6 ms·

Positing that Facebook purchased Instagram for its architecture strikes me as odd. They (FB) have solved all of the problems that Instragram faces and more for

Positing that Facebook purchased Instagram for its architecture strikes me as odd. They (FB) have solved all of the problems that Instragram faces and more for a userbase roughly twenty times as large, and while the infrastructure is interesting for those at companies aspiring to Instagram's success, for your average systems engineer at Facebook or Google I would think it seems pedestrian in comparison

jack-r-abbit 15y ago
I read that title as kind of tongue in cheek. I'm pretty sure Facebook could have built the exact same functionality for less money and in less time as it took to initiate and finalize the acquisition. Winning their users over may have been harder to do. I guess they just figured it would be easier to just buy the users. shrug
- bigiain 15y ago
  Agreed. Also a pretty topical rebuttal to the other flood of articles claiming they were bought purely for the users - widely reported as being valued at $37 each, a number arrived at by assuming there's absolutely nothing else of value in the transaction. Given the "prices" Google are rumored to be paying to acquire great engineering staff, a team of three engineers who've got a proven track record of building and supporting 100million users on their own - surely they'd be worth some not-down-in-the-noise-floor percentage of even the seemingly insane valuation here? And a founding team who've "created" $1billion in value in ~550 days? Even if you only credit them with last weeks $500mil rumors - surely that founding team would be worth several tens of million dollars even if you didn't get the company they founded?
  - Retric 15y ago
    They also had ~50 million in the bank after a funding round that was so recent they could not have spent much of the money. Which means FB got a 5% discount on that billion dollar price tag and helps to make all those estimates just that much more reasonable.
    - ajslater 15y ago
      Didn't Sequoia make a big YouTube investment suspiciously immediately before acquisition?
  - watmough 15y ago
    This is one user that will be deleting this off of his phone. Darn-it!
  - prof_hobart 15y ago
    Paying $1B for a company partly because they've "created $1billion in value in ~550 days" is a bit of a tautological line of reasoning.
- nostromo 15y ago
  I can't see this as a user acquisition play. The number of Instagram users that are already on Facebook must be, what, 90%? Maybe more? So, it's obviously not for talent ($100mm per head? no way...), users, or tech. That leaves it as a competitive play. They took Instagram off the market to keep it out of the hands of Apple and Google.
  - sakri 15y ago
    Whether it's acquisition or retaining, every user owns an expensive phone, the demographic advertisers lust for.
  - jack-r-abbit 15y ago
    But to keep what out of the hands of Apple and Google? Apple and Google don't need the talent or tech either. Instagram's only real value was users. Competitive play or not... it had to be for the users. What else is there? Break room snacks?
ndcrandall 15y ago
Facebook definitely had other motives for doing this. One such speculation is here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3819245 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3819245 Others have been for their user base while some say it's for a talent acquisition (which I highly doubt). The title doesn't seem to imply that's why they bought Instagram.
- bigiain 15y ago
  I've got other suspicions too… I wonder what Instagram's privacy policy says about things like the exif data on all your photos? Almost certainly all geo-tagged. A bunch of data like "how often and how quickly individual users upgrade their iPhones". Cynical-me wonders how much value FB placed on the non-FB social graph that Instagram built when it hoovered up everybodies contact list?
ollerac 15y ago
are companies only allowed to have one reason for their acquisitions? i assume the complexity of instagram's architecture would reflect the technical prowess of the team and this would be very important to facebook
- maratd 15y ago
  The article mentions they have a team of 3 engineers. You don't pay that much cash for 3 dudes who managed to boot some instances on EC2 and install an off-the-shelf open source stack.
  - gbog 15y ago
    You are depreciating their work in a way that is not that of a real gentleman. Maybe you are also working on a startup and would like to make it to where Instagram guys are? Me too, you know. And for their tech stack what its impressing is that they chose very wisely IMO: if I had to build from scratch any Web or mobile app I wouldn't do differently (Python n PostgreSQL, etc)
    - GiraffeNecktie 15y ago
      He's being a bit flippant but his point is correct. You don't spend a billion dollars just to get three engineers, no matter how clever they are.
      - Danieru 15y ago
        I don't know... These ones were clever enough to get someone to pay a billion dollars for them. That's pretty clever.
        ceejayoz 15y ago
        Did the pay for the three engineers, or the thirty million users?
    - maratd 15y ago

