She once made Facebook big with Mark Zuckerberg – now Sheryl Sandberg is suddenly resigning as Chief Operating Officer of Meta Platforms. This is a bitter defeat for the group and its boss Zuckerberg.
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg
The Meta Group loses its top manager: Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg will leave the company in the fall after 14 years at the top, Meta surprisingly announced on Wednesday afternoon (local time). The 52-year-old will remain on the board of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
“It’s a decision I didn’t take lightly, but 14 years have passed,” she said on Wednesday. “I want to create more space to get more involved in philanthropy, to do more with my foundation.”
This is bad news for Mark Zuckerberg’s crisis-ridden meta-group. Sandberg is one of the most prominent managers in Silicon Valley and, alongside Zuckerberg, is considered the most prominent face of the group. Ever since she joined Facebook in 2008, she has always been seen by investors as the “adult” at the side of founder and CEO Zuckerberg, who is 15 years her junior.
Sandberg was instrumental in transforming the social network into one of the largest corporations in the world, generating nearly $120 billion in revenue last year. She was responsible for Facebook’s corporate customers and the advertising business. The group is now number two in the world in the market for digital advertising.
In recent years, however, Sandberg has also had to answer for Facebook’s privacy missteps and tried to improve the company’s relationship with the public and regulators. For example last autumn, when it became known how the photo platform Instagram can plunge young people into depression.
In an interview with Bloomberg on Wednesday, Sandberg described her time at Meta as “the honor and privilege of a lifetime,” but joked that it’s “not the easiest job you’ve ever had.”
Sandberg’s successor is Javier Olivan, who has led the company’s growth efforts for years.