On this day in 2012: Facebook buys Instagram for $1 billion.

One of the most masterful acquisitions in history. Fas forward 11 years, Instagram produced $60 billion in annual revenue for $META.

Mark Zuckerberg revealed that he acquired Instagram because he perceived it as a potential challenge to Facebook. Back then, Instagram had just 13 employees. By March 2012, it had amassed approximately 27 million users. Only, @garyvee knows it's a big deal!

Big Tech is known for making big acquisitions in a bid to grow - Notable ones: Microsoft acquiring Linkedin, Skype and Activision Blizzard, IBM acquiring RedHat, Salesforce acquiring Slack and Tablaeu etc Curious as to what you think the most successful tech acquisitions have been? For me there are 4 standout acquisitions made by 2 companies - -> Google acquiring Android in 2005 for $50mm and YouTube in 2007 for $1.65bn -> Meta acquiring Instagram in 2012 for $1bn and WhatsApp in 2014 for $22bn All 4 of the above acquisitions have been incredibly accretive. If I had to choose the most successful one.. Android!! ~ 70% of mobile devices in the world use an Android operating system. Acquiring it for $50mm was a steal.. The other 3 acquisitions were made from a business threat PoV. Google had Google videos at the time but did not have close to the momentum YouTube enjoyed. Also, Facebook was threatened by both Instagram and WhatsApp, which are also incredibly reliant on network effects and had already grown massive user bases at the time of acquisition.

@DivesTech You can always count on media and experts to show their expertise 🤓

It’s special bc for the last 12 years it’s been poision for children, adults have gotten more addicted, all females tbjng they are IG models…..cancer to society, what did you expect from META

@DivesTech @jonstewart should have played those @TheDailyShow clips during his interview with @linakhanFTC

Haven't used Facebook since then!!

Jon, thoroughly enjoy your stats and historical context posts. Please keep them coming. 👏

Now the rest is history

It’s interesting how consistent @garyvee has been man.