Zuckerberg Delayed Instagram Deal to Watch 'Game of Thrones'

Kris Holt for The Daily Dot 2013-05-06 21:30:24 UTC

Only Mark Zuckerberg could throw a billion-dollar deal on ice to sit down with his friends and watch Game of Thrones.

We're at least a few years away from calling the 28-year-old Facebook CEO an eccentric billionaire (because a) he's not old; and b) he hasn't thrown stacks of benjamins from a hot air balloon just yet), but this is just one of the few details about the Facebook-Instagram deal that shook up the Web last year.

Writing for Vanity Fair, Kara Swisher has a comprehensive look at how the deal went down. Instagram's cofounders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger opted to sell to Facebook—rather than take a competing offer from Twitter—because, as Systrom told Krieger, “I really like Mark, and I really like his company. And I really like what Facebook is trying to achieve.”

Swisher's is a fascinating piece detailing not just the agreement between Systrom and Zuckerberg, but the history of Instagram. If you've any interest at all in Instagram, Facebook, or Silicon Valley, it's well worth reading. Here's a look at what you might not have known about Instagram or the deal before now:

Instagram's defining feature is its filters that make photos look as though they've emerged from the '70s, giving an instant vintage feel. Systrom got the idea after his girlfriend mentioned his photos would never look as good as those taken by a friend, who ran his images through filter apps.

Twitter executive chairman Jack Dorsey (who sat next to Systrom while the latter was interning) and the company's then chief financial officer made Systrom what they believed was a formal offer to buy Instagram during drinks by a campfire. That led to a delay in the Instagram-Facebook deal closing due to an antitrust hearing. Still, nine-figure deals proposed around a campfire? Silicon Valley is so casual.

Zuckerberg and Systrom knew each other casually long before Instagram. Zuck even tried to convince Systrom to drop out of Stanford to join him at Facebook, and the pair had dinner a few times at Zuck's house after Instagram was released. That nascent familiarity perhaps helped the negotiation process last just two days, from Good Friday to Easter Sunday (we're guessing plenty of eggs were rolled at Instagram's office that weekend). The deal was announced the following day.

The best detail in Swisher's story is this one:

"Saturday, Systrom was back at Zuckerberg’s to formalize the negotiations and come to an official acquisition agreement, which they would both sign. Their back-and-forth was interrupted by a television-watching party for Game of Thrones that Zuckerberg, an avid fan, was throwing."

Billion-dollar deals clearly take a backseat to the fate of Westeros in Zuckerberg's eyes (he Likes the show on Facebook, of course). Systrom, on the other hand, was on the phone to lawyers and investors to get them to sign off on the deal. A Stark comparison in priorities for those two men on that April 2012 weekend.

Image via Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

This article originally published at The Daily Dot here

Topics: Apps and Software, Business, Facebook, game of thrones, instagram, Mark Zuckerbeg, Television The Daily Dot is a Mashable publishing partner that reports on the most important and relevant topics from within, applying tried-and-true principles drawn from community journalism to the growing cultures of the Internet. This article is reprinted with the publisher's permission.

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Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg Joins the $1 Salary Club

for Quartz 2013-04-27 21:03:00 UTC

Facebook confirmed in a filing that Mark Zuckerberg, the social network's founder and CEO, is taking a $1 salary this year, and foregoing any bonuses.

But he's not exactly taking a vow of poverty. When Facebook went public last year, Zuckerberg exercised 60 million stock options, then worth nearly $2.3 billion, buying those shares for next to nothing. (He sold half of the stock to cover his tax bill.) And he's still sitting on another 60 million stock options that can be exercised on Nov. 7, 2015, for the same dirt-cheap price of $0.06.

All of those shares give Zuckerberg plenty of incentive to keep Facebook in good financial health, although he is on record saying, "We don't wake up in the morning with the primary goal of making money," and isn't really beholden to shareholders, since he controls a majority of proxy votes.

