4 October 2021: Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp go dark for hours
A faulty configuration change knocked Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp offline worldwide for roughly six hours. Billions of users were cut off, employees reportedly struggled to get into their own buildings, and the stock fell about 5 percent on a day that also brought whistleblower headlines. It showed how much of daily life and commerce had come to run through one company, and how fragile that concentration can be.
The lesson: When everything runs through one system, one mistake can stop everything at once.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in Facebook / Meta at the start of 2020 → $3,333 today, vs $2,092 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 2020, the latest year on the wheel. That is 3.3 times the money, and $1,241 more than a plain index fund made over the same years.
What Facebook / Meta teaches: Founder control cuts both ways: Zuckerberg's unchecked authority produced brilliant acquisitions and an expensive metaverse detour, and shareholders could vote on neither.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | $78.00 | $8,974 | $3,301 |
| 2018 | $180 | $3,889 | $2,519 |
| 2020 | $210 | $3,333 | $2,092 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought Facebook / Meta? Every starting year and the full story →
More Facebook / Meta history
- 3 February 2022: Meta loses a record chunk of value in a day
- 9 April 2012: Facebook buys Instagram for $1 billion
- 10 April 2018: Zuckerberg testifies and Facebook stock rises
- 18 May 2012: Facebook's bumpy IPO
- 26 July 2018: Facebook loses about $119 billion in a day
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
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