Instagram cofounders give Adam Mosseri their blessing

Adam
Mosseri (centre) with Instagram cofounders Kevin Systrom (right)
and Mike Krieger (left).
Instagram

• Instagram’s cofounders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger
  said on Monday that Adam Mosseri will lead the company,
  effective immediately.
• By announcing that Mosseri will take the Instagram
  throne, it looks like the Facebook veteran has their
  blessing.
• That’s useful for Mark Zuckerberg, who wants to take
  Instagram staff on his mission to integrate the app more
  closely with Facebook.

Facebook veteran Adam Mosseri was named as Instagram’s new boss
on Monday. But in a slightly unusual twist, the announcement was
made not by Facebook, but Instagram’s departing cofounders.

Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger
announced their resignation last week, sparking widespread
reports that there were tensions between the duo and Facebook CEO
Mark Zuckerberg.

Their goodbye letter didn’t do much to defuse this perception,
suggesting there might be bad blood between
Instagram and its parent company.

The letter, which originally failed to mention
Zuckerberg, was seemingly Systrom and Krieger’s final act.
But not so. On Monday, they struck a rather more upbeat tone in
their statement announcing Mosseri as
their replacement.

The pair have worked with Mosseri since he was shuffled into
Instagram during a Facebook management overhaul in May. By
announcing that he will take the Instagram throne, it looks like
he has their blessing.

“We are thrilled to hand over the reins to a product leader with
a strong design background and a focus on craft and simplicity —
as well as a deep understanding of the importance of community,”
they said of Mosseri.

This is useful for Zuckerberg, who reportedly clashed with
Systrom and Krieger over wanting to integrate Instagram more with
Facebook. It irked the cofounders, who unambiguously valued their
freedom.

But now Zuckerberg’s man is at the helm, and moreover, he has
been welcomed by Instagram’s founding fathers. This could go a
long way to making other Instagram staff more comfortable with
the direction of travel.

And it’s not just Systrom and Krieger making more conciliatory
noises. Facebook has also sought to reassure Instagram users that
the social network is not going to lose its identity after the
founders leave.

Speaking at Advertising Week conference in New
York, Facebook’s Carolyn Everson said Instagram will
not simply become a Facebook clone. 

“We have every incentive, in our bones, to have Instagram have a
unique value proposition and not have it just become a replica of
Facebook,” the vice president of global marketing solutions
explained. “That would completely destroy its value, and so
that’s completely the opposite of what we intend to do.”