Zuckerberg put $1B Instagram deal on hold to watch ‘Game of Thrones’
The Facebook CEO loves the HBO show so much that buying the photo-sharing app took a back seat to catching the newest episode.
In the new Vanity Fair article all about Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram in April 2012, Kara Swisher writes that Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom was on the phone with his lawyers while Zuckerberg and friends watched the show:
“Their back-and-forth was interrupted by a television-watching party for ‘Game of Thrones’ that Zuckerberg, an avid fan, was throwing.”
“Game of Thrones” is one of the shows Zuckerberg ‘likes’ on Facebook, along with “Saturday Night Live,” “The West Wing,” and “Rome.”
The deal went through, of course, leaving Twitter, which had offered $520 million for the app during a meeting around a campfire, out in the cold.
“I was heartbroken, since I did not hear from Kevin at all,” Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey told Swisher.
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