No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram - Winner of the FT Business Book of the Year Award

Description

The extraordinary inside story of how Instagram became the world's most successful app Winner of the FT & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award 2020 Drawing on interviews with all the key figures at Instagram, No Filter vividly recreates the rise of the most successful photo app in history- from its origins in a Silicon Valley coffee shop, to its unprecedented billion-dollar acquisition by Facebook, to its founders' dramatic clashes with their new boss, Mark Zuckerberg. Along the way, it explores how Instagram has changed society - encouraging businesses to prioritise their aesthetic above all else, forging a new economy of digital entrepreneurs, and rewiring how a generation thinks about celebrity and success. The result is the definitive story of how a simple platform revolutionised tech, business, and popular culture. Instagram has remade us all in its image. This book reveals how. One of the best books of the year according to- The Times | Fortune | Financial Times | Inc. | Economist | Newsweek

Sarah Frier reports on social media companies for Bloomberg News from 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. She is a frequent contributor to Bloomberg Businessweek and Bloomberg Television. No Filter is her first book. @sarahfrier

Deeply researched and highly entertaining . . . packed with anecdotes and insider accounts . . . it eloquently describes how the app changed millions of lives, generating a new industry of "Instagram influencers". * THE TIMES * Deeply sourced . . . A compelling tale of jealousy. * FINANCIAL TIMES * No Filter manages to be clear-eyed and objective, without sensationalizing or oversimplifying . . . We need a book like this . . . I spend hours staring at the screen, and now I have a better sense of who's staring back. * NEW YORK TIMES * Fascinating . . . Instagram's social impact makes it more than just another story of Silicon Valley business success. * REUTERS * A brilliant exploration of the highs and lows of human nature . . . Vivid reporting and electric story-telling. -- Ashlee Vance, author of ELON MUSK: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future Frier landed interviews with Instagram's founders, executives, and competitors to chronicle the company's meteoric growth. -- BUSINESS BOOKS YOU NEED TO READ IN 2020 * INC * A deeply-reported and beautifully written account of a company that has changed society, fame, culture, business, and communication. -- Nick Bilton, author of HATCHING TWITTER: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship and Betrayal Riveting and wonderfully reported . . . Will ignite a conversation about the often unconscious role we play in increasing Instagram's formidable, maybe even terrifying, reach. -- Bethany McLean, co-author of THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron How Instagram defied the odds to become one of the most culturally defining apps of the decade . . . Unprecedented exclusive access. -- SILICON VALLEY'S MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2020 * FORBES * A deep-dive into the social media platform we all love. -- BOOKS YOU ABSOLUTELY NEED TO ADD TO YOUR READING LIST IN 2020 * COSMOPOLITAN * A vibrant play-by-play [account] . . . Irresistible drama . . . Frier is willing to find the cracks in Instagram's glossy appearance. * NPR * One of my favorite books of recent months . . . A meticulously reported, beautifully told story. -- Casey Newton * THE VERGE * A comprehensive new history . . . Intriguing * DAILY TELEGRAPH * Inside the darker side of Instagram * EVENING STANDARD * Instagram has reshaped how we eat, shop, talk and present ourselves. In No Filter . . . Sarah Frier offers a rare glimpse into how the company came to be a formidable force in the tech industry. -- BEST TECH BOOKS OF 2020 * MASHABLE * A lively and revealing account of how the world came to see itself through [Instagram founder] Mr Systrom's lens . . . The tale of nerds who struck gold offers glimpses of Silicon Valley's weirdness. * THE ECONOMIST * No Filter offers an engaging account of how tech founders' ideals inevitably have to be squared with making profits. * WALL STREET JOURNAL * A fascinating business story - but also much more than that . . . Frier is a skilled reporter and an astute and sensitive cultural observer. No Filter is a vital read for anyone seeking to understand the incredible power Silicon Valley executives exercise over us, and the opaque, unpredictable and undemocratic mechanisms by which they do so. * New Statesman * A vivid portrait of clashing Silicon Valley egos -- Best Books of the Year: Business * Financial Times * Officially, this is the tale of the photo-sharing app Instagram, but it's also a wider story of Silicon Valley - the fragile egos, the feuds, the deals done around fire pits . . . Mark Zuckerberg is the book's sometimes cartoonish villain, ending staff meeting with the cry: "Domination!" -- Business Books of the Year * SUNDAY TIMES *