After 14 years Sheryl Sandberg takes a step back. Deputy Mark Zuckerberg was entrusted with the position facebook her farewell message to the group she helped grow into one of the tech giants. When she joined the company in 2008, the startup was 4 years old with $272 million in revenue, 56 losses and several hundred employees. Last year, revenue was $118 billion, profit was $39 billion, the number of employees hired rose to 77,800, and the number of users using the company’s products jumped to almost $3 billion.
As she herself said in the post, the meeting with Mark took place at a party at a friend’s house. At that time Cheryl worked at Google, where she enrolled after graduating with honors from Harvard in Economics, as a Research Fellow at the World Bank, where she worked on health projects in India, focusing on diseases such as leprosy, AIDS and blindness, and as a business consultant. for McKinsey. At the time of her arrival at Google, the company was little known, and it was in the online sales of advertising and editorial products. Through her work, she was able to expand the advertising and sales team from four to 4,000 people and convince provider America Online to turn Google into its search engine by creating the Google AdSense system. However, Sandberg never reached high positions in the company, becoming only vice president of global online sales. The impossibility of growing up in the company of a strong male calling and the vision of Zuckerberg, who was then only 23 (she is 38)But he was convinced that people would put their real selves online in order to connect with other people. They convinced her to change and jump into an exciting new adventure that brought great results over seven long years.
As it happened, Sandberg joined the company with the triple promise that she and Mark would always sit next to each other on the board of directors, that they would meet every week, and that he would give her immediate and sincere feedback at those meetings.. Zuckerbeg agreed as long as the feedback was mutual, and it has always been that way ever since. For years, Cheryl has been called the “adult in the room” or skilled and experienced manager, the trustworthy face of a company with an uncertain future. And so on until 2015.terrible year Sandberg, the manager, did not suddenly lose her second husband, Dave Goldberg, who died in 2015 of cardiac arrest. Since then, the first troubles for Facebook began: his return to the company, after a break, coincided with the election of Trump, and the beginning of an uninterrupted chain of scandals and criticism of Facebook – from Cambridge Analytica to Facebook. last year, leading to the company’s first failure and loss of subscribers. Investigations in recent years have uncovered a number of weaknesses in a business system built around user profiling and virality, in a shaky and unconvincing balance between free speech, the need for content moderation, and the protection of subscriber privacy.
For years, Sheryl Sandberg shared the honors and burdens of Facebook with Zuckerberg. The mogul called her a “superstar”, and that’s exactly what millions of women (and not only) around the world have formed about her for more than a decade.. 2013 autobiography author lean in (in Italian Moving on – Women, work and the pursuit of success)with his meteoric rise to the top of the group it has been an inspiration for many managers and young entrepreneurs. And, officially, the reason for his departure from the Meta is precisely the need to dedicate more to his philanthropy, the Sheryl Sandberg and Dave Goldberg Family Foundation, committed to gender equality and the advancement of women at work. In an interview with Luck he explained that his decision was motivated by the imminent decision of the Supreme Court that in a few days he could reverse the ruling known as Roe v. Wade, which recognized the right to abortion throughout the United States.
“The type of work doesn’t leave much room for other things in life,” she explained. “This is an important time for women and I need to do more charitable work and with my foundation.” Before adding, “I like to think that my career and the careers of other leaders have inspired women: I hope my daughters grow up in a world where there are still many people at the top.” However, there would be more below. According to Wall Street Journal it’s going to be a tough time for Sandberg, with insiders reporting that she’ll be “exhausted”, that she’d like to dedicate more to her charitable work and her extended family with her new husband and her 5 kids. There are also reasons strictly related to the reduction of his role in the company, especially in favor of Javier Olivan, Director of Development, who will actually take over the role of Koo instead of him. For several months, Cheryl felt “persecuted, crushed in a way that would never happen to a man. Whether it’s a gender issue or not, she’s tired.” In a word, it’s time for Sandberg to change: the manager will still remain on the board of directors of the Meta, but without his former responsibilities. And, perhaps, given his commitment to women, it cannot be ruled out that he is already considering a career in politics in the ranks of the Democrats. As Zuckerberg wrote, an era is indeed closing.
Source: Elle