Sheryl Sandberg, Mark Zuckerberg’s No. 2, leaves Meta- Corriere.it

Sheryl Sandberg announced his resignation from Half. Director – who is 52 and has been the right-hand man for 14 years Mark Zuckerberg As Head of Operations and Commercial Mind Facebook before and Half Then – he wrote it on his page Facebook.

He wrote in a long post “After 14 years left dead”, the first comment under it was exactly a comment Zuckerberg: “It is the end of an era. Over the years, you have shaped our business model based on advertising, molded our management culture, and taught me how to lead a company. I will miss working by your side, every day: but I am grateful to be a friend forever. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me, my family, our company, and millions of people around the world. You are a star “.

Sandberg joined Facebook in 2008, after Zuckerberg – at the time just a clever and somewhat confusing computer scientist – bumped into her at a Christmas party and then went out of his way to snatch her from Google, where she was critical to the creation. The platform that can change the world of advertising forever.

“When I accepted this job, I hoped to be able to hold this position for 5 years. After fourteen years, it was time for me to write the next chapter of my life,” he wrote without revealing his future plans in detail.

With Sandberg, Facebook has become the behemoth the world knows: and it’s no coincidence that the title, on Wall Street, immediately felt the blow.

In his letter, Sandberg describes Zuckerberg in words that reflect the path that has been shared in recent years, from the first meeting to the “countless dinners and conversations” that the Facebook founder offered him the role, to the growing difficulties the company is facing. He found he had to adapt (“To say it wasn’t always easy is an understatement: but it is true that it is. The products we make have a huge impact, and we have a responsibility to build them in this way that they protect privacy and ensure user safety. Meta colleagues and I have felt the weight of our responsibilities.”).

“I asked him three things,” Sandberg recalls: “To be able to sit next to him at the Facebook desk.” to be able to meet him in person and alone once a week; And get direct and honest feedback. It has kept those promises to this day. He often says that we grew up together: and he is right.

Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post that Sandberg will take over Javier Olivan. The Facebook founder wrote, “This role, however, will be different from the way Cheryl has played it: It will be more like the traditional role of COO, and Javi will focus above all on the internal and operational aspects, continuing to demonstrate its ability to make us more efficient and robust.”

Conversely, Sandberg has played a somewhat “public” role, leading her to establish relationships with lawmakers or take positions on issues such as the role of women in the workplace or, more recently, abortion.

Two New York Times reporters, Shera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang, recently dedicated to the role of Sandberg — and to the relationship between Zuckerberg and Sandberg, which led to the growth of Facebook Facebook. Final investigation (Einaudi 2021): a book that resulted from more than 400 interviews with experts, but above all employees and ex-employees, at all levels, at Facebook.

The image that emerged from this book, until 2016, was that of a symbiotic bond: he, a programmer with a vision, committed to directing product innovation, a manager with extraordinary skills, ready to turn it into a profit machine.

However, according to the authors, everything began to change when Trump won the election in 2016.

Sandberg, historically associated with the Democratic Party and the “face” of the company in Washington, suddenly finds herself without a reference point in the capital.

Zuckerberg — after witnessing her managing the Cambridge Analytica crises and Russian interference in the US election campaign, and after circumstances forced him to apologize to the world — in 2019 flew to Washington for an “off the agenda” meeting with Trump. He had decided, against Sandberg’s advice, not to delete the edited video in which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared to be mumbling. And he theorized – in the now famous speech at Georgetown University – about the need for his platform to be “neutral” towards political contents, even if they are downright false.

According to what the book’s authors reconstruct, in the hours after those words, swarms of emails—disappointed, angry, and anxious—from managers and employees began arriving at Sandburg. There is not much I can do to change Mark, I explained to those around her.

Some have responded to direct their emails elsewhere. For example for Nick Clegg, who became Facebook’s Vice President of Global Affairs and Communications.

When TV star Katie Couric asked her, during an interview, if she was concerned about her legacy, being too organic on a platform seen as too toxic to society, Sandberg replied that she was “honored” in her role: But inside – the authors wrote, citing sources close to Director – “devour her humiliation.”

“For many of the company’s senior executives,” Frenkel and Kang wrote, “the feeling now is that there is no longer number one and number two, but number one and many others”: and what has happened recently seems months to prove the point.

In particular, Clegg’s role – a former British deputy prime minister, who was appointed to be Facebook’s “foreign minister”, reports directly to Sandberg, but recently became Meta’s “head of global affairs” – is to grow, with time.

Zuckerberg gave him a writing assignment Draft post in which Zuckerberg suspended Trump accounts after assaulting Congress; He who spoke After revealing on Facebook the “Facebook files” last year, when a newspaper reporter revealed The Wall Street Journal In a long and highly detailed series of articles, Jeff Horowitz has published classified documents and internal research on highly sensitive topics.

Among these clutches, which the company has always denied, Sandberg is not mentioned in his post. She explained that “she wants to devote herself more to her foundation and her charitable work, which is more important to me than ever at the critical moment we are going through for women.” She talks about the wedding – scheduled for the summer – with Tom Berthal, whom he met after the death of her second husband, Dave Goldberg, and about her role as the mother of an “extended family of five children.” He explained that he will leave the position of COO at Meta “in the fall,” after an orderly handover – and necessarily given his role – is complex and lengthy. He announces that he will remain on the company’s board of directors. And thanks, Mark, for giving me this opportunity and being one of the best friends you can have.