When Instagram was acquired for $ 1 billion in 2012, the co-founder Kevin Systrom thought that joining Facebook would help Instagram’s “growth growth” to reach even higher summits.
In some ways, this is the case. Instagram now has billions of users and has since generated many multiple of this price, then some, “Systrom said on Tuesday in a Washington, DC audience hall. But according to him, this success has often come despite, not because of Facebook’s help.
While testifying in the trial of the Federal Trade Commission to force the Meta Instagram and Whatsapp spin-off, Systerom said that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly retained the critical resources of Instagram and forced its growth to avoid harming Facebook’s commitment. To the chagrin of Meta’s lawyers, Systrom also made predictions on how, with hindsight, Instagram would probably have still succeeded.
During about six hours, Sytrom remained stable and confident on the stand of witnesses. Zuckerberg himself sat in the same seat last week, describing how Instagram probably would not have been the power of social media, he is now without his help. On the other hand, the testimony of Systrom described Zuckerberg as a chosen and jealous boss. He described how him and the other co-founder of Instagram, Mike Krieger, resigned in 2018 after being more and more frustrated by Zuckerberg interference in Instagram operations.
In court, Sytrom was presented with an internal table of the same year by detailing the features that Facebook had made with Instagram. With the help of features such as notifications promoting Instagram in Facebook and the crossing between applications, Instagram has experienced growth, while Facebook has experienced a neutral effect.
Systrom said that shortly before he and Krieger became, Zuckerberg decided to end the functionality integrations because, according to Systerom, he did not want Instagram to grow at the detriment of Facebook. “We were a threat to their growth,” said Systrom.
“If Instagram did not grow so quickly, Facebook would not shrink so quickly, nor does not set as quickly,” said Systrom in the court. “I don’t think he (Zuckerberg) never said it out loud in this way, but that was the only reason we had this discussion.”
At the time, Instagram had just reached a billion users, about half of the Facebook user database, with a fraction of employees. Systrom said Zuckerberg was “under-infringing” in Instagram and gave him “zero resources”, that Sytrom thought “in contrast striking with the effort I made”.
According to Systrom’s account, Ego played a role. Zuckerberg was “very happy to have Instagram in the family,” he said. “But also, I think that as a Facebook founder, he felt a lot of emotion around which was the best, which means Instagram or Facebook, and I think there were real human emotional things.”
“I think there were real human emotional things”
Systerom recalled other cases where Instagram was denied the resources he needed. When Mark Zuckerberg said that video would be the next big change in social networks, Facebook has started to allocate internal resources to the thrust. The company initially allocated 300 employees to make video a large part of Facebook, while Instagram received no additional workforce.
Following the Cambridge Analytica data scandal which involved Facebook in the controversy over its privacy practices, Systrom said that its organization had received “zero” dollars of trust and security resources that Zuckerberg had publicly committed to spending. Instead, he said Instagram had access to a centralized team that was more focused on Facebook. He also described how, years earlier, Zuckerberg suddenly fired members of the Facebook growth team that had been deployed to help Instagram.
During the counter-examination, the meta-avocado Kevin Huff tried to discredit the testimony of Systrom. He barely gave an inch by maintaining that Instagram would probably have succeeded as an independent company. “You treat in a world of probability,” he said. “You can never be sure. Some things you can be safer. ”
The question of Huff de Systrom was held on several occasions. His responses in a stone line caused laughter in the media room of the courthouse, although judge James Boasberg has rarely smiled. When Huff sent an early email that Sytrom was sent to Zuckerberg crediting Facebook for much of the early Instagram growth, Systrom said that it was only emphasizing the advantages to appease Zuckerberg.
Huff then asked SYSTROM if he lied to Zuckerberg in the email. Apparently irritated, Systrom looked back and simply said: “Sir”.
