Sheryl Sandberg Stepping Down as COO of Facebook Parent Meta Platforms

Ms. Sandberg said her late husband told her she should take the job if she was planning to stay five years, and she stayed for 14.

“I really feel like the next generation of leaders are ready,” Ms Sandberg said in an interview. “It’s been a long and great partnership with Mark, I really believe in the company, and I’m staying on the board. But it’s probably time for me to have more flexibility and more ability to do more things with my time.”

Javier Olivan, currently chief growth officer, will take over as the company’s COO when Ms. Sandberg leaves.

During her time at the company, Ms. Sandberg built out the business side, turning a free-to-access social-media startup founded in a Harvard dorm room into one of the biggest advertising companies on the planet. Last year, the company reported nearly $115 billion in advertising revenue.

Ms. Sandberg was the longtime lieutenant to Mark Zuckerberg, and in that role—and as the author of the leadership book “Lean In”—became one of the most prominent women in business.

Ms. Sandberg, 52 years old, said she was looking forward to spending more time on her foundation and women’s issues. Beyond that, she’s not sure about what her life after Facebook will look like.

“This will be a chance to take a breath and figure it out,” she said. “This job and that kind of thought process really can’t coexist.”

Ms. Sandberg has been telling people that she feels burned out and that she has become a punching bag for the company’s problems, according to people familiar with the matter. At Mr. Zuckerberg’s direction, the company is also pivoting to a future focused on the development of virtual worlds—known as the metaverse—and that is less dependent on advertising, which has long been Ms. Sandberg’s fiefdom. Ms. Sandberg has been notably absent from many of the meetings about the company’s metaverse plans, said some of the people.

“Sheryl architected our ads business, hired great people, forged our management culture, and taught me how to run a company,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in a post on Wednesday. “She created opportunities for millions of people around the world, and she deserves the credit for so much of what Meta is today.”

As part of the reshuffling, Marne Levine, the company’s chief business officer, will report to Mr. Olivan.

“I don’t plan to replace Sheryl’s role in our existing structure,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote. “I’m not sure that would be possible since she’s a superstar who defined the COO role in her own unique way.”

“But even if it were possible, I think Meta has reached the point where it makes sense for our product and business groups to be more closely integrated,” Mr. Zuckerberg added.

Before her arrival at Facebook, Ms. Sandberg was vice president of global online sales and operations at Google.

After joining Facebook, when Mr. Zuckerberg was only 23 years old, she became the company’s business strategist and resident grown-up, with direct responsibility for advertising sales, legal and policy issues. That structure allowed Mr. Zuckerberg to focus on engineering challenges.

As the company grew into a tech giant, Ms. Sandberg’s profile rose along with it. She wrote two bestselling books, gave commencement speeches and was a regular at high-profile gatherings of influential political figures and business executives, such as those in Davos, Switzerland, and Sun Valley, Idaho. A longtime Democrat, she was also regularly mentioned as a potential candidate for office or cabinet member.

Ms. Sandberg’s husband, Dave Goldberg, died in 2015 while the two were vacationing in Mexico. Her grief and how she recovered from it were the subject of her second book, “Option B.”

In recent years, Facebook became embroiled in a series of controversies around issues including data privacy and user safety, and Ms. Sandberg’s role leading the company led to intense criticism at times.

In 2018, Ms. Sandberg testified before Congress about election interference involving social media.

That same year, The Wall Street Journal reported that Mr. Zuckerberg told Ms. Sandberg that he blamed her and her teams for the public fallout over Cambridge Analytica, the research firm that inappropriately accessed private data on Facebook users and used it for political research.

Ms. Sandberg later confided in friends that she wondered if she should be worried about her job.

Last year the Journal also wrote a series of investigative stories about the company, called The Facebook Files, that was based on thousands of internal documents and described the flaws in its platforms and the harms they cause users, among other issues. One of the articles cited internal data to show that Ms. Sandberg’s portfolio within the company, as measured by staffers that report to her, has been shrinking in recent years.

In her post announcing her departure, Ms. Sandberg paid tribute to her longtime partnership with Mr. Zuckerberg.

“He sometimes says that we grew up together, and we have,” she wrote. “In the critical moments of my life, in the highest highs and in the depths of true lows, I have never had to turn to Mark, because he was already there.”

—Emily Glazer, Deepa Seetharaman and Jeff Horwitz contributed to this article.

