No Filter, The Inside Story of Instagram, by Sarah Frier, Simon & Schuster 2020

Tucked inside Facebook headquarters lay a newbie, relatively unknown but bound to define yet a new segment of the social media world.  Instagram was different and fast and not particularly chatty.

Yet, despite non-disclosure limits, Sarah Frier managed to dig in and write an in-depth description of how this newest Influencer popped up and grew to replace even many of Facebook's original users.  Per her estimate each month more than a billion users access Instagram.  The story started out entrepreneurial and filled with potential as two brilliant Facebook employees envisioned a new and very powerful visual tool that would move users to unite with their camera phones.  The camera became, essentially, a faster, richer creator of not just relationships as followers clicked in, or were clicked in, to their own very personal happenings.  "A picture says a thousand (or two thousand) words!" 

 Along the way, this new visual tool created enticing marketing opportunities as retailers and travel suppliers like VRBO and Icelandic Airlines discovered the power of the visual sell.  Instagram was bound to get bigger and in some areas, more cluttered.    Users were challenged to think again about privacy, about what they wanted to share worldwide, and about what images they wanted to flash on, a point made even more critical during the psychologically damaging pandemic.  Instagram basically created and opened an entirely new social media world.

But, as we might expect, as Instagram grew, so did the differences between it and Facebook, and for co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, more opportunities to capture market share appeared.  By selling Instagram to Facebook, says the author, the co-founders guaranteed access to an even bigger market, with strong capitalization numbers.  But as the different worlds and visuals continued to appear, what looked to users as culture or generational differences hinted at internal differences that could only grow stronger.  

Eventually the founders left the company (2018), but despite this disruption, the company continued to acquire numbers of Influencers and cash providers.  In fact, by the time the frustrated co-founders departed, their baby was on track to deliver $10B in revenue, with a significantly lower headcount ratio than Facebook's.  Boom.

In  a letter published on the Instagram blog, the departing co-founders summarized not just their feelings about leaving, but their proof of achievement:  in their eight years at Instagram and six years with Facebook, they noted growth from 13 people to over a thousand, with a user community in excess of one billion. Still, we don't know how this partnership rivalry drama will resolve.  The larger lessons are clearer - there is money to be made in fast, personally tailored social media picture stories.  In fact, as we become less talkable, and some of us forget how to write, we use visuals fill in the spaces.  The question that always remains after the death or passage of an entrepreneurial explorer is what's next, can it last (under Zuckerberg), and who'll make the money. 

Mill Girl Verdict:  A++, real journalism of the type infrequently seen in leading corporate media.  Great story, well told, leaving us with a hopefully unfinished mystery dead ahead. 

Patricia E. Moody

FORTUNE magazine  "Pioneering Woman in Mfg" 

IndustryWeek IdeaXchange Xpert

A Mill Girl at Blue Heron Journal, on-line resource for business thought-leaders and decision-makers,  patriciaemoody@gmail.com