Silicon Valley’s ‘most successful’ woman decides to leave

Reporter | Chen Chen

Editor | Jing Yu

In a thousand-word essay, Sheryl Sandberg says goodbye to her 14 years at Facebook.

The long essay begins with her recounting the Christmas Eve of 2007. At that party, she met a young man named Zuckerberg and heard a new idea – that the Internet can liberate her true self.

Zuckerberg’s vision was unexpected and fascinating, or perhaps he said it too earnestly, and Sandberg was shocked. That night, they leaned against the door for a long chat and owed each other a glass of wine.

This was the beginning of her decade-long entanglement with Facebook, which she always remembers. Only now, it’s time to end.

Incoming Olivan, who joined Facebook a year before Sandberg, said Zuckerberg about the transition, “He’s not going to replace Sandberg’s role in the company structure. “. Ollivan also said in the post that he would not have the “public-facing” characteristics of Sandberg.

They didn’t say why Sandberg left, but there’s speculation that it had something to do with her helping her ex-boyfriend (the CEO of Activision Blizzard) to block bad media coverage years ago. The Wall Street Journal also launched a search, and from some people familiar with the matter, we learned that Sandberg, the company’s “second-in-command”, did not participate in many leadership meetings related to the strategic shift.

She seems like an outsider in Meta’s plans to develop a virtual world. “She doesn’t feel like there’s room for her strengths,” said a person close to her.

Shortly after the long message was sent, Zuckerberg posted: Sandberg’s departure is the end of an era.

Bring ads and yourself to Facebook

After “All in the Metaverse”, Zuckerberg once said that the realization of this vision requires two decades: billions of dollars in investment and more than ten years.

Sandberg has said in an interview that it is unclear whether the new product is ready to be monetized. But there’s one thing that’s agreed among Meta’s leadership— a focused business that’s defined as “high risk,” with less reliance on advertising.

Advertising has always been Sandberg’s “land.”

The Democratic Party lost the 2000 election, and Sandberg, a Democrat, decided to switch from politics to business. Her friend and former Google CEO, Emerson Schmidt, called her weekly and told her, “It’s a rocket ship, come on.”

At this time, Google was a private company less than three years old, with no steady source of income, trying to sell the AdWords business of text ads, and only four employees.

Sandberg joined Google in 2001, where she was responsible for sales and operations of AdWords, before working on AdSense for advertising on external sites. These two businesses quickly became Google’s main source of income, successfully helping Google become a profitable company.

And on that Christmas Eve in 2007, four years after the college dorm, Facebook needed to replicate a similar victory.

Back in the days when Facebook was just a website, co-founder Eduardo Saverin proposed making money through advertising. His idea was rejected on day one because it was “not cool” in the eyes of Zuckerberg and others.

They made a product, and by the end of 2007, Facebook had 100,000 personal homepages, but the profits did not come with “popularity” as they thought.

On October 24, 2007, Microsoft announced that it would acquire a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240 million. It was clearly stated in the acquisition regulations that the acquisition included the right to place international advertisements on Facebook.

Adding ads to Facebook may be something that this “cool” website must do to survive. At this time, Sandberg, who once created Google’s advertising business, became the best candidate.

In the months after that meeting, Zuckerberg, 23, and Sandberg, 38, dined like close friends, made up the drinks owed at the party, and continued with that exciting idea.

Zuckerberg tailored a COO position for Sandberg, and in early 2008, Sandberg officially joined Facebook.

Like many startups, the early days of Facebook were messy. Advertising strategy, hiring and firing, management, and dealing with political issues are all tasks Sandberg, the COO, has to deal with.

“I’m grateful to Sandberg for dealing with things I don’t want to do,” Zuckerberg said. “Everything I might have to do at the company, she does it better.”

From 6 to 9 p.m. Sandberg holds regular meetings with senior executives, in a small conference room where they debate revenue and advertising. By late spring, Facebook’s leadership had agreed to an advertising business, and they began “showing ads discreetly.”

