No Filter, Sarah Frier
No Filter, Sarah Frier
List: $26.99 | Sale: $18.89
Club: $13.49

No Filter
The Inside Story of Instagram

Author: Sarah Frier, Sarah Frier

Narrator: Megan Tusing

Unabridged: 11 hr 20 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/14/2020


Synopsis

Winner of the 2020 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award * Named “Best Book of the Year” by Fortune, The Financial Times, The Economist, Inc. Magazine, and NPR

In this “sequel to The Social Network” (The New York Times), award-winning reporter Sarah Frier reveals the never-before-told story of how Instagram became the most culturally defining app of the decade.

“The most enrapturing book about Silicon Valley drama since Hatching Twitter” (Fortune), No Filter “pairs phenomenal in-depth reporting with explosive storytelling that gets to the heart of how Instagram has shaped our lives, whether you use the app or not” (The New York Times).

In 2010, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger released a photo-sharing app called Instagram, with one simple but irresistible feature: it would make anything you captured look more beautiful. The cofounders cultivated a community of photographers and artisans around the app, and it quickly went mainstream. In less than two years, it caught Facebook’s attention: Mark Zuckerberg bought the company for a historic $1 billion when Instagram had only thirteen employees.

That might have been the end of a classic success story. But the cofounders stayed on, trying to maintain Instagram’s beauty, brand, and cachet, considering their app a separate company within the social networking giant. They urged their employees to make changes only when necessary, resisting Facebook’s grow-at-all-costs philosophy in favor of a strategy that highlighted creativity and celebrity. Just as Instagram was about to reach a billion users, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg—once supportive of the founders’ autonomy—began to feel threatened by Instagram’s success.

Frier draws on unprecedented access—from the founders of Instagram, as well as employees, executives, and competitors; Anna Wintour of Vogue; Kris Jenner of the Kardashian-Jenner empire; and a plethora of influencers worldwide—to show how Instagram has fundamentally changed the way we show, eat, travel, and communicate, all while fighting to preserve the values which contributed to the company’s success. “Deeply reported and beautifully written” (Nick Bilton, Vanity Fair), No Filter examines how Instagram’s dominance acts as a lens into our society today, highlighting our fraught relationship with technology, our desire for perfection, and the battle within tech for its most valuable commodity: our attention.

About Sarah Frier

Sarah Frier is a senior technology reporter for Bloomberg News out of San Francisco. Her award-winning features and breaking stories have earned her a reputation as an expert on how Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter make business decisions that affect their future and our society. Frier is a frequent contributor to Bloomberg Businessweek and Bloomberg Television. She’s also the author of No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram, the winner of the 2020 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Regina

"No Filter" is a 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards finalist for best Science/Technology book. As other reviewers have noted, it feels a bit like this year's "Bad Blood." Rather than following the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes's Theranos scam, readers are taken behind the scenes to see how Instagram w......more

Fascinating. I couldn’t put it down. One of those journalistic works of nonfiction that reads like a thrilling narrative (think Bad Blood for social media). The story of Instagram, and by extension Facebook, is intriguing and made me reframe the way I think about and use social media.......more

Goodreads review by Sharon

Fascinating story about the founding of Instagram and then the staggering purchase by Facebook for $1 billion just before the Facebook IPO. The two founders of Instagram, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, were told by the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, that they would have true autonomy and operate......more

Goodreads review by Laura

Well that was enlightening! Behind the scenes look at comments, filters, algorithms, influencers, hashtags, stories and the people who created it all. I also learned a lot about Facebook & Zuckerberg and now I need to go take another shower because HE IS GROSS 🤮......more