What Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook Execs Really Thought About Instagram Before Buying It

The first week of the Meta antitrust trial has uncovered some seriously eye-opening stuff—especially about how Facebook (now called Meta) saw Instagram back in the early 2010s. Let’s just say—they weren’t calm about it.

The U.S. government has taken Meta to court, accusing the tech giant of buying up its biggest threats—like Instagram and WhatsApp—to crush competition. If the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) wins the case, Meta might actually be forced to sell off both Instagram and WhatsApp.

As part of the trial, the FTC pulled out internal emails and messages that gave everyone a front-row seat into the minds of Facebook’s top execs. What came out was crystal clear—Facebook was worried. Really worried.

Behind the scenes: Facebook was watching Instagram like a hawk

In 2011, Instagram was growing fast. And Mark Zuckerberg noticed.

“Instagram seems like it’s growing quickly,” Mark wrote in an internal message. “They’re already at 2 million users in just four months. That’s a lot.”

 

That wasn’t just a passing comment. Mark and other Facebook leaders were clearly feeling the heat. Instagram was simple, clean, and fun. People were loving it—so much so that even Facebook employees were using it more than their own platform.

Another internal message from September 2011 showed just how anxious Mark was getting:

“They’re growing extremely quickly right now… literally every couple of months that we waste translates to a double in their growth and a harder position for us to work our way out of.”

 

That’s not business talk. That’s fear—fear of being left behind.

Facebook started thinking: If you can't beat them, buy them.

By early 2012, Facebook started to think seriously about buying Instagram. The idea wasn’t just to own it—it was to stop it from becoming a threat.

“I wonder if we should consider buying Instagram, even if it costs ~$500M,” Mark wrote in February 2012. “They have something we don’t—a really good camera and a photo-sharing network people actually love.”

 

He even admitted something rare for a big CEO—maybe Instagram had figured out something Facebook hadn’t:

“It’s quite possible our initial thesis was wrong and theirs is right... maybe people just want to take great photos, not necessarily post them on Facebook.”

 

That’s a big thing to admit when you’re running the world’s biggest social network.

What happened next? Planning, strategy… and a little bit of manipulation.

Facebook didn’t just want to buy Instagram. There were deeper strategies in play.

“Maybe we buy them, keep their product running so people don’t hate us,” Mark suggested, “but we don’t add new features. We focus development on our own apps instead.”

 

That sentence says a lot. The goal wasn’t to help Instagram grow—it was to take its best parts, plug them into Facebook, and keep Instagram quiet.

Samuel Lessin, another Facebook exec, even suggested grabbing other rising stars like Pinterest, Path, and Evernote while they were still small:

“We should buy the companies we admire… if we can keep their products up and running, but get their teams working on Facebook.”

 

It wasn’t just about competition. It was about time. As Mark put it:

“What we’re really buying is time… even if new competitors pop up, we’d have a year or more before they catch up.”

 

In the end…

These messages show just how personal business decisions can get. It wasn’t just strategy—it was emotion. There was excitement, fear, pressure, and a very real sense that if Facebook didn’t act fast, someone else might steal their crown.

Now, years later, those decisions are under the microscope. And the world is asking—was it just smart business? Or was it unfair play?

Either way, the story behind the Instagram acquisition is more than just numbers and legal filings. It’s a real look into how powerful people think, feel, and act when something new threatens what they’ve built.