Sheryl Sandberg steps down as COO of Meta after 14 years

Social media giant Meta Inc. (Facebook) has had its ups and downs. One of the core parts was handled by Sheryl Sandberg as the COO of Meta. After 14 years of serving second next to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl is stepping down to pursue the following chapters of her life.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared a lengthy post on his Meta profile, saying contributions Sheryl made throughout the company's lifetime. When she joined next to Mark, Sheryl was 38 years old while Mark was only 23. Coming from the vice president of online sales & operations at Google's stable business to a startup was risky. But she poured years into it to see the platform grow, impacting millions of people worldwide.

In the last three years, Zuckerberg was in the congress chair, reflecting ideas from Meta Inc. and how it is not a data grabbing platform along with its competitive practice. Sheryl avoided the highlight and took over while Mark braced that political side of things. A talent like her must do what she does best. As we can see, the reflection of how far Meta, formerly known as Facebook, came in the last 14 years. Sheryl will step down this fall. Javier Olivan, chief growth officer, will take that position, while Sheryl will join the board of directors.

In a long post, Sheryl shared her insights of working close to such a young talented leader who was a visionary. In 2008, she started working on Facebook, where sheer will and brilliance made a difference. Over 200 million storefronts are currently directly conducting business on a platform they built with over three billion daily active users. As a mother, wife, leader, and businesswoman, she showed exemplary growth, which many women in the sector idolise. They said it is tough for women to lead and be a mother. While it is true, it is not impossible.

While working at Google, Sheryl said she had a large office surrounded by many people. It was easy to sneak off to tender the children. When she joined Meta, it was a small block with a tiny circle, making it tough to handle both sides. Mark made it easy for her as no pressure was put. She did put up great virtue to the platform. Mark also posted long writing on his profile, talking about the roles changing in the leading positions.

Mark said, "Meta has reached the point where it makes sense for our product and business groups to be more closely integrated, rather than having all the business and options functions organised separately from our products." Sheryl will now sit on the board of directors, giving her time to focus on her personal life. Sheryl published a book after the sudden loss of Dave, his late husband, and another one to empower women later.

She is a close friend to Mark, who stayed together when Mark and Priscilla had the sorrow of miscarriages and went through childbirth's joy. She and Mark are one of the best friends, so having her on the board is the best they can do to keep their professional life closer as, without question, their personal life will remain the same.

As Oliver will take over the COO role, Marne Levine, Chief Business Officer, will handle Javier's old position, reporting directly to him. Additionally, "Justin Osofsky will report to Chris Cox. In addition to his role overseeing Global Operations and Instagram's business organisation, Justin will now take on the additional responsibility of building a content team that works across business and products that will train our AI recommendation systems to help you discover the most interesting, relevant, and personalised content across Facebook and Instagram."

Sheryl's departure marked the end of an era for the company. Meta focuses more on the software and hardware side of things and improving the virtual reality components with current running activities. Maybe another Chinese company beat them to it. We will talk more about that in another story. Facebook made around $272 million in revenue when Sheryl joined the team, making around $118 billion in 2021 with $39.4 billion in earnings.