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It’s unclear how history will judge Sheryl Sandberg.

Sandberg said it was Wednesday. Leaving Meta after 14 years As the company’s second-in-command, he leaves behind a complex professional and personal legacy.

He helped the company formerly called Facebook become one of the most influential and wealthy companies in the world. His writings and advocacy women at work and mourning He had an impact on Sandberg on issues touched by several other American executives.

But Sandberg was also partially responsible. Facebook’s failures at critical moments, especially when the company initially dismissed and deflected Russian-backed trolls who abused the site to inflame divisions among Americans ahead of the 2016 US presidential election. And while his 2013 book “Lean” started important conversations, some of his ideas are now feel outdated.

as my colleagues Wrote“Sandberg ends his tenure at Meta far from the peak of reputation he’s reached in the past ten years.”

Many of America’s superstar tech companies, including Apple, Amazon, Google, and Oracle, have experienced relatively recent transitions where iconic founders have handed power into rental hands. Sandberg is not the founder of Facebook, of course. But without the partnership between Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook wouldn’t be what it is today – both good and bad.

It’s also hard to imagine that his departure changed Facebook significantly. This suggests that Sandberg’s greatest influence may have been in the past and is no longer as important at Facebook as his supporters or opponents believe.

The architect of transforming digital advertising:

Zuckerberg, 23, hired Sandberg in 2008 to figure out how to make Facebook a large, permanent business. With this score, he succeeded beyond anyone’s dreams. But this legacy is also complex.

Sandberg spearheaded a plan to build a more complex advertising system from the ground up, based largely on what he helped develop at Google. Ads on Facebook were tied to people’s activities and interests on the site. As with Google, many advertisers purchased their Facebook ads online rather than through sales staff as with TV or newspaper ads. Later, Sandberg developed new systems for Facebook advertisers to identify their potential customers even more precisely.

Google and Facebook have largely transformed product marketing from an art to a sometimes frightening science, and Sandberg is among the architects of that change. He shares the credit (or blame) for developing two of the most successful and perhaps least defensible business models in internet history.

All the worries about apps today tidying up every single piece of people’s activity to better introduce us to dishwashers – that’s partly what Sandberg does. So do Facebook and Google’s combined $325 billion in annual ad sales, and all the other online companies that make money from ads.

Denial, diversion, defensive pattern.

Sandberg initially told the public that Facebook played little role in orchestrating the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021. This was not quite true. As my colleagues Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang reportedPeople used Facebook to spread misinformation about election fraud, which fueled anger among protesters. Some rebels used Facebook to discuss the logistics of the attack in advance.

In their 2021 book, “An Ugly Truth,” Sheera and Cecilia wrote that her response to Sandberg’s critics was part of her model of trying to protect the company’s reputation or her own reputation rather than doing the right thing.

Sandberg was also among those responsible for Facebook. delayed or inadequate first response About news in 2018 that Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm, was able to collect the personal information of millions of Facebook users.

Tech journalists and others who pay too much attention to Facebook regularly asked Why Sandberg chose to stay with the company in recent years. My colleague Mike Issac said in today’s DealBook newsletter: Sandberg loses influence as Zuckerberg takes on more commands on the company. Other administrators took over duties that were once Sandberg’sincluding overseeing government policy.

Sandberg may once have believed he could do much more by working at Facebook than he could outside the company, but it was hard to say whether that was true anymore.

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Tip of the Week

How to report spam texts?

Brian X ChenThe New York Times’ consumer technology columnist offers advice for being part of the solution to the scourge of fake text messages.

soon colonI have recently reported on the growing annoyance of text message spam, which has outstripped the rise of automated calls.

The texts could be shipping notices for a package you didn’t order, or sales offers for questionable health products like weight loss pills. Links within these texts often take you to a website that scammers can use to scam, asking for your personal information, including your credit card number.

No sign of SMS spam slowing down. That’s why one of the best things you can do is be part of the solution: Forward the spam to your phone operator.

This will help operators find out what phone numbers and language are used in spam texts. This is useful information to help carriers improve their technology to stop these messages from reaching your phone.

Here’s how to forward spam texts to carriers:

on iPhones, touch and hold the message and tap “More”. Then press the forward button, which is the arrow in the lower right corner of the screen. Type 7726 in the recipient field and press send.

on Android phones, touch and hold the message. When a menu opens, select “Forward Message”. Type 7726 in the recipient field and press send.

Before you go …

• A try from TikTok: Jury made a decision In the defamation lawsuit between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard on Wednesday. Recently my colleague Amanda Hess discovered Here’s why the trial has become fodder for almost constant fan comments on TikTok and other apps, many of which portray Depp as a hero and Heard as a villain.

• Would more people bringing phones to classrooms make children safer in school? experts said The Washington Post did not recommend this, in part because they said that in an emergency, such as when schools are shooting at teachers and other educators, children need to be focused, and that a phone can make unwanted noises during a silent quarantine. (Subscription may be required.)

• The sound of nothing is apparently big business: People who create Spotify audio mixes that consist only of static, ocean waves, or other white noise earn up to $18,000 per month, Bloomberg News reports. reported. (Subscription may be required.)

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