from Hacker News

Instagram’s CEO

by quanganhdo on 9/25/18, 12:54 PM with 123 comments

by mooreds on 9/25/18, 2:29 PM
This is a sobering look at what it takes to build a business vs a product (vs, even smaller scale, a feature).
You have to be willing to put in the long hours (err, years) and the schlepping to do all the business-y stuff:
* distribution
* monetization
* back end systems for admin users
* sales channels
etc, etc
Or, you can cash out and assimilate, err integrate, with a larger company that has done that hard work and lose control of your destiny. That's OK, most of us don't have full control of our destiny, and building product can be more fun. It's just a choice you should make with your eyes wide open.
I will say that I think he dismisses Snapchat's founders too quickly. Yes, they've been struggling, but they are trying to build a business rather than just integrate with an existing conglomerate.
It will be very interesting to see if Systrom et al can build another product, and if so, if they will try to build a business as well.
by 1290cc on 9/25/18, 8:45 PM
They traded their company for hundreds of millions of dollars. Good on them for turning a product into something that was so lucrative for FB and a real enjoyment for so many people the world over. I think it can't be understated how Instagram has become a pillar of so many brands and online businesses today.
But in reality their departure is really part of the business of software, the founders sell out, become exceedingly wealthy. After a few years the disillusionment with being part of a corporate machine (and not in control) sets in and they quit to spend time on their burning man floats. Its always been this way and theres nothing wrong with that.
I think many of us would do exactly the same given the option of struggling for a decade to profitability or a $10m+ exit with a comfortable VP level role.
I find it interesting that Instagram would want to include more adverts, as I find myself drawn to brands/interests without the help of annoying ads.
by krn1p4n1c on 9/25/18, 2:37 PM
Seems like they didn't know when to leave. Once they sold it was no longer their baby and should have started working on an exit strategy. It becomes a contest of egos.
On the technical side, FB's methodology with acquisitions seemed the most rational. Rather than sucking the new company in they embedded PE's in there for the purpose of giving the tech teams a fast track to using FB resources.
by mathattack on 9/25/18, 2:05 PM
Very hard to second guess such a well written article.
Are there instances where the thesis that “folks who outsource the business side to the acquirer” stay? Salesforce seems good at keeping acquirees but enterprise is different. The acquired companies come with their own revenue and field sales.
by matchagaucho on 9/25/18, 4:10 PM
It's easy to second guess... "if only they'd hung there, the $100B valuation today would be theirs".
But how many first time entrepreneurs would turn down a $1B offer after 2 years of work?
Guaranteed the writers of these articles have never been in that position.
by srinathkrishna on 9/25/18, 2:29 PM
Ben Thomson is one of the best folks writing about the business of tech. Such lucid writing and even someone who's fairly early on in their careers will be able to understand what's going on.
by everdev on 9/25/18, 2:16 PM
Not a positive trend for FB considering the What'sApp founder quit in April: https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/30/jan-koum-quits-facebook/
Giving a single person full control of a company is great when they're on the right track. These have to be warning shots to employees and investors though.
by m-p-3 on 9/25/18, 3:33 PM
> Facebook had agreed to let it run independently as part of the acquisition deal.
Sounds nice on paper.
> It is about finding and developing a business model that lets you determine your own destiny.
But when you sold the business to Facebook, you ultimately agreed to forfeit your ability determine your own destiny to obtain the ability to use their vast resources.
by vezycash on 9/25/18, 4:13 PM
Seeing as established giants can just kill a start up by copying them, I'm left to wonder. Could Snapchat have patented/trademarked Stories?
by tootie on 9/25/18, 3:34 PM
I know I'm just being a grump, but I find it baffling that these businesses are so valuable.
by rajacombinator on 9/25/18, 7:04 PM
What a silly article with a preposterous attempt to define “CEO.” IG would have had access to unlimited funding if they wanted. I’m sure they were under a lot of pressure from FB to sell when they did, but it was a clear blunder. And one of Zuck’s best moves as CEO. The train had already left the station at that point and IG could have been sold for $20 billion a year or two later.
by Yhippa on 9/25/18, 4:50 PM
> Controlling one’s own destiny, though, takes more than product or popularity. It takes money, which is to say it takes building a company, working business model and all.
How true this is for life in general.
by jenks on 9/25/18, 4:44 PM
This article does a great job illustrating how it is easy to have IDEAS, but its hard to develop them to a point where they are bold enough to work yet feasible enough to where they're worth working on. Instagram never would have done stories if they were concerned about how a large group of users would think that they are:
> entirely stolen from snapchat
> a total sellout
