Not everything was awesome at Instagram, co-founder says in first public remarks since stepping down
Instagram’s Kevin Systrom said people do not leave their jobs “because everything is awesome”, three weeks after stepping down amid rumours of a fallout with Mark Zuckerberg.
In his first public remarks since leaving the company, Systrom said there were reasons for his departure, but gave no details.
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“When you leave anything, there are obviously reasons,” he told an audience at a San Francisco conference, “no one ever leaves a job because everything is awesome. Work’s hard.”
Systrom and co-founder Mike Krieger left the company in September, saying it was time to start a new chapter.
“We’re planning on taking some time off to explore our curiosity and creativity again. Building new things requires that we step back, understand what inspires us and match that with what the world needs; that’s what we plan to do,” they said at the time.
They are not the first founders to leave a company after being acquired by Facebook.
WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton, who left over Mark Zuckerberg's attempts to monetise the app, has hit out at his former employer several times, including a call for users to delete their Facebook accounts.
Instagram has grown to 1bn users since it was founded by Systrom and Krieger eight years ago.
The pair stayed as executives even after it was sold to Facebook for $1bn (£629m) in 2012 it had 30m accounts.
However, rumours of tensions between the founders and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg grew as he replaced key Instagram executives with his own staff.
“There are no hard feelings at all,” Systrom told the Wired 25 conference.
“Any time you leave anything it’s sad. Even if it is your decision. But at the same time you can’ evolve as an individual or as a person unless you make big changes in your life.
“No decision feels either all good or all bad, it is always a mix of the two. But that’s not a reason not to do it.
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“Usually the reason to do it is that you have your sights set on a future that involves something new and something different. For me and Mike it was always about the opportunity to do something brand new.”
Systrom also spoke about parenting, he is the father of a nine-month old, and flying solo for the first time — “I’m still in the phase of ‘I’m going to die, I’m going to die, I’m going to die” — but did not touch on any new business ventures.