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Instagram’s Co-Founders Said to Step Down from Company

nytimes.com

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Re: Instagram’s Co-Founders Said to Step Down from Company

#61

Post by ggm »

manigandham wrote: post #15
ggm wrote: post #4

As a non VC, non founder, the only surprise to me is that anyone stays beyond contracted minima. The first, assuming you had taken a role as a VC, you'd want out to go do the VC thing somewhere else. The second, you would be watching your baby pimped out and sold for drugs on the streets, as things you had no desire to see were done, in the name of profit.

Or #3, they saw their baby get better and better, while remaining independent and equipped with 1000x more resources to do what they want, on top of getting a nice job and being paid.

Yes. The "I'm happy, this isn't a crisis" outcome is always possible.

Re: Instagram’s Co-Founders Said to Step Down from Company

#62

Post by 013a »

docker_up wrote: post #37
bepotts wrote: post #20

I wonder what's Facebook's move after Instagram becomes stale and no longer "cool". It seems to me that the popularity of social networks are cyclical, and there's very little that a company can do to satiate a user's appetite for something new. That's before we discuss future regulatory troubles Facebook might face. What future revenue streams does Facebook have? Are they even capable of creating something new that…

They have over 2 billion monthly active users. This is a global penetration rate that is the best in the world. They have done something that no other company in the world has done. They are relevant to basically the vast majority of all Internet users in the world. To say they are the least stable or that their power over most humans is waning is, quite frankly, ludicrous. To put it in perspective, they would need t…

Windows has seen an officially reported install base as high as 1.5B. This was a few years ago; their numbers have taken a hit recently.

Considering the average annual revenue per U.S. Facebook user is ~$20, startlingly less in other countries, arguably Microsoft, not Facebook, is the more interesting company. Nearly as many active users as Facebook, but substantially more revenue per user (~$50-$150 for an OEM key? Add in office subscriptions, enterprise users, oh my) and substantially more "eye-time" (monthly active? once per month? ha. you used Windows the entire time you were on the PC). Arguably. I don't want to argue it. It's just a thought and it's not the point.

No one looks at Microsoft and thinks "they're going to absolutely dominate the home computing OS market in 2030." They owned the planet and they threw it away. At best they'll remain a second-rate player in the cloud market, riding the ripples of their 90s enterprise clients until those die out as well.

Meanwhile Apple and Google ate their cake. No one saw that coming in 2001. Wait, the company that nearly went bankrupt and now makes that really bad MP3 player, and... Google who? Hold on let me AltaVista that. The companies that are, today, worth almost nothing are worth a combined $2T in just 17 years? What the hell happens to the US Dollar in the next decade?!

Shit changes, and it changes overnight. Sometimes literally, most of the time just "faster than you expect". The only thing you can bet on is that "active users" means about as much as the moon landing conspiracy theories.

Re: Instagram’s Co-Founders Said to Step Down from Company

#64

Post by throwawaymath »

Here's an offtopic observation. This article (from the New York Times) denoted the names of the Instagram founders as "Mr. Systrom and Mr. Krieger..."

The Wall Street Journal has a corresponding article about this story. In that article, the Instagram founders' names are written, "Messrs. Systrom and Krieger..."

Despite frequently reading both papers, I can't recall ever seeing "Messrs" before. I thought it was a typo at first; turns out it's a formal way to refer to two or more men instead of saying Mr. several times. This isn't germane to the story at hand at all, but I found it to be an interesting and educational part of reading both articles about the same story.

Re: Instagram’s Co-Founders Said to Step Down from Company

#65

Post by rattray »

danso wrote: post #49

First official statement: https://instagram-press.com/blog/2018/09/24/statement-from-k... > We’re planning on taking some time off to explore our curiosity and creativity again. 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. h/t to Bloomberg's @sarahfrier, who also says this: https://twitter.com/sarahfrier/status/1044419…

"my April story" - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-04-10/instagram...

