Meta's Chief Working Officer Sheryl Sandberg is leaving the corporate after 14 years, she introduced Wednesday in a Fb publish.
Sandberg will likely be changed by Javier Olivan, the corporate's present chief progress officer, after a transition interval this summer season. She's going to proceed to serve on the Board of Administrators.
"I'm not completely positive what the longer term will convey," Sandberg wrote on Fb. "However I do know it'll embody focusing extra on my basis and philanthropic work, which is extra vital to me than ever given how important this second is for girls."
Sandberg has been with the corporate since 2008, and has usually been credited with serving to shephard it from the enterprise Mark Zuckerberg began in his dorm room to a $100 billion publicly traded firm. She led the corporate by tumult because it confronted questions over the unfold of misinformation and even private turmoil in her life after the dying of her husband in 2015.
Zuckerberg mentioned Sandberg leaving the corporate is "the top of an period."
"When Sheryl joined me in 2008, I used to be solely 23 years outdated and I barely knew something about working an organization," Zuckerberg mentioned, including that Sandberg "deserves the credit score for a lot of what Meta is right this moment."
Meta mentioned Sandberg was instrumental in implementing advantages applications for girls together with paid depart, bereavement depart, help for workers who wish to delay having a household, and paid depart for workers who're survivors of home violence.
The corporate has grown tremendously since Sandberg joined in 2008. It went from 500 staff to just about 80,000 and elevated its month-to-month lively customers from 100 million to three billion.
However amid scrutiny that it prioritized earnings over person security, Zuckerberg introduced a full rebrand of the corporate final yr, altering the title to Meta and shifting focus to constructing digital actuality merchandise.
Hundreds of pages of inside Fb paperwork offered to Congress by whistleblower Frances Haugen final yr revealed that executives at Meta had been conscious of the harms brought on by its merchandise and did little to make adjustments.
The inner analysis paperwork confirmed Meta leaders had been conscious its know-how recommends content material to customers that may lead them down a rabbit gap of misinformation and conspiracy theories. On the top of the COVID-19 pandemic, as vaccine hesitancy unfold, the paperwork revealed that executives knew about "rampant" feedback concerning vaccine hesitancy.
Meta refuted allegations that it prioritized earnings over security on the time, telling CBS Information "the concept we accomplish that on the expense of individuals's security and well-being misunderstands the place our personal business pursuits lie."
On Wednesday, Sandberg acknowledged the challenges she's confronted on the firm.
"The controversy round social media has modified past recognition since these early days. To say it hasn't at all times been simple is an understatement. Nevertheless it must be arduous," Sandberg mentioned Wednesday. "The merchandise we make have a big impact, so we now have the duty to construct them in a approach that protects privateness and retains individuals secure."
In April, the Wall Road Journal reported that Sandberg was dealing with inside scrutiny at Meta for allegedly urgent the Each day Mail in 2016 and 2019 to not report a harmful story about her then-boyfriend, Activision Blizzard chief government Bobby Kotick.
Regardless of the current controversies, Sandberg mentioned she is "particularly proud" that "girls and other people from numerous backgrounds have risen by our ranks and turn into leaders."
Whereas Olivan may have the identical title that Sandberg had, Zuckerberg mentioned he would not plan to exchange Sandberg's function within the firm's current construction.
"Meta has reached a degree the place it is smart for our product and enterprise teams to be extra intently built-in, moderately than having all of the enterprise and operations capabilities organized individually from our merchandise," Zuckerberg mentioned.
Olivan, who's been working at Meta since 2007, mentioned in a Fb publish that his new function won't have the identical "public-facing facet" as Sanderberg's.
"One among my largest priorities will likely be to make sure that the enterprise merchandise and partnerships sides of our firm are in lockstep," Olivan mentioned.
Meta's inventory, which has misplaced practically 40% of its worth within the final six months, was down greater than 2.5% on Wednesday.