Instagram was what, 19 month old when FB bought it? It has 13 employees. It had 0 revenue. It had 30 million people on it. (Facebook hit a billion people in 2012.)
It was tiny. It was the hip up-and-coming app. It had the limelight, and importantly to FB it was mobile first.
I think our memories like to kind of project back its success after acquisition onto what it was before, and get distorted by its billion dollar price. He paid a lot for a not a lot, because he was buying a fad while it was still hot, before Twitter or Google could. He then dumped gasoline on a matchstick. Would ANYBODY else have poured that much money into Instagram that quickly? I think we can all picture what would have happened to it if it had found its way into the Twitter portfolio. (I would surmise it may no longer even exist and have been folded into Twitter having a picture posting feature.)
In hindsight it was absolutely anti-competitive in some way, but I don't know how the law could act to block buying shiny things with potential.
It was tiny. It was the hip up-and-coming app. It had the limelight, and importantly to FB it was mobile first.
I think our memories like to kind of project back its success after acquisition onto what it was before, and get distorted by its billion dollar price. He paid a lot for a not a lot, because he was buying a fad while it was still hot, before Twitter or Google could. He then dumped gasoline on a matchstick. Would ANYBODY else have poured that much money into Instagram that quickly? I think we can all picture what would have happened to it if it had found its way into the Twitter portfolio. (I would surmise it may no longer even exist and have been folded into Twitter having a picture posting feature.)
In hindsight it was absolutely anti-competitive in some way, but I don't know how the law could act to block buying shiny things with potential.