- Facebook Shares Fall After Instagram Co-Founders Quit
Facebook shares fell by 2 percent on Tuesday after Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger announced they are leaving the photo-sharing app they sold to Facebook for $1 billion in 2012.
The co-founders are leaving amid alleged clashes with CEO Mark Zuckerberg, adding to the number of executives that are leaving the company as Facebook continued to struggle with accusations of Russian interference and Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Their departure comes less than six months after WhatsApp’s founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton quit the US social media group, after clashing with Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg over privacy and data protection in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Including the departure of Oculus VR co-founder Palmer Luckey 18 months ago, the founders of Facebook’s three biggest acquisitions have now all left the company.
According to Bloomberg, Systrom and Krieger had been able to keep the Instagram brand and product independent, while depending on Facebook’s infrastructure and resources for growth. But recently, “they grew frustrated with an uptick in day-to-day involvement by Zuckerberg, who has become more reliant on Instagram in planning for Facebook’s future.”
Kevin Systrom said in a blog post that the two men are “grateful for the last eight years” and the opportunity to grow the team from “13 people to more than a thousand”. He further said the two men would be taking some time off before their next venture.
