Tech

Who is Mark Zuckerberg’s new No. 2? That’s a trick question.


For more than a decade, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg begin and end each week with a get-together.

The symbolism of the ritual was clear. It is intended to signal that Mr. Zuckerberg, the chief executive officer of Meta, and Ms. Sandberg, the chief executive officer, are in a relationship at the head of the company.

But when Ms. Sandberg, 52, said on Wednesday that she will resign Meta This fall, she crystallized an unpredictable shift in the tech giant: Mr. Zuckerberg no longer had a clear No.

While Mr. Zuckerberg has appointed Javier Olivan, a longtime chief executive, to take over from Ms. Sandberg when she leaves, the importance of the chief executive role has diminished at Meta, formerly known as Facebook. Mr. Zuckerberg, 38, has four executives instead, who are equally large

responsibility and who answers and controls his important decisions.

Mr. Zuckerberg made the restructuring because he wanted to consolidate his control over all of the company’s branches, three people close to him said. While Zuckerberg has always been the undisputed boss, with the majority of the company’s voting stock, he shared power with Ms. Sandberg when he was a young entrepreneur and needed help to expand student detective Company. But with his more than 18 years of experience, he wants to use all his power and be more clearly identified as the sole leader of Meta, the people said.

The top four lieutenants are Andrew Bosworth, chief technology officer; Nick Cleggchair of global affairs; Chris Cox, Product Manager; and Olivan, head of growth, Zuckerberg said in a Facebook message about Sandberg’s withdrawal on Wednesday.

Each of the four men has primary responsibility. Mr. Clegg is the face and ambassador for Meta, while Mr. Bosworth is pushing the company into the immersive world of the so-called metaverse. Mr. Cox oversees Meta’s family of apps – Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Facebook – and Mr. Olivan will be in charge of analytics, infrastructure and growth.

But none of them have as much power as Ms. Sandberg, who effectively ran every business while Mr. Zuckerberg focused on developing Facebook’s products.

Mr. Zuckerberg alluded to Wednesday’s shift in power in Facebook post. He said he has “no plans to replace Sheryl’s role in our current structure,” adding that Meta “has reached the point where it makes sense for our product and business teams to be more tightly integrated, rather than having all of our business and functions organized separately from our products. ”

RA Farrokhnia, a professor at Columbia’s Business and Skill Schools, say the change in management structure makes sense when Meta invests in the metaverse and away from the social network model which Sandberg built an advertising business and championed for years.

“Moving in this direction requires a more decentralized — and more traditional — governance structure,” said Mr. “You have a lot of people coming together when the sum of the parts becomes much larger.”

A Meta spokesman declined to comment and declined to provide interviews with 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”. Ms. Sandberg runs the business, policy and legal teams with a lot of autonomy, while Mr. Zuckerberg is responsible for the technical and product teams.

Credit…Meta

That started to change in 2020 after Facebook’s handling of privacy scandals, misinformation and other malicious content on the platform. Mr. Zuckerberg told his groups that he already apologized and want to focus more time and attention on the innovative products the company is designing.

Since then, Mr. Zuckerberg has assumed more control over policy decisions and public messaging, which Sandberg once assumed. He also attracts people with public policy expertise and promotes longtime executives loyal to his vision.

The three executives he promoted were Mr. Bosworth and Mr. Cox, who had been with the company for 16 years, and Mr. Olivan, who joined nearly 15 years ago. They were one of Zuckerberg’s earliest hires and were instrumental in building the earliest versions of Facebook.

Credit…Meta

Mr. Olivan, 44, known internally as Javi, joined Facebook as head of international growth and rose steadily through the ranks. He is not a household name but has oversaw Facebook’s rapid expansion and is closely involved in maintaining the company’s technical infrastructure.

Mr. Bosworth, 40, is seen as a fervent and sometimes rude cheerleader for Zuckerberg’s vision. In January, he was promoted to the next chief technology officer. He oversaw the augmented and virtual reality labs, which create products like the Quest virtual reality headset, which are central to Zuckerberg’s efforts to advance the metaverse. He and Mr. Zuckerberg are also close friends on vacation together.

Mr. Cox, 39, became product manager in 2005, often described by employees as the heart of the company. He left Facebook in March 2019 but returned in June 2020, sparking speculation that Zuckerberg may have signaled he is his successor.

During Mr. Cox’s absence, some of his teams have been reassigned to report directly to Mr. Zuckerberg or other executives, two senior Meta employees who have worked with Mr. Cox. since he came back said. They say he hasn’t taken on the kind of broad role he once had with thousands of engineers reporting to him.

Credit…Meta

Mr Clegg, 55, joined the company in 2018 after a stint in British politics, including stints as deputy prime minister. Ms. Sandberg hired him to handle Facebook’s thorny political issues around the globe, a task that had been hers. Over time, he has become a sort of corporate de facto head of state, dealing with governments around the world and supporting Meta on a regulatory level. In February, he was promote to the president of global affairs, reports to Mr. Zuckerberg.

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

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

“It can be risky to focus on just one person,” she added.



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