Or did the VCs who own Instagram also own Facebook and so just moved some numbers from one cell in a spreadsheet to another - netting themselves huge amounts of publicity before the Facebook IPO (and probably a tax break somewhere)
Facebook had an income of about $500M last year and $200M the year before - so I doubt they had $1Bn in cash sitting around to pay in used dollar bills.
I imagine some sort of IPO/options/notes financial complexity so no actual folding money changed hands
Or did the VCs who own Instagram also own Facebook and so just moved some numbers from one cell in a spreadsheet to another - netting themselves huge amounts of publicity before the Facebook IPO (and probably a tax break somewhere)