In the mobile era, Apple was ahead while Facebook struggled to keep up, often acquiring companies like Instagram and WhatsApp to strengthen its position.

Simplicity through prioritization was key to WhatsApp's success, especially during its acquisition by Facebook for $19 billion.

Historically, companies like WhatsApp and Instagram have been close to achieving unicorn status with very few employees, but a sustained trend of this nature has yet to be established.

The acquisition of WhatsApp was surreal; I struggled to comprehend the magnitude of a billion dollars and what it meant for me personally.

In the web era, Facebook emerged as the dominant application, overshadowing Apple's web products, which were not perceived as competitive at the time.

The success of WhatsApp was key to holding on to our values during our transition from 20 million to 1.2 billion users, supported by a unique engineering culture that focuses on simplicity and prioritizes core features over many tasks.

When we co-founded Instagram, we realized that the core of our product was about taking photos and sharing experiences, which led us to strip away distractions and focus on what truly worked.

Facebook's platform allowed for the creation of billion-dollar businesses, with notable successes like Zynga and Spotify benefiting from it.

Apple won the mobile battle with the App Store, which became a crucial platform for app distribution, unlike the fragmented app ecosystems of earlier smartphones.