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Episode 34: Sarah Frier
Listen on: Apple | Google Play | Spotify | TuneIn
Sarah Frier is the author of the new book No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram and is a tech reporter at Bloomberg.
Transcript
Dr. Sohaib Imtiaz: Hi guys, welcome to another episode of the Body Clock podcast by Owaves. Today, I’m delighted to have on Sarah Frier, who’s just released a book called No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram. It’s quite well-read at the moment, it’s everywhere, all over social media. Sarah has a background in technology reporting at Bloomberg so we’re very fortunate to have her on. Nice to have you on, Sarah.
Sarah Frier: Thank you for having me.
Dr. Sohaib Imtiaz: No, of course, I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for a while because I’ve been seeing what you post and it’s very interesting, very relevant to Silicon Valley, but not even Silicon Valley, the wider tech sphere and what’s happening right now in the world.
Sarah Frier: Yeah, I think that more and more of us are spending hours on Instagram and relying on it really as the infrastructure of our lives during this COVID pandemic.
Dr. Sohaib Imtiaz: Instagram is something which has helped so many people stay connected, but not even that, it’s inspired people to find creativity, which you mentioned repeatedly throughout your book, at a time where we aren’t outside, we’re at home, we are living in a digital world. So before we dive into that, what made you write this book? And I mean, it came out at a perfect time where it engulfed the whole story of a Silicon Valley first billion-dollar acquisition by Facebook and I mean Instagram is an app used by everyone, but especially young people.
Sarah Frier: For me, the book was about telling a story that hadn’t been told. I have spent my career digging into the intricacies and the drama within Snapchat, within Facebook, within Twitter and I thought that Instagram was a mystery that usually as reporters, once a company is acquired, that’s the art for a startup. The founding story, 18 months, really fast growth, $1 billion acquisition by Facebook and everyone’s happy and that’s the story. But really, the most interesting part of the Instagram story happens after they joined Facebook and after they’re figuring out. They start so small and they’re figuring out who they are within this other giant company with a tremendously strong culture around growth, around metrics. And Instagram has this growth, this culture around art and around…around sharing moments and visuals. And there’s tension from the start. And I thought that that was…that was something I didn’t realize as a reporter until I started digging into it and once I did, I noticed that there was probably a huge opportunity to tell a bigger story.
Dr. Sohaib Imtiaz: And you definitely did that because being a user myself of these apps, you don’t realize how the features are rolled out and how much goes behind each feature, the competition, looking at other apps and you seem to capture that in such intricate ways with little conversations that are happening between the different stakeholders in Silicon Valley. How did you manage to get those viewpoints or get the understanding of what was going on?
Sarah Frier: I tried to talk to as many people as possible an...
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By Owaves
4.9
1616 ratings
Listen on: Apple | Google Play | Spotify | TuneIn
Sarah Frier is the author of the new book No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram and is a tech reporter at Bloomberg.
Transcript
Dr. Sohaib Imtiaz: Hi guys, welcome to another episode of the Body Clock podcast by Owaves. Today, I’m delighted to have on Sarah Frier, who’s just released a book called No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram. It’s quite well-read at the moment, it’s everywhere, all over social media. Sarah has a background in technology reporting at Bloomberg so we’re very fortunate to have her on. Nice to have you on, Sarah.
Sarah Frier: Thank you for having me.
Dr. Sohaib Imtiaz: No, of course, I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for a while because I’ve been seeing what you post and it’s very interesting, very relevant to Silicon Valley, but not even Silicon Valley, the wider tech sphere and what’s happening right now in the world.
Sarah Frier: Yeah, I think that more and more of us are spending hours on Instagram and relying on it really as the infrastructure of our lives during this COVID pandemic.
Dr. Sohaib Imtiaz: Instagram is something which has helped so many people stay connected, but not even that, it’s inspired people to find creativity, which you mentioned repeatedly throughout your book, at a time where we aren’t outside, we’re at home, we are living in a digital world. So before we dive into that, what made you write this book? And I mean, it came out at a perfect time where it engulfed the whole story of a Silicon Valley first billion-dollar acquisition by Facebook and I mean Instagram is an app used by everyone, but especially young people.
Sarah Frier: For me, the book was about telling a story that hadn’t been told. I have spent my career digging into the intricacies and the drama within Snapchat, within Facebook, within Twitter and I thought that Instagram was a mystery that usually as reporters, once a company is acquired, that’s the art for a startup. The founding story, 18 months, really fast growth, $1 billion acquisition by Facebook and everyone’s happy and that’s the story. But really, the most interesting part of the Instagram story happens after they joined Facebook and after they’re figuring out. They start so small and they’re figuring out who they are within this other giant company with a tremendously strong culture around growth, around metrics. And Instagram has this growth, this culture around art and around…around sharing moments and visuals. And there’s tension from the start. And I thought that that was…that was something I didn’t realize as a reporter until I started digging into it and once I did, I noticed that there was probably a huge opportunity to tell a bigger story.
Dr. Sohaib Imtiaz: And you definitely did that because being a user myself of these apps, you don’t realize how the features are rolled out and how much goes behind each feature, the competition, looking at other apps and you seem to capture that in such intricate ways with little conversations that are happening between the different stakeholders in Silicon Valley. How did you manage to get those viewpoints or get the understanding of what was going on?
Sarah Frier: I tried to talk to as many people as possible an...