Recode lays out a good explanation behind the departure:
The duo, who founded Instagram 2010 and sold it to Facebook in 2012 for $1 billion, told Facebook executives today that they were leaving the company, according to The New York Times. The co-founders have disagreed with Zuckerberg on a handful of recent product changes, including changes to comments and how posts are shared between the two networks.
In a statement released on Instagram’s blog, here’s what CEO and co-founder Kevin Systrom wrote about their departures from the popular photo-sharing application:
Mike and I are grateful for the last eight years at Instagram and six years with the Facebook team. We’ve grown from 13 people to over a thousand with offices around the world, all while building products used and loved by a community of over one billion. We’re now ready for our next 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.
We remain excited for the future of Instagram and Facebook in the coming years as we transition from leaders to two users in a billion. We look forward to watching what these innovative and extraordinary companies do next.
Kevin Systrom, Co-Founder & CEO
Will this mean Instagram, largely left untouched by Facebook controversies, will go the way of their parent company? Time will tell.
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