The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 23 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Lemkin: Google Search, Facebook, and Instagram are stronger than ever
“Fast forward today. These are record growth businesses now, right? Google search. We started the show talking about AI overviews and other things. Google search is a better business than it has ever been as is Facebook and Instagram.”
O'Driscoll: Meta lost $70B on VR after making $100B+ on Instagram
“Yeah, I mean, if you look at the, if you look at the big play scoreboard for that, it's like, bet a billion on Instagram, win a hundred billion plus, maybe four hundred billion. Bet seventy billion on Meta and VRAR, lose it all.”
Facebook cutting Pinterest off its newsfeed shifted growth from exponential to linear
“I remember early on at Pinterest, there was a time when Facebook acquired Instagram. We were both growing exponentially. Pinterest and Instagram were growing exponentially at the time. They acquired Instagram, and then they shut Pinterest off the newsfeed. So …”
Lemkin: ChatGPT mobile downloads rival TikTok, Meta, and X combined
“It was ChatGPT over the last 28 days, 29.5 million downloads. ChatGPT, 29.5 million. Just mobile. That's just its mobile app. TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and X, thirty two million. So ChatGPT mobile downloads just about equal to all the social media guys combi…”
Instagram Acquisition Forced Facebook to Switch Metrics From MAU to DAU
“When Instagram came along to Facebook, we still had the MEU as our goal. And so when we had the MEU as a goal, I mean basically Kevin's system was like, what? We are now in the mobile world. People use the phones all the time. We should be doing we do DAUs. We…”
Facebook's Safety Team Was Larger Than Instagram's Total Headcount
“The safety and integrity work, we were running too much of our own stuff and not leveraging the much larger teams at Facebook and in the central teams. I think there were more engineers that worked on safety and integrity at the company at the time that then w…”
Instagram lacked basic registration flow data logging in 2016
“Even at the best companies, like when I joined Instagram, we literally did not have logging for all of the registration flow. It was incredible. We knew how many people started and how many people ended, but we did not know what was happening at every step of …”
Instagram retention rose from 20% to over 50% under Bangaly Kaba
“I think we improved our retention from about 20% to maybe over 50% while I was there.”
Kevin Systrom sought only Sacca, Adam D'Angelo, and Jack Dorsey for Instagram
“Instagram came to me. Kevin Systrom literally said, I want three angels, you, Adam D'Angelo, and Jack Dorsey.”
Snapchat Stories Became the Dominant Format Across All Social Networks
“And with that one insight, starting from first principles, thinking about how people interact with each other, he has changed the course of all social networks, because you can't find, you know, whether it's Twitter, or LinkedIn, or, you know, obviously, Whats…”
Instagram Is the Most Popular Platform Among Creators Overall
“Instagram is the, it's the most popular in the creator community, as far as we can tell. So the most creators use it.”
Krieger: Personalizing Instagram's Explore feed resulted in a 2x usage boost
“When we launched Explore and made it personalized rather than just like, most popular photos, like, that was a two X delta in usage.”
OfferUp Matches Instagram With 22-Minute Daily User Engagement
“The startup offer up the mobile Craigslist company up in Seattle. They get 22 minute average daily session times. 22 minutes. That's as much as A news app. That's as much as Instagram. That's as much as a media service.”
O'Driscoll: Thrive Capital doubled its Instagram investment in just days
“Thrive invested in Instagram, and like, literally four or five days later, it sold for a two X, right?”
Tenev: Robinhood was the top App Store app during GameStop surge
“Robinhood was the number one app in the app store. And my feeling at the time was, you know, everyone was sort of like, Wow, you should be really happy. You're the number one app in the app store ahead of Instagram and TikTok. Not just financial app, but every…”
Mosseri Rebuilt Instagram's Leadership Team Across Nine Functions in Year One
“So my first year, I had to hire a head of design, engineering, product management, data science, research, HR, communications, marketing, and a COO.”
Krieger: Instagram's seed funding was contingent on finding a technical co-founder
“You know, with Instagram, Kevin had some basically initial like seed funding contingent on finding a technical co-founder.”
Krieger: Instagram's UI broke at launch when posts exceeded 30 likes
“The second something got more than 30 likes on a post, it totally broke the UI on launch because we didn't summarize it.”
Instagram grew 50% year-over-year during Bangaly Kaba's early tenure
“We grew basically 50% year over year for the first couple years while I was there.”
Instagram's growth team was built as a full-stack product group
“When I helped build the growth team and Instagram, we were engineers, data science, product managers, growth marketers is like full stack, basically product group, but the engineers were growth focused engineers.”
Instagram grew from 440M to 1B MAUs in 2.5 years
“Bengali led the product growth and consumer product orgs at Instacart, and before Instacart, was head of growth at Instagram, where he built and led the product team that helped grow Instagram from four hundred and forty million to one billion monthly actives …”
Thrive Capital Invested in Instagram Growth Round From $40M Fund
“The ambition of the team, which reached well beyond the forty million fund they had at the time would suggest. And even with that small fund, they were taking big swings, you know, be a big investor in a growth round in Instagram right before Facebook. Bought …”
Swimwear brand Triangl generated millions in sales primarily through Instagram
“I just have in mind a brand that I've been found very fascinating in this space is for example, the baby suit brand called Triangle that has been doing most of his growth for Instagram and now been Selling millions and millions of dollars of bathing suit just …”