Write to Salvador Rodriguez at [email protected]

Ms. Sandberg said her late husband told her she should take the job if she was planning to stay five years, and she stayed for 14.

“I really feel like the next generation of leaders are ready,” Ms Sandberg said in an interview. “It’s been a long and great partnership with Mark, I really believe in the company, and I’m staying on the board. But it’s probably time for me to have more flexibility and more ability to do more things with my time.”

Javier Olivan, currently chief growth officer, will take over as the company’s COO when Ms. Sandberg leaves.

During her time at the company, Ms. Sandberg built out the business side, turning a free-to-access social-media startup founded in a Harvard dorm room into one of the biggest advertising companies on the planet. Last year, the company reported nearly $115 billion in advertising revenue.

Ms. Sandberg was the longtime lieutenant to Mark Zuckerberg, and in that role—and as the author of the leadership book “Lean In”—became one of the most prominent women in business.

Ms. Sandberg, 52 years old, said she was looking forward to spending more time on her foundation and women’s issues. Beyond that, she’s not sure about what her life after Facebook will look like.

“This will be a chance to take a breath and figure it out,” she said. “This job and that kind of thought process really can’t coexist.”

Ms. Sandberg has been telling people that she feels burned out and that she has become a punching bag for the company’s problems, according to people familiar with the matter. At Mr. Zuckerberg’s direction, the company is also pivoting to a future focused on the development of virtual worlds—known as the metaverse—and that is less dependent on advertising, which has long been Ms. Sandberg’s fiefdom. Ms. Sandberg has been notably absent from many of the meetings about the company’s metaverse plans, said some of the people.

“Sheryl architected our ads business, hired great people, forged our management culture, and taught me how to run a company,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in a post on Wednesday. “She created opportunities for millions of people around the world, and she deserves the credit for so much of what Meta is today.”

As part of the reshuffling, Marne Levine, the company’s chief business officer, will report to Mr. Olivan.

“I don’t plan to replace Sheryl’s role in our existing structure,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote. “I’m not sure that would be possible since she’s a superstar who defined the COO role in her own unique way.”

“But even if it were possible, I think Meta has reached the point where it makes sense for our product and business groups to be more closely integrated,” Mr. Zuckerberg added.

Before her arrival at Facebook, Ms. Sandberg was vice president of global online sales and operations at Google.

After joining Facebook, when Mr. Zuckerberg was only 23 years old, she became the company’s business strategist and resident grown-up, with direct responsibility for advertising sales, legal and policy issues. That structure allowed Mr. Zuckerberg to focus on engineering challenges.

As the company grew into a tech giant, Ms. Sandberg’s profile rose along with it. She wrote two bestselling books, gave commencement speeches and was a regular at high-profile gatherings of influential political figures and business executives, such as those in Davos, Switzerland, and Sun Valley, Idaho. A longtime Democrat, she was also regularly mentioned as a potential candidate for office or cabinet member.

Ms. Sandberg’s husband, Dave Goldberg, died in 2015 while the two were vacationing in Mexico. Her grief and how she recovered from it were the subject of her second book, “Option B.”

In recent years, Facebook became embroiled in a series of controversies around issues including data privacy and user safety, and Ms. Sandberg’s role leading the company led to intense criticism at times.

In 2018, Ms. Sandberg testified before Congress about election interference involving social media.

That same year, The Wall Street Journal reported that Mr. Zuckerberg told Ms. Sandberg that he blamed her and her teams for the public fallout over Cambridge Analytica, the research firm that inappropriately accessed private data on Facebook users and used it for political research.

Ms. Sandberg later confided in friends that she wondered if she should be worried about her job.

Last year the Journal also wrote a series of investigative stories about the company, called The Facebook Files, that was based on thousands of internal documents and described the flaws in its platforms and the harms they cause users, among other issues. One of the articles cited internal data to show that Ms. Sandberg’s portfolio within the company, as measured by staffers that report to her, has been shrinking in recent years.

In her post announcing her departure, Ms. Sandberg paid tribute to her longtime partnership with Mr. Zuckerberg.

“He sometimes says that we grew up together, and we have,” she wrote. “In the critical moments of my life, in the highest highs and in the depths of true lows, I have never had to turn to Mark, because he was already there.”

—Emily Glazer, Deepa Seetharaman and Jeff Horwitz contributed to this article.

Write to Salvador Rodriguez at [email protected]