Sheryl Sandberg, the longtime deputy to co-founder Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook owner Meta, is stepping down from the technology giant after 14 years as its chief operating officer.
Ms Sandberg joined from Google in 2008, four years before Facebook went public. She has led the advertising business of Facebook — now operated by Meta — and was responsible for nurturing it from its infancy into an over $US100 billion-a-year powerhouse.
She will leave Meta later this year but will remain on the company's board.
"When I took this job in 2008, I hoped I would be in this role for five years. Fourteen years later, it is time for me to write the next chapter of my life," she wrote on her Facebook and Instagram accounts.
She said she was not sure what the future would bring, but she would focus on her family and her philanthropic work.
"Sitting by Mark's side for these 14 years has been the honor and privilege of a lifetime. Mark is a true visionary and a caring leader," Ms Sandberg wrote.
She also said debates about social media had changed "beyond recognition since those early days".
"To say it hasn't always been easy is an understatement. But it should be hard," she said.
"The products we make have a huge impact, so we have the responsibility to build them in a way that protects privacy and keeps people safe."
Mr Zuckerberg said in his own Facebook post that this was "the end of an era", and he did not plan to replace Ms Sandberg in the company's existing structure.
"She created opportunities for millions of people around the world, and she deserves the credit for so much of what Meta is today," he said.
"She has done so much for me, for our community, and for the world — and we're all better off for it."
Javier Olivan will serve as Meta's new chief operating officer.
Ms Sandberg has had a very public-facing job, meeting with politicians, holding focus groups and speaking out on issues such as women in the workplace and, most recently, abortion rights in the United States.
She has had some public missteps at the company, including her attempt to deflect blame from Facebook for the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol.
In an interview later that month she said she thought the events of the day were "largely organised on platforms that don't have our abilities to stop hate, don't have our standards and don't have our transparency".
This turned out to be untrue. Internal documents, revealed by whistleblower Frances Haugen later that year, showed Facebook's own employees were concerned about the company's halting and often reversed responses to rising extremism in the US.
ABC/AP
