Facebook appoints Adam Mosseri as Instagram Head
San Francisco, Oct 2 : Facebook has appointed Adam Mosseri, Vice President of Product, as new head of its photo-sharing app Instagram.
Mosseri replaces Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger who abruptly announced their departure in September.
"We are thrilled to hand over the reins to a product leader with a strong design background and a focus on craft and simplicity, as well as a deep understanding of the importance of community," Systrom and Krieger wrote in a blog post late on Monday.
Mosseri began his career as a designer, managed his own design consultancy, and then joined the Facebook design team in 2008.
He moved from design into product management, and spent time working on Mobile then News Feed and most recently, to Instagram.
In the new role, he will oversee all functions of the business and will recruit a new executive team, including a head of engineering, head of product and head of operations.
"We remain excited for the future of Instagram in the coming years as we transition from being leaders at Instagram to being just two users in a billion," the co-founders said.
Instagram co-founders resigned at a time when social media platforms, including Facebook were facing intense scrutiny over the spread of fake news and sinister campaigns.
Founded in 2010, Instagram was bought by Facebook for $1 billion in 2012.
Instagram's meteoric rise continued after the acquisition, dwarfing the stagnant growth rates of Snapchat and Facebook.
"We've grown from 13 people to over a thousand with offices around the world, all while building products used and loved by a community of over one billion. We're now ready for our next chapter," the co-founders said.
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Priyanka Gandhi: Cong's talismanic campaigner enters Parliament after 'long, long time'
New Delhi (PTI): Will she? Will she not? And on Saturday, she did. After years of frenzied speculation, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is finally entering the Lok Sabha after a resounding win from Wayanad with many a hope that she will re-energise her party and its dwindling electoral fortunes.
The 52-year-old, who joins her mother Sonia and brother Rahul as an MP in what is a rare instance of three members of a family together in Parliament, would visit Parliament as a teenager to listen to her father Rajiv Gandhi speak as prime minister. Four decades later, she joins as member herself -- her detractors crying nepo politics and her party supporters laying out the proverbial red carpet for a promise finally met.
She should have been a politician to the manner born given the Gandhi legacy. But Priyanka Gandhi took the long and winding way into mainstream politics. First were the questions of whether the mother of two would join active politics, and then whether and when she would contest elections.
In September 1999, she told a journalist her entry into politics may take a "long, long time". And it actually did. She took the plunge 20 years later in 2019 and was later appointed Congress general secretary.
Five years after that, Priyanka Gandhi begins her journey as an elected representative of the people.
With a winning margin of more than 4.1 lakh votes, she has surpassed the tally of her brother Rahul Gandhi from Wayanad in Kerala.
Priyanka Gandhi's entry into Parliament comes at a difficult time for the party, which has been jolted by electoral defeats in Haryana and Maharashtra. It would be interesting to see if she is able give a much-needed fillip to the grand old party and help put it back on electoral track.
Often drawing comparisons with her grandmother Indira Gandhi for their similarity in looks and way of speaking, Priyanka Gandhi has been the go-to campaigner for the party since her entry into active politics and even before that when she campaigned for her mother Sonia and brother Rahul.
And more than both, she is the one who many say has the easiest touch when it comes to communicating with people, individuals and crowds, and also in articulating the party's viewpoint on a range of issues. That she is often seen with her brother, sometimes teasing, sometimes chiding and always affectionate, has added to the image of the convivial politician.
Frequently referring to her childhood, the pain of her father Rajiv Gandhi's assassination and her mother's grief, she steered the Congress' campaign during the general election, adroitly walking the tightrope between striking a familial chord and discussing national-level issues. She proved to be a strategist, orator and mass mobiliser -- all rolled into one.
Most of her speeches are akin to a conversation with the crowd, establishing a connect and giving people the impression that here was a person who was known to them, someone sharing her feelings and thoughts with them.
As star campaigner and strategiser, Priyanka Gandhi helped the Congress make impressive gains in some states as well as in the Lok Sabha polls held earlier in the year. Her campaign helped the Congress get 99 seats in the general election, up from 52 in 2019.
As the curtains came down on the 2024 general election, analysts totted up the numbers to highlight that she has proven to be the party's talisman. Priyanka Gandhi took part in 108 public meetings and roadshows. She campaigned in 16 states and a Union territory, and also addressed two party workers' conferences in Amethi and Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh.
Priyanka Gandhi has often been projected as a possible challenger to Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi and also as a successor to Congress veteran Sonia Gandhi in the family pocket borough of Rae Bareli.
Soon after the Election Commission announced the Wayanad bypoll, the Congress declared that Priyanka Gandhi would be its candidate from the seat in Kerala. Rahul Gandhi, it decided, would retain the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency in Uttar Pradesh and vacate the Wayanad seat he won for the second consecutive time.
After her name was announced for the Wayanad bypoll in June, Priyanka Gandhi said, "I am not nervous at all.... I am very happy to be able to represent Wayanad. All I will say is that I will not let them feel his (Rahul Gandhi's) absence. I will work hard and try my best to make everybody happy and be a good representative."
"I have a good relationship with Rae Bareli as I worked there for 20 years and that relationship will never break," she said, adding that both she and her brother will work together in both the constituencies.
Priyanka Gandhi was made Congress general secretary in-charge of the crucial eastern Uttar Pradesh region in January 2019 and then general secretary in-charge of the entire state.
In December 2023, Priyanka Gandhi was made Congress general secretary "without a portfolio". She helped strengthen the organisation and led the party's campaign in Himachal Pradesh, where the grand old party wrested power from the BJP.
Born on January 12, 1972, Priyanka attended New Delhi's Modern School and the Convent of Jesus and Mary. She holds a bachelor's degree in Psychology from Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi, and also has a master's degree in Buddhist studies.
Priyanka Gandhi is married to businessman Robert Vadra. The couple has two children -- Raihan and Miraya.
Her entry into Parliament has been long awaited by party's workers and supporters and they are hoping she will provide the booster shot the party needs in its difficult phase at the hustings going forward.
