Instagram’s two founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, are leaving the photo-sharing app they sold to Facebook for $1bn six years ago.
Their departure comes less than six months after WhatsApp’s founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton quit the US social media group, after clashing with Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg over privacy and data protection in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Including the departure of Oculus VR co-founder Palmer Luckey 18 months ago, the founders of Facebook’s three biggest acquisitions have now all left the company.
The sudden and simultaneous exits of the Instagram founders follows a shake-up of Facebook’s executive ranks in May. Product chief Chris Cox was put in charge of the “family of apps” that includes Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger as well as Facebook itself.
Mr Systrom said in a blog post on Monday night that he and Mr Krieger “remain excited for the future of Instagram and Facebook in the coming years” and would take some time off before starting a new venture, albeit one that is yet to be determined.
Mr Systrom and Mr Krieger are leaving at a time when Instagram and its more than 1bn users have never been more important to Facebook. The photo-sharing app’s increasing popularity, especially among younger users, contrasts with stagnant growth in Facebook’s core app in developed markets such as North America and Europe.
In 2012, Facebook paid $1bn for Instagram — then less than two years old with 30m users — as the social network was preparing for an initial public offering. At the time, it was considered a high price for Facebook to pay to address a potential vulnerability in mobile apps. Today, the deal is widely seen in Silicon Valley as a steal, allowing Facebook to absorb one of its biggest potential competitors.
Bolstered by Facebook’s infrastructure and far greater technical resources than its origins as a scrappy San Francisco-based start-up, Instagram has evolved from its original formula of fast-loading mobile photos and flattering filters. It added support for short-form video in 2015 and this year introduced IGTV, a putative competitor to Google-owned video platform YouTube.
In 2016, it made its biggest change with the introduction of Snapchat-style “Stories” — ephemeral photos and videos, displayed in chronological order, that disappear 24 hours after they are posted. Stories have become one of Instagram’s most popular features, with 400m daily users as of June. However, Facebook warned in July that Stories offer “lower levels of monetisation” from advertising, contributing to a drop in its overall revenue forecasts that spooked Wall Street investors.
Instagram has escaped many of the controversies that have embroiled Facebook in the past 18 months, such as manipulation of the news feed and concerns about data privacy. For many years following the acquisition, the app was run at arm’s length from its parent company.
However, that has started to change as Facebook looks to deepen integration among its various apps to bolster engagement. Some Instagram users have complained about the growing number of promotional photos in their feed, and the app also has become entangled in broader concerns about smartphone addiction.
Mr Systrom, who recently returned from paternity leave after the birth of his first child in January, and Mr Krieger, who had continued to serve as Instagram’s chief technology officer, have focused on product development over advertising, keen to preserve the app’s original ethos.
“Mike and I are grateful for the last eight years at Instagram and six years with the Facebook team,” Mr Systrom said in the blog post. “We’ve grown from 13 people to over a thousand with offices around the world . . . We’re now ready for our next chapter.”
Mr Zuckerberg said in a statement that the Instagram founders were “extraordinary product leaders”, adding: “I wish them all the best and I’m looking forward to seeing what they build next.”
