Can Instagram Save Facebook?

Instagram, in all its trivial glory, might be the best hope for Facebook

- Sarah Frier

Through the glass doors, beyond the giant camera logo and before the artisan coffee stand, visitors to Instagram’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., are invited to pause and commemorate the moment. Along one wall are three brightly painted dioramas: a night sky, a moonscape, and a pink sunrise with white plastic clouds in the foreground. The depictions, evoking the company’s famous photo filters, are joined by arched doorways so guests can step between the three sets, taking a portrait in each.

That this display celebrates a now instantly recognizable form—the selfies shared within Instagram’s smartphone app— is a testament to the company’s success and cultural impact. But what’s missing from this scene is any sign of Facebook.

Since 2012, when Facebook Inc. bought the 13-person company for $715 million, Facebook’s way of doing business has been central to the rise of the photo-sharing network. In its earliest years as a Facebook property, Instagram operated out of the same building where founder Mark Zuckerberg worked. Today, Instagram’s 700 employees work in offices that lack any visible evidence of its corporate parentage, even though they’re just a five-minute bus ride from the mother ship. The company has its own mission statement—“To strengthen relationships through shared experiences”—its own branding, and a corporate culture that’s as concerned with creativity and design as Facebook’s is with engineering and data. But Facebook did impose its most important belief on Instagram: an obsession with growth.