According to a report from The New York Times, Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are leaving the company. The report states that they have already resigned and plan to leave the company in the coming weeks. This significant development comes eight years after Instagram launched.
People familiar with the matter said the co-founders did not say why they were leaving the company.
However, according to TechCrunch, the reason behind their departure is growing tension between them and Facebook's CEO. While the original terms of the acquisition stated that Facebook would allow Instagram to operate independently, things changed along the way.
Given Facebook's slowing growth and the new challenges it was constantly facing, the company's leadership saw Instagram as its next obvious outlet. This resulted in more pressure on the platform.
In the past, things between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Kevin Systrom were fine, but the conflicts increased over time. One example of the conflict was sharing on Facebook. While Zuckerberg wanted to connect the two platforms and let Instagram users share content on Facebook, Kevin was against it.
A similar conflict was also observed regarding the push of Facebook notifications on Instagram and the existence of a Facebook button within Instagram settings.
In an official statement, Kevin said they plan to take a “break.” After the break, they plan to create something new. “We’ve grown from 13 people to over a thousand with offices around the world, all while building products that are used and loved by a community of over a billion users. We’re now ready for the next chapter,” he added.