jack-r-abbit 15y ago

I read that title as kind of tongue in cheek. I'm pretty sure Facebook could have built the exact same functionality for less money and in less time as it took to initiate and finalize the acquisition. Winning their users over may have been harder to do. I guess they just figured it would be easier to just buy the users. shrug

bigiain 15y ago
Agreed. Also a pretty topical rebuttal to the other flood of articles claiming they were bought purely for the users - widely reported as being valued at $37 each, a number arrived at by assuming there's absolutely nothing else of value in the transaction. Given the "prices" Google are rumored to be paying to acquire great engineering staff, a team of three engineers who've got a proven track record of building and supporting 100million users on their own - surely they'd be worth some not-down-in-the-noise-floor percentage of even the seemingly insane valuation here? And a founding team who've "created" $1billion in value in ~550 days? Even if you only credit them with last weeks $500mil rumors - surely that founding team would be worth several tens of million dollars even if you didn't get the company they founded?
- Retric 15y ago
  They also had ~50 million in the bank after a funding round that was so recent they could not have spent much of the money. Which means FB got a 5% discount on that billion dollar price tag and helps to make all those estimates just that much more reasonable.
  - ajslater 15y ago
    Didn't Sequoia make a big YouTube investment suspiciously immediately before acquisition?
- watmough 15y ago
  This is one user that will be deleting this off of his phone. Darn-it!
- prof_hobart 15y ago
  Paying $1B for a company partly because they've "created $1billion in value in ~550 days" is a bit of a tautological line of reasoning.
nostromo 15y ago
I can't see this as a user acquisition play. The number of Instagram users that are already on Facebook must be, what, 90%? Maybe more? So, it's obviously not for talent ($100mm per head? no way...), users, or tech. That leaves it as a competitive play. They took Instagram off the market to keep it out of the hands of Apple and Google.
- sakri 15y ago
  Whether it's acquisition or retaining, every user owns an expensive phone, the demographic advertisers lust for.
- jack-r-abbit 15y ago
  But to keep what out of the hands of Apple and Google? Apple and Google don't need the talent or tech either. Instagram's only real value was users. Competitive play or not... it had to be for the users. What else is there? Break room snacks?

ndcrandall 15y ago

Facebook definitely had other motives for doing this. One such speculation is here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3819245 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3819245 Others have been for their user base while some say it's for a talent acquisition (which I highly doubt). The title doesn't seem to imply that's why they bought Instagram.

bigiain 15y ago
I've got other suspicions too… I wonder what Instagram's privacy policy says about things like the exif data on all your photos? Almost certainly all geo-tagged. A bunch of data like "how often and how quickly individual users upgrade their iPhones". Cynical-me wonders how much value FB placed on the non-FB social graph that Instagram built when it hoovered up everybodies contact list?

ollerac 15y ago

are companies only allowed to have one reason for their acquisitions? i assume the complexity of instagram's architecture would reflect the technical prowess of the team and this would be very important to facebook

maratd 15y ago
The article mentions they have a team of 3 engineers. You don't pay that much cash for 3 dudes who managed to boot some instances on EC2 and install an off-the-shelf open source stack.
- gbog 15y ago
  You are depreciating their work in a way that is not that of a real gentleman. Maybe you are also working on a startup and would like to make it to where Instagram guys are? Me too, you know. And for their tech stack what its impressing is that they chose very wisely IMO: if I had to build from scratch any Web or mobile app I wouldn't do differently (Python n PostgreSQL, etc)
  - GiraffeNecktie 15y ago
    He's being a bit flippant but his point is correct. You don't spend a billion dollars just to get three engineers, no matter how clever they are.
    - Danieru 15y ago
      I don't know... These ones were clever enough to get someone to pay a billion dollars for them. That's pretty clever.
      - ceejayoz 15y ago
        Did the pay for the three engineers, or the thirty million users?
  - maratd 15y ago