Sheryl Sandberg announced Wednesday that she will step down as Facebook’s chief operating officer, after 14 years as one of the most powerful figures in a company that transformed Silicon Valley.
During his time on Facebook, now Meta, he saw the company through a meteoric rise and a storm of ongoing controversy. Sandberg herself became a controversial figure in corporate feminism after the publication of her book Lean In, which became a key manifesto for women in the workplace.
Facebook, with Sandberg as one of its most public faces, has resisted scrutiny over Cambridge Analytica’s breach, the January 2021 attack on the US Capitol and, more recently, documents leaked by whistleblower Frances Some of them revealed some of the most toxic impacts of the platform.
While the scandals have created a mixed legacy for the executive, its imprint on the Facebook business, and the entire social media industry, is undeniable, said Debra Williamson, an insider intelligence analyst. which has followed the company since its foundation.
“There has been a lot of controversy surrounding Meta, but from a purely business standpoint, what he built on Facebook is quite powerful and will go down in history books,” he said.
Sandberg joined Facebook four years after its founding to be the “adult in the living room” of a young company and to devise a monetization strategy for its growing user base. It helped revolutionize its advertising business model, making it the giant it is today with $ 117 billion in revenue in 2021. In 2008, when it started, its annual revenue was only $ 200 million. , according to Insider Intelligence.
His main role has been the most effective and expensive shield of sympathy in history. Scott Galloway
The scandals that took place during her tenure have prompted activists to demand her resignation in recent years, and have called into question her legacy as a leader in women’s rights. Under Sandberg’s watch, Meta platforms became “a right-wing backyard where misogyny, racism and misinformation proliferated,” said Shaunna Thomas, co-founder of the UltraViolet women’s rights group.
“Sheryl Sandberg may think she’s a feminist, but her decisions at Meta made social media platforms less secure for women, people of color, and the U.S. electoral system,” Thomas said. “Sandberg had the power to act for 14 years, but he constantly chose not to.”
She will be remembered not only for her corporate legacy, but also for her time as a public figure in the company, said Scott Galloway, a professor at Stern School of Business at New York University.
Sandberg has testified several times before Congress in response to Facebook’s mistakes, taking a stand to deflect the company’s blame for the Capitol riots and allegations of voter manipulation in 2016 and acting as a softer and more enjoyable role for to the famous. Stoic CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
“His main role has been the most effective and expensive shield of sympathy in history,” Galloway said. “Through it, Facebook invented what I call a nuclear weapon of mass distraction.”
In his absence, there are likely to be more public statements from future Meta officials, including his global boss Nick Clegg and Instagram CEO Adam Clegg.
Meanwhile, problems at the root of congressional consultations and public outrage are unlikely to change after Sandberg’s departure, according to the hate speech control group Media Matters for America.
“It’s hard to imagine, but Facebook is about to get worse and much more dangerous,” Media Matters for America said in a statement.
In response to his resignation, Zuckerberg has announced a new focus on creating a content team that will be based more on artificial intelligence, as opposed to advocates recommending that the company invest more in human moderators. .
This change comes as Meta takes an even wider turn away from the social media business and into virtual reality space. In October 2021, the company changed its name from Facebook to Meta, as Zuckerberg invested billions of dollars in “metavers,” an augmented and virtual reality space where people can interact through avatars in a world. shared.
The metavers company comes when Apple’s new privacy measures turned central advertising systems upside down for the company’s revenue model, an issue Sandberg worked on closely, Williamson said.
“This is the end of an era, and probably a good reason why Sheryl decided it was time to leave. Facebook needs to build the next commercial and advertising infrastructure, and that’s a big challenge,” he said. “And one that someone else will have to take on.”