Some of the ads that were just launched didn’t get very good results, and many advertisers wanted to fight for more rights, Sandberg recalled, “like a movie on MySpace [a social networking site founded in 2003]. Like the Hulk, most advertisers want to take over our homepage.”

“One client got so annoyed after I rejected the idea of ​​a home page that she slammed the table with her fist, walked out of the room and never came back.”

In front of Sandberg, in addition to the complicated work, there is also a young “hands-off shopkeeper”.

Perhaps knowing that technical geniuses are difficult to communicate with, Sandberg’s late husband once advised her to “make three chapters” with Zuckerberg before starting to solve the problem.

Sandberg took the advice of her ex-husband and set up a weekly sit-down with Zuckerberg to give honest feedback.

But that wasn’t enough to make her feel comfortable when faced with an “uncontrolled” boss. She arranged a nine o’clock meeting for Zuckerberg and the engineer, but Zuckerberg didn’t show up, because in the eyes of the young boss, nine o’clock means nine o’clock in the evening, and no one would come to work at nine in the morning.

Just the first summer after Sandberg joined Facebook, at an important stage in the company’s new business, Zuckerberg suddenly decided to travel for a month. Without leaving instructions, he handed the company directly to Sandberg and then-president of product management Matt Cohler, a boss who was all but lost for a month.

Sandberg is also in charge of the recruiting business, where she brings in a lot of talent for the company. Former Google colleague Molly Graham (Molly Graham) followed her to Facebook to help produce mobile products, and close friend Elliot Schrage (Elliot Schrage) also jumped from Google to become Facebook’s global communication and VP of Public Policy, in addition to Schrage, Fischer, Choksi…

“Sherry was a persona non grata at Google,” said a senior Google executive, “she stole the executive.”

By mid-2011, there were roughly four times as many ex-Googlers working at Facebook as there were ex-Facebookers at Google, according to Linkin data.

At Google, it takes about three weeks for a person to go from being nominated, to being approved by a committee of senior executives, to being confirmed by Larry Page. At Facebook, Sandberg compressed that cycle to two weeks or less.

She was also criticized by her former employer, who claimed she used Google’s “inside information” about how the process worked. But in Sandberg’s view, it’s all about acting fast, not against any one company.

In September 2009, Facebook said it was cash flow positive for the first time. Outside comments, “When Sandberg came, the company was bleeding, and now it’s profitable.”

Three years after Sandberg joined, Facebook has grown from 130 employees to 2,500 and global users from 70 million to nearly 700 million. In 2012, when Facebook went public, she became the eighth member of Facebook’s board of directors and the first woman to sit on the board.

The following year, she published “Lean In” and became a sought-after feminist icon. Sandberg encourages women to learn about the outside world through connections, self-fulfillment, and Facebook’s goal of “making the world more open and connected” is printed on securities filings.

Sandberg’s image and the company’s image are deeply bound, and they also achieve each other.

However, for the woman on the verge of rising to the top of Silicon Valley’s power, she clearly did not foresee a huge crisis for the company in the next few years.

Dealing with crises with “politicians”

The most complicated issue is privacy, and at Facebook, Sandberg handles a lot of “unexpected” work.

Since its inception, Facebook has faced numerous accusations of privacy. Because it is so powerful. It holds your personal information, social connections and even work information, and it also exposes users to an unfiltered field of information.

For a long time, these issues were not taken seriously. With reports that Facebook positions itself as a platform, not a publisher, responsible for what users post, or censoring it, which is expensive and complicated , many Facebook executives have similar concerns: “Any such Efforts are counterproductive.”

Trouble is accumulating, and the problem is not being solved. The accusations against Facebook, or social media, erupted violently amid the Russian meddling in the U.S. election.

During the 2016 election, U.S. intelligence agencies and some media have publicly and reported Russian interference, the purpose of which was to “support Trump”, “oppose Hillary”, and provoke and amplify U.S. political and social discord. and.

