Sandberg leaving Facebook parent Meta after 14 years
mother in the 2013 book “Lean In,” calling on women to choose both having a career and taking care of children. The New York Times best seller sold over 4 million copies, but in the following years it was criticized for placing too much pressure on individual women and not calling for greater societal change.
In Wednesday’s post, Sandberg remembered having to leave Facebook’s office at 5:30 p.m. as her colleagues continued working to see her young children before they went to sleep — with Zuckerberg’s support.
As Facebook became the world’s dominant social media platform with nearly 3 billion users, Sandberg and Zuckerberg faced daunting challenges.
The company continues grappling with user privacy, misinformation, antitrust scrutiny and the rise of political hate speech, particularly during former President Donald Trump’s administration.
“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,” Sandberg wrote. “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.”
Sandberg said she plans to focus more on her foundation and philanthropic work. She is also marrying her third husband, Tom Bernthal, a marketing executive, this summer. Sandberg’s second husband, Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, died suddenly in 2015.
“It’s unusual for a business partnership like ours to last so long,” Zuckerberg wrote on Facebook Wednesday. “I think ours did because Sheryl is such an amazing person, leader, partner, and friend. She cares deeply about the people in her life and she is generous about nurturing relationships and helping you grow as a person.”
He said Sandberg would continue to serve on Meta’s board of directors and would be succeeded by Javier Olivan, Meta vice president of central products.
Zuckerberg said Olivan’s role would be focused more on internal operations, a more focused area compared with Sandberg, who had a wideranging oversight over Meta’s business operations.