Re: Instagram’s Co-Founders Said to Step Down from Company

#66

Post by packetized »

danso wrote: post #42
opportune wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand, what could the founders have done differently? At some point they must make the initial step to notify leadership that they are leaving. This the step that was leaked. Were they supposed to write their own press releases before they even told anybody that they were resigning?

You don't think the co-founders of a company, who are leaving for purportedly benign/positive reasons, owe it to their company to have a prepared explanation? Given that the sudden resignation of a founder -- nevermind both co-founders at the same time -- is generally seen as worrying news? edit: fixed punctuation. By "prepared explanation" I don't mean a formal press release, but a reason (even if vague) that can be…

why on earth would they owe anything to the company?

Re: Instagram’s Co-Founders Said to Step Down from Company

#67

Post by dangwu »

throwaway724 wrote: post #56

Posting anon. In 2009, the startup where I was working was hitting the skids, and our investors (correctly) were not willing to back us. We all kept grinding for a month or two in honorable futility, but after a while, my bank account depleted and I had to go. To make various ends meet and to keep my mental health during the wind down however, I took up some contract work that I found through various friends in the S…

Your life now may be better than the one where you accepted Kevin’s offer.

Re: Instagram’s Co-Founders Said to Step Down from Company

#68

Post by goseeastarwar »

danso wrote: post #8
goseeastarwar wrote: post #3

I'd venture that they're extremely wealthy, still friends, and decided it's time to go have fun rather than prescribe this to Facebook's ethical challenges like the article would have you believe.

Why would you guess that when a FB spokesperson doesn’t have a prepared comment about this massive change in leadership?

We can both be correct. There can be a catalyzing event that caused their departure (your follow up post mentioned product disputes), and that they also want to follow other pursuits (eg. have fun).

My point was that it was quite a stretch for the Times to equate this situation with Jan Koum's departure and this narrative around Facebook's moral dilemma. These guys stuck around for nearly a decade, which is frankly the story that should be written about given how infrequently that happens.

Re: Instagram’s Co-Founders Said to Step Down from Company

#69

Post by ardy42 »

docker_up wrote: post #37
bepotts wrote: post #20

I wonder what's Facebook's move after Instagram becomes stale and no longer "cool". It seems to me that the popularity of social networks are cyclical, and there's very little that a company can do to satiate a user's appetite for something new. That's before we discuss future regulatory troubles Facebook might face. What future revenue streams does Facebook have? Are they even capable of creating something new that…

They have over 2 billion monthly active users. This is a global penetration rate that is the best in the world. They have done something that no other company in the world has done. They are relevant to basically the vast majority of all Internet users in the world. To say they are the least stable or that their power over most humans is waning is, quite frankly, ludicrous. To put it in perspective, they would need t…

> They have over 2 billion monthly active users. This is a global penetration rate that is the best in the world. They have done something that no other company in the world has done. They are relevant to basically the vast majority of all Internet users in the world. To say they are the least stable or that their power over most humans is waning is, quite frankly, ludicrous.

Yahoo used to be the most popular email provider, too. It was relevant to a vast number of American internet users, when American internet users were most of the internet.

I don't think you can infer future relevance from present usage statistics. There are definite network effects with social networks, but fashion and novelty also play a major role. If Facebook/Instagram lose the latter, I don't think the former can sustain the kind of user engagement they require to thrive.

Re: Instagram’s Co-Founders Said to Step Down from Company

#70

Post by benchplz »

hitekker wrote: post #60
throwaway724 wrote: post #56

Posting anon. In 2009, the startup where I was working was hitting the skids, and our investors (correctly) were not willing to back us. We all kept grinding for a month or two in honorable futility, but after a while, my bank account depleted and I had to go. To make various ends meet and to keep my mental health during the wind down however, I took up some contract work that I found through various friends in the S…

Might be worth reaching out and saying best wishes. Short & sweet. Not for any ulterior motive, just out of the spirit of an old, forgotten friendship.

taking you up on your advice would be an ulterior motive.
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