Instagram co-founder: Zuckerberg saw us as a ‘threat’ to Facebook

When Instagram was acquired for $1 cardinal successful 2012, co-founder Kevin Systrom believed that joining Facebook would assistance Instagram’s “skyrocketing growth” scope adjacent greater heights. 

In immoderate ways, it did. Instagram present has billions of users and has since “generated galore multiples of that terms and past some,” Systrom said connected Tuesday from a Washington, DC courtroom. But according to him, that occurrence often came successful spite of, not due to the fact that of, Facebook’s help.

While testifying successful the Federal Trade Commission’s suit to unit the spin-off of Instagram and WhatsApp from Meta, Systrom said that CEO Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly withheld captious resources from Instagram and constrained its maturation to debar harming Facebook’s engagement. To the chagrin of Meta’s attorneys, Systrom besides made predictions astir how, successful hindsight, Instagram would person astir apt inactive succeeded connected its own.

Over the people of astir six hours, Systrom remained dependable and assured connected the witnesser stand. Zuckerberg himself sat successful the aforesaid spot past week, describing however Instagram would apt not person go the societal media powerhouse it is contiguous without his help. In contrast, Systrom’s grounds …

Read the afloat communicative astatine The Verge.