Sandberg stepping down at Facebook
SAN FRANCISCO — Sheryl Sandberg, the No. 2 executive at Facebook owner Meta who helped turn its business from startup to digital advertising empire while also taking blame for some of its biggest missteps, is stepping down.
Sandberg has served as chief operating officer at the social media giant for 14 years. She joined from Google in 2008, four years before Facebook went public.
“When I took this job in 2008, I hoped I would be in this role for five years. Fourteen years later, it is time for me to write the next chapter of my life,” Sandberg wrote on her Facebook page Wednesday.
Sandberg has led Facebook — now Meta’s — advertising business and was responsible for nurturing it from its infancy into an over $100 billion-a-year powerhouse. As the company’s second most-recognized face — after CEO Mark Zuckerberg — Sandberg has also become a polarizing figure amid revelations of how some of her business decisions for Facebook helped propagate misinformation and hate speech.
Neither Sandberg nor Zuckerberg gave any indication that Sandberg’s resignation wasn’t her decision. But she’s also appeared somewhat sidelined in recent years, with other executives close to Zuckerberg, such as Chris Cox — who returned in 2020 as chief product officer after a yearlong break from the company —becoming more prominent.
Sandberg is leaving Meta in the fall and will continue to serve on the company’s board.
Zuckerberg said in his own Facebook post that Javier Olivan, who currently oversees key functions at Meta’s four main apps — Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger — will serve as Meta’s new COO.
Sandberg, who lost her husband Dave Goldberg suddenly in 2015, said she is “not entirely sure what the future will bring.”