- Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey and Instagram founder Kevin Systrom were used to be quite good buddies. Dorsey was one of the earliest most influential Instagram users. But he hasn't used the app since 2012.
- A new book "No filter: The inside story of Instagram" by Bloomberg reporter, Sarah Frier has revealed the real reason why Dorsey gave up on Instagram.
- The day Facebook acquired Instagram, 9th April, 2012 to be exact, was the last time Dorsey posted anything on Instagram.
Jack Dorsey, was one of the most influential early users of Instagram but apparently he stopped posting anything right after Instagram was taken over by Facebook in 2012. But why?
Let's see, the famous Bloomberg Reporter, Sarah Frier, recently published a book called the " No filter: The inside story of Instagram" and she seems to have the answer to our question. The book revealed that Systrom and Dorsey were close friends back in the day. Twitter and Dorsey made a bid to buy Instagram, which Systrom declined respectfully saying he wants to make Instagram so expensive that it's unacquirable. But later it was acquired by Facebook, Twitter’s biggest rival. So now it makes sense why Dorsey felt so betrayed that he ended up deleting Instagram app.
According to Dorsey, what was worse was that he had to find it out through rumors that Instagram was bought by Facebook for $1 Billion. Frier says, what hurt Dorsey even more was that Systrom neither discussed the deal nor gave him or Twitter the chance to negotiate.
Systrom and Dorsey's story goes way back to when they used to work together for a startup called Odeo. They instantly got a liking for each other over their mutual interest in expensive coffee and photography. They even stayed friends after Systrom left to work for Google. Systrom seeked guidance from Dorsey when he started working on his idea for Instagram. Dorsey even invested in his app, making him one of the initial investors. As soon as the app was launched, Dorsey was the number one fan, cross posting his Instagram posts on Twitter, which accounted for a huge publicity for the app. So when Systrom sold out to Facebook instead of Twitter, Dorsey did take it to heart. And the last thing he posted on 12th April, 2012 was a picture of an empty bus in Sans Francisco. Systrom however, remained a Twitter user since, although after 6 years of supervision he left the Facebook in September 2018.
Dorsey-Systrom Friend-"ship” sank the day Facebook acquired Instagram, and we are still not sure if they've resolved their issues ever since. However, amidst the whole Covid19 Fiasco, Systrom has resurfaced on Instagram after leaving it in 2018, posting about the statistics of the pandemic. But still no signs of Dorsey coming back to Insta. Fingers crossed.
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Featured photo: Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for WIRED25