The $1 salary is symbolic. Companies have to compensate all of their employees, so working for free is out of the question — and doesn't $1 sound better, anyway? Since the first dot-com boom, getting paid $1 has become something of a tradition among extremely wealthy executives whose compensation instead comes in the form of stock.

Steve Jobs famously took a $1 salary from the time he returned to Apple as CEO in 1998; he didn't take any stock grants after 2003, either. In 2005, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, along with then-CEO Eric Schmidt, all reduced their salaries to $1. Schmidt, now executive chairman, takes a salary of several million dollars these days; Page, now CEO, and Brin still make $1.

Other tech CEOs who belong to the $1 salary club include Oracle's Larry Ellison, Tesla's Elon Musk, Zynga's Mark Pincus, and HP's Meg Whitman. Yahoo's Jerry Yang was making $1 before he was ousted as CEO last year. Outside of Silicon Valley, CEOs of American companies who made $1 in salary last year include Capital One's Richard Fairbank, Urban Outfitters' Richard Hayne, Fossil's Kosta Kartsotis, Kinder Morgan's Richard Kinder and Duke Energy's James Rogers.

Among the $1 salary club, only Karsotis, the watchmaker's longtime leader, actually made nothing in 2012, according to a Bloomberg analysis of proxy filings. He owns 11% of the company but didn't receive any additional stock or stock options last year. "Mr. Kartsotis is one of the initial investors in our company and expressed his belief that his primary compensation is met by continuing to drive stock price growth,"the company explained in its filing.

That's generally how $1 salaries are explained, but sometimes they come in the form of punishment or self-flagellation. When Lee Iacocca was brought in to save Chrysler from bankruptcy in 1978, he took a $1 salary as a publicity stunt. Vikram Pandit's salary was reduced to $1 in 2010, as Citigroup struggled to recover from the financial crisis, and executive compensation packages on Wall Street were facing intense public criticism; he was still fired two years later.

Zuckerberg's $1 salary for 2013 was first revealed in Facebook's IPO filing, but the proxy filing yesterday confirmed the amount and added that he won't receive any bonus, either. It also revealed that Zuckerberg received a $266,101 bonus last year in addition to his $500,000 base salary. He also gets to use Facebook's private planes, of course. Professional trips don't count as compensation, but his personal trips on Air Facebook last year cost more than $1.2 million.

Image via AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

This article originally published at Quartz here

Topics: Facebook, Jobs, mark zuckerberg, Social Media Quartz is a Mashable publishing partner that is a new kind of global business news outlet.

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Zuckerberg Forming Political Organization to Push For Immigration Reform

Alex Fitzpatrick2013-03-25 19:22:01 UTC

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly forming a political advocacy organization along with other businesses leaders that will make economic and business arguments in favor of comprehensive immigration reform as well as other long-term issues they deem important to their companies' long-term economic growth.

Republicans and Democratic strategists alike will help guide the yet-unnamed group, according to anonymous sources that spoke with Politico.

The embryonic group's formation comes as technology businesses and leaders have been increasingly vocal about immigration reform. Several influential leaders in the space, including AOL co-founder Steve Case and Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, have been pushing Congress to reform immigration in a way that makes it easier for high-skilled foreigners to stay, innovate and build businesses in the United States. Failure to do so, advocates argue, would risk letting the United States fall behind international competitors.

Zuckerberg has been ramping up his political activity in recent months, having hosted his first political fundraiser — for New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie — in January. He was also a signatory to a group of business leaders' recent letter to Congress calling for immigration reform. However, he has not personally been a vociferous advocate for any particular political issue.

Also reportedly involved with the group is Joe Green, Zuckerberg's first college roommate and co-founder of digital politics service NationBuilder. Green has been working as an "entrepreneur-in-residence" since leaving NationBuilder last month.

Facebook has declined comment to Mashable. We have also reached out to Green for any comment about the group's plans, and we will update this post with any response.

Image via Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images

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