Sheryl Sandberg, Meta's chief operating officer and longtime second-in-command to its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, announced her retirement on Wednesday after 14 years at the company, as the company continues to face questions about its social media platform and navigates a transition to the so-called metaverse.Ms. Sandberg, 52, said last fall that she would be leaving Meta, the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other apps, but that she would remain on the board of directors. She added in an interview that joining Facebook was a "honor and pleasure of a lifetime," and that she had planned to stay for about five years rather than the 14 years she has.
Ms. Sandberg stated that her position did not allow her to pursue many other interests and that she now preferred to focus on her own charity and the Lean In Foundation. She'll marry Tom Bernthal, a television producer, this summer.Ms. Sandberg stated in an interview, "I believe in this firm." "Have we covered all the bases?" There is no way. Have we learnt, listened, matured, and made the necessary investments? This group has done so, and they will continue to do so."
Mr. Zuckerberg has appointed Javier Olivan, a long-serving product executive, as Meta's next chief operational officer. Mr. Olivan has handled WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, and Facebook and has supervised much of Facebook's growth over the last decade.Ms. Sandberg's time at Meta is coming to an end, and she is no longer at the top of her career. Ms. Sandberg was Mr. Zuckerberg's top lieutenant and was known as the "adult in the room" when it came to building out Facebook's business in its early years. Under her leadership, Facebook's advertising business grew, and Ms. Sandberg leveraged her celebrity to speak out on problems like what women can accomplish in the workplace.
However, during the 2016 presidential election, Facebook came under fire for its role in inflaming divisiveness and spreading misinformation. During that election, Ms. Sandberg was in charge of the firm's policy and security team. Following the Cambridge Analytica debacle, in which a voter-profiling business unlawfully exploited Facebook data, the social network was also hounded by privacy concerns.
Ms. Sandberg, one of Facebook's most visible executives, was unable to rebound from her missteps. Mr. Zuckerberg's public prominence has risen in recent years, as has his involvement in overseeing various aspects of the corporation, many of which had previously been solely under Ms. Sandberg's control.
Her resignation also coincides with a shift in Facebook's strategy. Last year, Mr. Zuckerberg rebranded the firm Meta and said that it would become a main provider of the metaverse, an online environment that is fully immersive. However, the company's advertising revenue has suffered as a result of its heavy investment in metaverse goods, partly due to Apple's privacy reforms, which have harmed targeted advertising.
After it reported financial data that suggested it was struggling to make the leap to the metaverse, Meta's market value plummeted by more than $230 billion in February, its greatest one-day wipeout.
Ms. Sandberg said in the interview that Meta was facing immediate hurdles, but that the company will weather the storm like it had in the past. "We didn't have any mobile ads when we went public," Ms. Sandberg said, referring to Facebook's quick shift from desktop to smartphone over the last decade. "This is something we've done before," says the narrator.
In the past, Ms. Sandberg has considered leaving Facebook. Three people who spoke with her about the move at the time said she informed colleagues in 2016 that if Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential contender, won, she would most likely take a job in Washington. In 2018, following the disclosures of Cambridge Analytica and Russia's meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, she informed coworkers that she was considering quitting but didn't want to leave when the company was in trouble.
Mr. Zuckerberg thanked Ms. Sandberg in a post on Facebook on Wednesday.
"A business partnership like ours lasts a long time," he added. "Sheryl designed our advertising firm, hired amazing people, established our management culture, and taught me how to operate a business."
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