Sheryl Sandberg intended to spend just five years on Facebook when she joined Mark Zuckerberg’s right-hand man in 2008. Instead, he stayed 14 years, becoming one of the most recognized and polarizing figures in Silicon Valley.
When he resigns as Facebook’s chief operating officer, now known as Meta, this fall he will leave behind a mixed legacy. On the one hand, she has built an image as an experienced executive and female model who helped grow a $ 538 billion company by supercharging its digital advertising machine.
But Sandberg has also become a lightning rod for criticism, accused of trying to clear controversies over moderation and privacy under the rug, as Facebook went from scandal to scandal after the US election. 2016.
“Facebook wouldn’t be Facebook without Sheryl,” said David Jones, CEO of The Brandtech Group and former CEO of the Havas advertising group. “It built the foundation that allowed Facebook to grow into what it became: good and bad.”
For Sandberg and Zuckerberg, the moment marks a crossroads, as the power duo, which has split in recent years, now seeks to redo their images separately after years of scrutiny.
Zuckerberg has focused on his vision of metavers, at a time when Facebook stock prices are maturing, growth is slowing and competition is rising. Sandberg, a committed Democrat, has said he intends to focus on his family and his philanthropic efforts amid speculation that he could enter politics. She will remain on Meta’s board.
Sandberg is also marching under a cloud following a report in The Wall Street Journal alleging that he had pressured the Daily Mail to drop negative coverage from his ex-boyfriend and CEO of Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick. Meta said the matter is now closed.
Separately on Thursday, the Journal reported on an investigation into its use of the company’s resources to plan its upcoming wedding to marketing executive Tom Bernthal. A Meta spokesman said of the report: “None of this had any impact on his personal decision to leave.”
Sandberg has been credited with transforming a blatant start-up run by twenty-year-old “tech bros” into an enviable digital advertising empire during the first half of his tenure. He proclaimed that he was “put on this planet to scale organizations,” and he did. According to Facebook’s initial public offerings, in 2009 the company’s sales stood at $ 777 million. In 2021, Meta generated $ 117 billion in revenue.
Its success was partly due to its meticulous attention to detail and its ability as a consummate network, its associates say. Marketers describe her spending more time with advertising executives than her rivals, such as her former entrepreneur Google, and arranging brilliant dinners at her Menlo Park home to attract customers. She listened and then acted on their demands, they said.
“He played an important role in getting Mark Zuckerberg to take the advertising community very seriously,” Jones said.
Sandberg was also surrounded by close allies, mostly women, from her previous roles at Harvard, Treasury and Google, called “Friends of Sheryl Sandberg” or FOSS. Many saw the FOSS phenomenon as Sandberg advocating for women in line with her corporate feminism manifesto, Lean In; others lamented the creation of these cliques.
“When you had it on your back, it was incredibly empowering, but if you don’t have Sheryl’s blessing, it can be very limiting,” a former staff member said.
Sandberg’s ability to work in the room generated business and was crucial to his creation of Facebook’s communications and public policy team. He personally took on the role of chief lobbyist, meeting with regulators and legislators while Zuckerberg focused on product innovation.
As Silicon Valley grew, members of Congress actively sought meetings with Sandberg before the 2016 election to try to embrace the technology sector, according to former colleagues. But it did not last.
Her public profile as second in command of Zuckerberg left her in the line of fire, in front of lawmakers, customers and the public, as the company was hit by a series of scandals after the 2016 election.
“Sheryl has always been the soft power with phone calls and offensive charm when Facebook is facing a crisis,” said an executive at an advertising agency.
The pioneering ad business model has also been scrutinized. Critics and civil society groups have argued that toxic and provocative posts were rewarded for capturing users’ attention, while their collection of user data for segmentation also contributed to the loss of privacy. .
Sandberg also had a reputation for not identifying issues and then went on the defensive when they erupted into scandals, seeking to control press narratives and alienate regulators.
“It’s not about what he did, it’s about the answer. Many of these things were unintended consequences. But then you have to turn around and act,” said another advertising executive.
This so-called delay, denial and deviation approach was applied to his handling of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, as well as to the revelations of Russian disinformation campaigns around the 2016 election, according to several reports.
At times, it has become finger signals. The New York Times in 2018 revealed that under Sandberg’s surveillance, Facebook hired Definers Public Affairs, a Republican-leaning consultancy, to spread misinformation about competitors and critics.
More recently, it sparked a backlash to downplay the idea that Facebook played a role in the events leading up to the U.S. Capitol assault on January 6, arguing that it was organized “largely” on other platforms.
Some expressed sympathy for his position; Zuckerberg, after all, is the last to make the decisions. “She felt cornered by these things, which continued to increase the‘ deviate ’approach,” said a former senior employee. “She could never get out of the crouching position because there is only crisis after crisis in the company.”
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His departure does not come out suddenly, according to experts. In recent years, Sandberg had withdrawn from the spotlight, and his influence has waned as tensions with Zuckerberg eased.
“Year after year, the gulf between Sheryl and Mark and what they thought should be done from the point of view of content moderation certainly grew,” the former employee said, adding that Zuckerberg’s position of free speech clashed with Sandberg’s desire for stricter moderation.
In his letter on Sandberg’s departure, Zuckerberg said Javier Olivan, the company’s growth director, will take on a “more traditional role as chief operating officer” in which he will be “internally and operationally focused”.
While Sandberg was a “superstar who defined the role of COO in its own unique way,” Zuckerberg wrote that “Meta has reached the point where it makes sense for our product and business groups to be more integrated, in instead of having all the businesses and operating functions organized separately from our products ”.
The shock consolidates Zuckerberg’s own power, as he confronts many of the people who used to report directly to her.
Zuckerberg described the movement as the “end of an era.” But with that, he also indicated his intention to start a new one, in which Sandberg’s previous role, with all its power and breadth, will no longer exist.