Facebook Has Only Itself to Blame for Drastic Remedy
Mark Zuckerberg and the company have proved again and again that they don’t take government mandates seriously.
“Destroy mode” no more.
Photographer: Graeme Jennings-Pool/Getty Images
Mark Zuckerberg always knew.
In 2012, when Instagram was two years old, with 13 employees and no obvious path to profitability, Zuckerberg knew that the fast-growing photo app was a potential threat to Facebook Inc.’s social media dominance. “Instagram can hurt us,” he wrote in an email. In an internal discussion about whether to buy Instagram — and other startups that might one day pose a threat to Facebook’s social media monopoly — he added, “The basic plan would be to buy these companies and leave their products running while over time incorporating the social dynamics they’ve invented into our core products.”