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Sheryl Sandberg, director of operations at Facebook (Meta) and one of those responsible for establishing the platform as a digital giant, announced her separation from the company, without making it clear whether the departure was her decision or that of leader Mark Zuckerberg.
One of the most prominent executives in the world of digital business and technology, the vice president of the giant Facebook (recently turned into Meta), Sheryl Sandberg, separated from her position as director of operations that she had held since 2008, when she arrived from Google .
The second in command after founder Mark Zuckerberg, she was part of the operations that transformed Facebook from a youth startup to a digital emporium, including the acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp, among others, but she was also involved in several of the most serious failures of the platform, such as the Cambridge Analytics scandal, or the use of the social network to spread unverified news or hate speech.
From the “like” button to the top of the digital world
Sandberg came to Facebook when he was 38 years old, and one of his first contributions was the “like” button to rate posts.
During the 14 years of his tenure, what was conceived as a network to connect former classmates grew into a business of more than 100,000 million dollars a year, and profits of close to 40,000 million last year alone.
His departure, announced on his Facebook profile and confirmed on Zuckerberg’s, seems to end an era and become the definitive bridge to the establishment of the Metaverse, and a new business model.
Until now Director of Growth Javier Olivan, a Spanish executive, was promoted to operational management in place of Sandberg, who retains his position on the organization’s board of directors.
A controversial and unorthodox figure
Critics and informants who at the time revealed some of Facebook’s most controversial practices agreed to relate these to Sandberg’s executive decisions.
One of them is the use of user data, under a treatment policy that the network has been adjusting as scandals have broken out, but which continues to lead to the same consequence: sensitive and confidential information ends up not only in the hands from the advertising industry, but even from Facebook’s business partners, as author Shoshana Zuboff denounced in her book The Surveillance Age of Capitalism.
Although at the time Sandberg denied in an interview with the Reuters agency that the network had served as a platform to plan and promote the assault on Capitol Hill, a company informant, Frances Haugen, revealed that the same employees were alarmed to see that the decisions executives did little or nothing to curb the rise of extremism on their walls, as Facebook’s post history is known.
Sandberg did not make her next job destination clear, saying she will focus more on her foundation (to promote the role of women in the industry) and her “philanthropic work.”
With AP and Reuters
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