Instagram founders say selling to Facebook didn’t reduce competition among social networks
Talk of regulating Silicon Valley has dominated this year’s SXSW festival in Austin, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) pledge to break up Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook becoming a topic of conversation in almost every high-profile, tech-focused panel here.
A sit-down with Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger this afternoon was no exception. The entrepreneurs sold their company to Facebook, worked there for years, then abruptly left last September amid reported concerns over their autonomy and the future direction of the photo-sharing social network. Additionally, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg last week announced a new, privacy-focused shift for the company that would see its disparate messaging products combined to...