Sheryl Sandberg, the most prominent Facebook executive after Mark Zuckerberg and an advocate for women in the workplace, announced Wednesday that she'll leave her post as chief operating officer in the fall. "When I took this job in 2008, I hoped I would be in this role for five years," Sandberg posted on her Facebook page, per the San Jose Mercury News. "Fourteen years later, it is time for me to write the next chapter of my life." Zuckerberg, chief executive of the company that became Meta last year, said in a Facebook post that he doesn't plan to replace Sandberg as No. 2 in the company hierarchy. Javier Olivan will assume the title of COO.
Sandberg wrote that she isn't sure what she'll do next but that it will involve her foundation and philanthropic causes, which she called "more important to me than ever given how critical this moment is for women." She also plans to marry Tom Bernthal over the summer, seven years after the death of her husband, Dave Goldberg, per the Washington Post. Sandberg said she'll remain on the board of directors. Noting that he was 23 when he met Sandberg, Zuckerberg wrote that she designed Facebook's booming ad business and hired "great people." And he gave her credit for "teaching me how to run a company." At one point, Facebook's market cap exceeded $1 trillion, per CNBC.
There have been issues, per CNET, many involving privacy and misinformation spread through the platform. Criticism that Facebook didn't react quickly to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was one of them. A whistleblower went public last year with examples of the company making profit its priority over stopping the spread of hate and misinformation on the platform. Sandberg referred to the issues in her post. "To say it hasn't always been easy is an understatement," Sandberg posted. "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." (More Sheryl Sandberg stories.)
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