One of the means by which they intervened was a campaign covering social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, etc.: the Russian Internet research agency known as the “Troll farm” created thousands of media accounts “Navy Army”, fabricated articles and false information and spread on social media.

The intervention in the US election lasted from 2013 to 2017.

In the spring of 2016, the team of former Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos first noticed something was wrong — Russian hackers appeared to be investigating Facebook accounts for people linked to the campaign. After he reportedly shared the findings with Facebook’s general counsel, Colin Stretch, Stamos went it alone and organized teams to review Russian activity on Facebook.

But his actions were not “consented” by Facebook executives. Sandberg was unhappy with the move, saying that “investigating Russia’s activities without approval would expose the company legally”.

In fact, this is not entirely “personal decision-making error”. In 2015, Sandberg’s husband died unexpectedly, and he has repeatedly mentioned his grief and helplessness at the time in speeches and books.

When Trump attacked Muslims on Facebook in 2015, Sandberg reportedly delegated his handling of the incident to prosecutors and global policy managers hired at the time.

Zuckerberg is less concerned with matters outside of technology, with a 2018 report interviewing Facebook executives who said, “At a pivotal moment in the past three years, they have been distracted by personal matters and put security and Policy decisions are passed on to subordinates.”

However, Zuckerberg and Sandberg, the two key leaders, decided to continue their focus and research on Russian activities and created a group called Project P for this purpose.

But some leaders, represented by Sandberg, backed down when it came to deciding “whether to publish their findings.” They are afraid of being accused of standing in line by Republicans represented by Trump, and they are afraid that users who secretly remove those fake interfaces will be noticed by users, making users feel that they are being concealed and deceived.

According to research since then, Russians created 470 Facebook accounts during the 2016 campaign, and of those accounts, six were shared at least 340 million times.

They finally chose to hide. This is obviously not a good choice.

It wasn’t until September 2017, 10 months after Sandberg and others became aware of the “intrusion,” that Facebook made a “less serious disclosure.” But some media began to disclose more details, and the incident continued to ferment.

For Sandberg, her battle has just begun.

Sandberg used to be a politician.

Her mentor, Summers, became Deputy Treasury Secretary in 1995, while she served as Chief of Staff. Sandberg has remained politically sensitive in his subsequent work.

In dealing with that incident, Sandberg skillfully applied the methods of those politicians: lobbying, leading to war .

She tried to strike up a relationship with Senator Klobuchar, who agreed with “Lean In,” and succeeded in getting her to reduce her public attacks on Facebook. She also spoke to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr several times to gain his support.

The company has also stepped up its partnership with Definers Public Affairs, a consulting firm that applies political campaign tactics to PR. Then their strategy changed a bit, and in addition to posting positive content about the company, Facebook started bashing competitors.

At this time, in 2018, the haze of Russia’s interference in the election has not yet dissipated, and Facebook has been exposed to the scandal of collaborating with Cambridge Analytica to misappropriate user data.

It was also during this time that dozens of articles criticizing Apple and Google’s bad business practices appeared on a website called NTK Network. And NTK, is a subsidiary of Definers, which has deep cooperation with Facebook.

In September 2018, Sandberg testified on behalf of the company before the Senatorial Intelligence Committee, an important milestone for Facebook to improve its image. She and the team prepared a detailed Q&A note, trying to cover all the questions that might be targeted.

“We found this too slow and acted too slowly. That’s where we are.” Sandberg reflected on the company’s behalf at the meeting, and highlighted their next steps: hiring more people to review content, and invest more in research and development of artificial intelligence that can identify fake accounts.

On the note spread out in front of her were the names and questions of each senator, as well as a “thank you” reminder.

Sandberg’s efforts, however, haven’t brought him the recognition he deserves. In March 2018, Zuckerberg severely criticized Sandberg over election interference and the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.

The Wall Street Journal reported on the reasons for Sandberg’s departure, and according to people familiar with the matter, Sandberg has been telling others that she has become a punching bag when the company goes wrong.

