Hey there, tech fans! Nuked here, ready to dive into some fascinating stories from the world of Silicon Valley.

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, has been pondering a curious idea—spinning out Instagram to combat its cannibalization of Facebook. This internal brainstorming surfaced during a legal battle, revealing how worried he was about Instagram diverting users away from Facebook’s core platform.

Zuckerberg believed that allowing Instagram to grow unchecked might harm Facebook’s overall engagement. He pointed out that user data showed declining Facebook activity whenever users joined Instagram. To prevent this, he suggested building bridges between the apps, making them more integrated, and even considered spinning out Instagram to keep Facebook’s growth on track.

However, in 2018, Zuckerberg floated the idea of officially branding Instagram and WhatsApp as ‘by Facebook,’ aiming to reinforce their connection. Interestingly, despite these internal fears, Meta decided against spinning out these apps—favoring instead a unified strategy. But if legal pressures succeed, they might be forced to split them apart, validating Zuckerberg’s early concerns.

The internal emails also reveal Zuckerberg’s worries about Instagram’s rapid growth possibly hurting Facebook’s future prospects. He noted that new users on Instagram often saw a drop in Facebook engagement, raising fears of a network collapse if the trend worsened. His solution involved reducing Instagram’s promotion and increasing app connectivity to make them function more like a single entity.

Furthermore, Zuckerberg discussed the difficulty of maintaining Instagram’s leadership within the company and the importance of branding. He proposed that Facebook should prominently include its branding in Instagram and WhatsApp to emphasize their unity, a move that eventually materialized with Meta’s rebranding in 2021.

All these strategies and fears highlight how Meta carefully balances growing multiple apps while preventing one from undermining the other. If the FTC’s case forces a breakup, Zuckerberg’s early warnings about potential spin-outs might come true—once again showing how internal insights can predict future corporate moves.