Kevin Systrom: No, Facebook didn’t steal Instagram from Twitter
By Hamish McKenzie
On October 18, 2012
Despite the stories and the rumors, Facebook did not steal Instagram from under Twitter’s nose in 2012′s hottest acquisition, Kevin Systrom said at PandoMonthly in San Francisco tonight.
When Sarah Lacy asked the Instagram founder if there was any truth to the tales that Mark Zuckberg swept Systrom out of Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s arms, he said, alas, there was not.
“Jack’s been a great friend for a very long time, and that’s absolutely not what happened,” said Systrom. He agreed that Twitter aligns with Instagram in a lot of different ways, but said the rumors were inaccurate. “People look for conflict, and they look for a story,” he said. “A lot of times, small details get exaggerated.” There was no way he was playing off one suitor against the other. ”That’s not the way I do business.”
In fact, Twitter didn’t even put an offer on the table for Instagram. Instead, Zuckerberg and Systrom settled the deal under very mundane circumstances over hamburgers. ”It was just an independent decision that I made at the time, and I thought that Facebook’s vision and our vision aligned.”
[Image from Pandomonthly audience member Renée Berry]
Hamish McKenzie is a Baltimore-based reporter for PandoDaily who covers media, politics, and international startups. His first name is pronounced "hey-mish" and you can follow him on Twitter.
