Sheryl Sandberg, the manager responsible for day-to-day business, is stepping down from Meta, the parent company of Facebook, after 14 years in office. She will leave the company in the fall but will remain on the Meta board, wrote Sandberg on Facebook. “When I accepted the job in 2008, I hoped to stay for five years. 14 years later, it’s time for me to start a new chapter in my life,” writes Sandberg. She plans to focus on her foundation and her philanthropic work. Meta shares fell about 4 percent as a result of the news of the departure.
Before working for Facebook, Sandberg worked for Google and served as Chief of Staff at the US Treasury Department. She also worked at McKinsey for a while. Sandberg, 52, is a well-regarded figure among business experts for having helped grow Facebook from a start-up to the multi-billion-dollar company it is today since joining the company in 2008. As a close associate of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, critics see her as partly responsible for the company’s course, which was primarily aimed at rapid growth.
While this approach made Facebook big and influential, it also brought the company numerous scandals, particularly over the issue of privacy and how it handles hate and violent posts. Sandberg, who is also an author, devoted a lot of energy to cultivating Facebook’s relationships with regulators and politicians. Sandberg also oversaw advertising, partnerships and business development so Zuckerberg could focus on the company’s products.
The upheaval at Facebook is progressing slowly
Facebook is in transition right now. The Silicon Valley company is aligning itself with the metaverse and wants to dominate the device-accessible, fully connected and interoperable world. However, company founder Zuckerberg is making slow progress with his vision. Sandberg was long considered his right-hand man, vehemently defending the business model based on advertising revenue in the media and at conferences such as the World Economic Forum in Davos. In recent years, however, there has been speculation about a cooled relationship between the 38-year-old Zuckerberg and Sandberg – which has always been rejected.
In an interview with Bloomberg news agency, Sandberg called her time at Meta the “honor and privilege of a lifetime,” but joked that it’s also “not the easiest job anyone can have.” Javier Olivan, who has overseen the company’s growth efforts for years, will take Sandberg’s place as COO when she officially leaves in the fall.