Tech Brief: Instagram Co-Founders Resign From Company as Independence from Facebook "Weakens"

In a surprising late night development (or perhaps not), CEO Kevin Systrom and CTO Mike Krieger, co-founders of photo-sharing social network Instagram, have resigned from the company, according to The New York Times. "We're planning on taking some time off to explore our curiosity and creativity again," Systrom said, adding "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." While reasons for their departure are not exactly known, "tension had mounted this year between Instagram and Facebook's leadership regarding Instagram's autonomy," TechCrunch's Josh Constine reports (alongside Deepa Seetharaman of The Wall Street Journal), in a revelation that mirrors the situation WhatsApp co-founders found themselves in not long ago, leading to their subsequent departure.

Instagram began as a humble location check-in app called Burbn in 2010, before it was rebranded and retooled as a photo-sharing network. Two years after its launch, Facebook, foreseeing the threat it could pose to its own social media platform, acquired it for US$ 1 billion in early 2012 in what became its very first big-ticket purchase weeks before it went public, a move that would spur a spate of acquisitions including Onavo, WhatsApp, Oculus VR, MSQRD and tbh. Since then Instagram has grown rapidly, hitting 1 billion monthly active users (as of June 2018) and emerging as a popular alternative with younger generation of users who are less interested in Facebook. Ultimately, Systrom and Krieger's departure will only mean Instagram will be run primarily by Facebook executives, although it was evident Facebook's influence over Instagram had steadily increased over the past few years.