but look what a bold idea and strong leadership brought to instagram!
by tardo99 on 9/26/18, 2:53 AM
Instagram is very successful. But, I think people shouldn't lose sight of the fact that it's turned a substantial fraction of our teenage and 20-something population essentially into zombies. I believe it is a significant social negative.
by orliesaurus on 9/25/18, 2:23 PM
Great article, this is how I feel about Instagram personally:
- Great app who turned a camera phone into a powerful camera for those who couldn't afford one of those expensive Canon/other brands of good cameras.
- Democratizing photography made phone vendors spend more time build better camera, we're at a point where cameras on certain phones are as a good as stand-alone cameras for photography.
- Filters have been around forever but with filters in instagram a whole generation became addicted to what they're able to do - turn a simple picture in a more interesting picture. To the point where people had to start create the #nofilter hashtag. Snapchat took the filters to the next level or rather the next iteration and also made itself a name because of them.
- Instagram also has it's darkness too: some people say you can get depressed if you browse instagram too much, seeing all those happy pictures of delicious food, beautiful looking humans, cars, paradise-like places, etc. It sounds crazy right? :shrugemojigoeshere:
Short aside: Friends of friends who used to work in the same building with the founders of Instagram told me that on the night of their launch they stayed up till the early morning hours to fix their server issues because their initial instagram app was such a success! Honestly, you can't get more real than that - almost like a movie!
Thanks instagram co-founders for your creativity throughout the years: Although copying most of Snapchat's features wasn't a great move, it was a business decision that worked really well for your userbase..I can smell that being a very Facebook thing to do. I remember Snapchat turning down $3B acquisition offer, I guess that move really showed how much FB wanted Snapchat's features.
Back to Instagram - were the co-founders good businessman? I don't know, instagram pre-acquisition was very cool and ad-free. Now it's ad-ridden and almost an annoyance. Every 3rd post/video/story has ads on it. Blocking those ads is a pain (I still haven't found a universal workaround since ad-blocking doesn't work as well). Another reason why I don't use FB's app.
You can smell the FB influence on Instagram far 10 miles, I would also feel sad to see my own creation being taken over by a bunch of product managers who come from the company who acquired my app because they need to "ad-ify all the things".
Finally, I think instagram is the only app I use on the daily, every single day (more than Uber/Lyft, more than Spotify and as much as Twitter but not as much as Chrome) ! Hope they can find something cool they're passionate about and build the "next" Instagram, even if it's not a camera-app!
by tschellenbach on 9/25/18, 5:43 PM
I started using Instagram to publish to Facebook back in the days mainly because Facebook's mobile upload functionality was buggy and often failed to upload.
by rakibtg on 9/25/18, 4:10 PM
Doing a misjudgment here but the fact is "Companies like facebook don't need founders, they will eventually make the product that people might use in everyday life, they will do it anyhow; by either copying that product or to buy it. Remember that the 'poke your friend' feature is only unique from facebook everything else is someone else's things" this evil face of facebook will hurt more and more companies day after day and in a result a chain reaction that will affect the life of general people.
by ape4 on 9/25/18, 2:35 PM
Slightly off topic is Instagram's new dating app. Will be interesting to see how that plays out.
by teknopurge on 9/25/18, 2:56 PM
that really is a refreshingly well-written article. well done OOP.
by indiesolver on 9/25/18, 2:04 PM
tl;dr : Zuckerberg - Instagram’s real CEO (from the author's "The difference from Zuckerberg — Instagram’s real CEO — is stark")
by raheemm on 9/25/18, 2:33 PM
In the short-term, Zuckerberg maybe the CEO, but if he keeps prioritizing ads over product (which he has done with FB prod/privacy), then the long-term maybe dicey.
Just as content is king, so product will always be king. The ads will follow whoever has the best product, and hence user attention.
by jhabdas on 9/25/18, 2:19 PM
For those who covet money titles are more important than to those who covet building great products for users. As a product leader offloading your money challenges into the hands of VC funding is a surefire way to turn vision into greed and slowly destroy one's creative product vision.
by projectramo on 9/25/18, 2:42 PM
"Still, as good as the Instagram Stories product was, it is difficult to overstate the built-in advantage that came from Instagram’s larger network, and impossible to overstate the importance of having a shared advertising backend with Facebook. To put it another way, Instagram’s two biggest advantages relative to Snapchat, or any other competitors that may arise, didn’t have much to do with product — Systrom’s speciality — at all."
But the first advantage he mentions -- the size of the network -- is a direct result of the product. The point of a good product is to get people to use it which is what grows the network.