“She’s being smeared, and it’s happening in a way that doesn’t happen to men,” said one who worked with Sandberg for years, saying she was sick of it, gender or not.

Their partnership is beginning to crack in the Trump era. Perhaps from here, the two gradually drifted apart.

Move a mirror to see “idol” and yourself

In the resignation letter, Sandberg revealed his next life plan.

At 53 years old, she wants to be the mother of five children and the wife of her lover Tom. Also, dedicate more energy to foundations and charitable work.

The foundation, named after her and ex-husband Dave Goldberg, has two programs, LeanIn.Org, which works to improve the status of women in the workplace, and Option B.Org, which helps survivors of abuse, including sexual assault. It also provides scholarships to graduates of KIPP schools, a network of free, open-enrollment college preparatory schools in low-income communities across the United States, for those who have experienced adversity within.

In 1969, she was born into a Jewish family. Her parents helped establish the South Florida Soviet Jewish Organization. Their home became the unofficial headquarters of “Soviet Jews who wanted to escape anti-Semitism.” Responsible. But sometimes, the parents are very traditional. They tell her that marriage is more important than school. They say that “women should marry at a young age” and “get a “good man”.

From childhood to adulthood, she has grown into the appearance of other people’s children, smart, diligent and confident. However, under the influence of this concept of marriage that entrusts herself to “man” and reduces her self-worth, she is also inferior and prone to self-doubt.

While studying at Harvard, she founded an organization called “Women in the Economy and Government,” but Sandberg denied she was a feminist, saying the goal was simply to get more women majoring in government and economics.

For her, a self-awareness awakening occurred at the university’s Phi Beta Kappa honor society.

In the honor meeting, boys and girls hold ceremonies in two separate rooms. A girl in Sandberg’s room gave a speech titled “Feeling Like a Fraud.”

“Feeling Like a Fraud” is a typical feeling of “impostor phenomenon”. People with this feeling attribute their success to luck rather than ability. This often occurs when high achievements cannot be internalized and accepted. on the person.

Sandberg looked around, and the companions in the room were all nodding, and Sandberg was also touched. She realized that it was this way that she grew up with this kind of self-doubt and uncertainty. And she realized that the boy in the other room would never feel this way. This is not just an individual difference, but a social, structural division. Women tend to go the extra mile to get what they want and accept it with a “sweet spot”.

When he first joined Facebook, Sandberg asked Mark Zuckerberg why there were no women on his five-person board, and the answer was usually, “We have a small board.”

Sandberg is fighting for herself and more women.

Sandberg has done a lot for women’s benefit programs, including fighting for paid time off, bereavement leave, supporting employees who want to delay having children, and providing paid time off for employees who experience domestic violence.

In December 2010, Sandberg spoke at TED where she said women needed to “sit at the table.” Her colleagues at the Treasury Department recalled their experiences working together. “The younger ones, several of them women, would sit in the seating area. Shirley was always at the table, beckoning all the junior staff to move, and shouting, ‘We’ll make room'”.

Shortly after she joined Facebook, she also invited Lori Goler, a Harvard Business School graduate who had worked at eBay, as a recruiting director. Because of Goler’s participation and help, Facebookd has many women in the middle.

But by May 2018, Facebook announced a massive shakeup of its leadership, with six key executives being promoted, only one of whom was a woman — Naomi Gleit, responsible for “integrity, growth and product management.” Zuckerberg had promised an inclusive workforce, but the company’s actions were once again questioned: Of the 14 key tech jobs at the time, 13 were men.

The change in structure is not so simple, and even if she leaves, she still sees the need to continue in the cause of improving the status of women in the workplace.

Sandberg likes, American comedian Tina Fey, who wrote the autobiographical sketch comedy “Bossy Pants”. Fey in this book is funny, humorous, introspective and self-critical.

This may be the most ideal self and the most ideal female image in her mind.

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