Happy Nice Mall

For more than ten years, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg get together every week, it started and ended.

The symbolism of the rite was clear. It was meant to signal that Meta’s CEO, Mr. Zuckerberg, and Operations Director, Ms. Sandberg, were interlocked at the top of the company.

But when Ms Sandberg, 52, said on Wednesday, would leave meta This fall, the tech giant crystallized an unspoken change: Mr. Zuckerberg no longer has a clear 2nd number.

The role of chief operations officer at Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has declined in importance as Mr. Zuckerberg has appointed long-time executive Javier Olivan to take over Ms. Sandberg’s business when he leaves. Mr. Zuckerberg, 38, instead has four executives with equally great responsibilities and responsive to and led by important decisions.

Three people close to him said Mr. Zuckerberg made the structural change because he wanted to consolidate control over all branches of the company. While Mr. Zuckerberg has always been the undisputed boss with the majority of the company’s voting shares, when he was a younger businessman he shared power with Ms. Sandberg and needed help growing the company. But with over 18 years of experience, he said he wanted to use his full power and be more clearly defined as Meta’s sole leader.

Four top lieutenants, chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth; Nick Clegghead of global affairs; Chris Cox, chief product officer; and Mr. Olivan, head of growth, Mr. Zuckerberg said in a Facebook message that Ms. Sandberg will leave on Wednesday.

Each of the four men has great responsibilities. Mr. Clegg is Meta’s public face and ambassador, while Mr. Bosworth thrusts the company into the immersive world of Meta. pseudo metaverse. Mr. Cox runs Meta’s family of apps (Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Facebook) and Mr. Olivan will be responsible for analytics, infrastructure and growth.

But none have as much power as Ms. Sandberg used to, while Mr. Zuckerberg focused on developing Facebook products and effectively running all business operations.

Mr. Zuckerberg addressed the shift in power in his speech on Wednesday. Facebook post. Noting that he “does not plan to replace Sheryl’s role in our current structure,” he said, Meta has “reached the point where it makes sense to integrate our products and business groups more closely, rather than owning all the businesses and operations.” functions organized separately from our products.”

RA Farrokhnia, a professor at Columbia’s Business and engineering Schools believe that the change in the governance structure makes Meta invest in metadata and moved away from the social networking model That Ms. Sandberg started an advertising business and defended it for years.

“Moving in this direction requires a more decentralized and more traditional management structure,” said Mr Farrokhnia. “There is more than one person coming together where the sum of the parts is much greater.”

A spokesperson for Meta declined to comment and declined to interview executives.

Over the years, Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg have had clear responsibilities, which employees often refer to as the “Sandberg side” and “Mark side”. Mrs. Sandberg led the business, policy and legal teams with a lot of autonomy, while Mr. Zuckerberg was in charge of the engineering and product teams.

That started to change in 2020 after Facebook dealt with scandals involving privacy, misinformation and other toxic content on the platform. Mr. Zuckerberg told his teams: the apology is over and wanted to give more time and attention to the innovative products the company designed.

Since then, Mr. Zuckerberg has gained more control over the general messaging and policy decisions previously handled by Ms. Sandberg. It also brought in recruits with public policy expertise and promoted long-time executives who were loyal to its vision.

The three managers he was promoted to were Mr. Bosworth and Mr. Cox, who had been with the company for 16 years, and Mr. Olivan, who joined the company nearly 15 years ago. They were among Mr. Zuckerberg’s first employees and were instrumental in creating the earliest versions of Facebook.

Mr. Olivan, 44, known internally as Javi, joined Facebook as head of international growth and has been steadily climbing the rankings. He is not a famous name, but he oversaw Facebook’s rapid expansion and was closely involved in maintaining the company’s technical infrastructure.

Mr. Bosworth, 40, is seen as an enthusiastic and sometimes brash cheerleader for Mr. Zuckerberg’s vision. in January, he promoted to next chief technology officer. At the center of Mr. Zuckerberg’s venture for the metaverse, Quest runs virtual and augmented reality labs that produce products such as virtual reality headsets. He and Mr. Zuckerberg are close friends who vacation together.

Mr. Cox, 39, who became chief product officer in 2005, is often described by employees as the heart of the company. He left Facebook in March 2019 but returned in June 2020, leading to speculation that Mr. Zuckerberg may have marked himself as his successor.

In Mr. Cox’s absence, some of his teams have been reassigned to report directly to Mr. Zuckerberg or other executives, said two senior Meta employees who have worked with Mr. Cox since his return. With thousands of engineers reporting to him, they said, he’s not taking on the far-reaching role he once had.

Mr Clegg, 55, joined the company in 2018 after a career in British politics, including as deputy prime minister. Ms. Sandberg hired him to address Facebook’s tough global political issues, a task that was once hers. Over time, he has become a sort of de facto head of state for the company, which does business with governments around the world and advocates Meta at the regulatory level. in February, he promotion To the head of global affairs reporting to Mr. Zuckerberg.

At Meta, insiders have long speculated who would be his potential successor should Zuckerberg leave. Ms. Sandberg’s impending departure has now shortened this list and left no clear answers.

“Over the years, several people other than Sheryl have emerged as potential successors to Mark,” said Katie Harbath, Meta’s director of public policy, who left the company last year. “It makes sense for Mark to want options for possible successors.”

“Focusing on just one person can be risky,” he added.