After 14 years, Sheryl Sandberg is stepping down as COO of Meta.
Since 2008, Sandberg has been Mark Zuckerberg's right-hand woman and largely responsible for building Meta (the company formerly known as Facebook) into the revenue-generating social media behemoth it is today. As Zuckerberg noted in a comment on Sandberg's farewell post, it marks "The end of an era."
From its humble beginnings as a snarky social media platform created in a Harvard dorm room to its modern-day incarnation as the conglomerate that now includes Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, Meta has often been at the center of controversies that include major privacy violations, dissemination and propagation of misinformation and hate speech, and coercive algorithms.
In her post, Sandberg addressed these controversies with the tone of a valedictorian on commencement day. "The debate around social media has changed beyond recognition since those early days. To say it hasn’t always been easy is an understatement. But it should be hard. The products we make have a huge impact, so we have the responsibility to build them in a way that protects privacy and keeps people safe." What a long strange trip it's been. Have a good summer!
Sandberg reminisced in the post about her time at Meta. When she joined the team, Sandberg and Zuck were the Silicon Valley odd couple: She was the 38-year-old ad exec from Google, he was the 23-year-old sweatshirt-wearing wunderkind. But it proved to be a fortuitous match. Tasked with monetizing the social media platform, Sandberg made Facebook profitable through advertising, and they both became billionaires when Meta went public in 2014.
When Sandberg first joined Meta, she was also a mother of two young children and used her power and influence at the company to speak up about the challenges that women face in the workplace. Sandberg is a vocal advocate of women's initiatives and has published several books and founded a non-profit on the subject, although her approach has also been criticized for being rigid and elitist.
Speaking of parenting, Sandberg has certainly been a mentor to Zuckerberg over the past 14 years. Not included in Sandberg's announcement were the democracy-threatening crises that she has helped Zuckerberg navigate over the years. There was Russia's use of Meta and other social media platforms to disseminate fake news in the 2016 presidential election, the Cambridge Analytica scandal that collected data from Meta users without their knowledge, and the more recent whistleblower leaks and subsequent congressional hearings.
Sandberg didn't specify what she would be doing next but said that she would continue to serve on Meta's board of directors, and focus more on her foundation and philanthropic work. Sandberg will remain in her role as COO until the fall.
UPDATE: Jun. 2, 2022, 9:39 a.m. EDT Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says Javier Olivan, the company's chief growth officer, will be Sandberg's successor.