring companies like Instagram and WhatsApp that threatened the Facebook monopoly. If lawyers for&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":663843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/GettyImages-2152655802.jpg?resize=1200,802","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[122306,4974,33423,5077,31059],"class_list":["post-663841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-meta","tag-facebook","tag-instagram","tag-mark-zuckerberg","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}