For more than a decade, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg have started and ended every week with parties.
The symbolism of the ceremony is clear. It was meant to show that Meta CEO Mr. Zuckerberg and COO Ms. Sandberg were in tune at the top of the company.
But when Sandberg, 52, said Wednesday that she would be leaving Meta this fall, she made it clear that the tech giant had an unspoken change: Zuckerberg no longer has any clear second name.
While Zuckerberg named longtime executive Javier Olivan to replace Ms Sandberg when she left, at Meta, formerly Facebook, the role of chief operating officer is important. Sex has diminished. Zuckerberg, 38, has four executives with an equally large responsibility for answering and executing his big decisions.
Zuckerberg made the structural shift because he wanted to consolidate control over all parts of the company, three people close to Zuckerberg said. While Mr. Zuckerberg has been the undisputed boss, owning most of the company’s voting shares, he shared power with Ms. Sandberg when Sandberg was a young businessman and needed help expanding the company. But with more than 18 years of experience, he wants to exercise his full power and be more clearly identified as Meta’s sole leader, people familiar with the matter said.
The four senior deputies are Andrew Bosworth, chief technology officer; Nick Clegg, president of global affairs; Chris Cox, chief product officer; Zuckerberg on Wednesday about Ms. Sandberg’s departure There is also Mr. Oliver, who is head of growth, said the Facebook message.
Each of these four men has a major responsibility on their shoulders. Mr. Clegg is Meta’s public face and ambassador, and Mr. Bosworth is pushing the company into the immersive world of the so-called metaverse. Mr. Cox will oversee Meta’s range of apps – Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Facebook – while Mr. Olivan will be responsible for analytics, infrastructure and growth.
But neither of them has as much power as Ms Sandberg used to be, when she effectively managed all business operations and Mr Zuckerberg focused on developing Facebook’s products.
Zuckerberg on Wednesday Facebook post. He said he has no “plans to replace Sheryl’s role in our existing structure,” adding that Meta “has gotten to the point where our products and business units are more tightly integrated, rather than having all of our business and operational functions with our Products are organized separately.”
RA Farrokhnia, Professor at Columbia Business School, project Schools said the change in management structure made sense because Meta invested in Metaverse and moved away from the social networking model of the advertising business that Ms. Sandberg built and championed over the years.
“Going in this direction requires a more decentralized and more traditional governance structure,” Mr. Farrokhnia said. “You have multiple people coming together and the sum of the parts becomes larger.”
A spokesman for Meta declined to comment and declined to be interviewed by executives.
Over the years, Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg have had clear responsibilities, which employees often refer to as “the Sandberg side” and “the Mark side.” Ms. Sandberg runs the business, policy and legal teams with a lot of autonomy, while Mr. Zuckerberg runs the engineering and product teams.
That’s starting to change in 2020 after Facebook dealt with scandals involving privacy, misinformation and other toxic content on the platform. Mr. Zuckerberg told his team he was done with the apology and wanted to focus more time and attention on the innovative products the company was designing.
Since then, Mr. Zuckerberg has assumed more control over public information and policy decisions that Ms. Sandberg has handled in the past. He also hired staff with public policy expertise and promoted longtime executives who were loyal to his vision.
The three executives he has promoted are Mr. Bosworth and Mr. Cox, who have been with the company for 16 years, and Mr. Oliver, who joined the company nearly 15 years ago. They were among Zuckerberg’s earliest recruits and were instrumental in building the earliest versions of Facebook.
Mr. Olivan, 44, known internally as Javi, joined Facebook as head of international growth and rose steadily through the ranks. He’s not a household name, but he oversaw Facebook’s rapid expansion and was closely involved in maintaining the company’s technology infrastructure.
Mr. Bosworth, 40, is seen as an enthusiastic and sometimes brash cheerleader for Mr. Zuckerberg’s vision. In January, he was promoted to be the next chief technology officer. He oversees the virtual and augmented reality labs that make products like the Quest virtual reality headset, which are at the heart of Zuckerberg’s push for virtual worlds. He and Mr. Zuckerberg are also good friends on vacation together.
Mr. Cox, 39, who became chief product officer in 2005, is often described by employees as the heart of the company. He left Facebook in March 2019 but returned in June 2020, prompting speculation that Zuckerberg may have hinted at him as a successor.
During Mr. Cox’s absence, some of his teams were reassigned to report directly to Mr. Zuckerberg or other executives, two senior Meta employees said. They say he has not taken on the wide-ranging role he once had with thousands of engineers reporting to him.
Mr Clegg, 55, joined the company in 2018 after working in British politics, including as deputy prime minister. Sandberg hired him to take over Facebook’s thorny political issues around the world, a task that had been hers. Over time, he has become the company’s de facto head of state, dealing with governments around the world and advocating for Meta on a regulatory level. In February, he was promotion President of Global Affairs, reporting to Mr. Zuckerberg.
At Meta, insiders have long speculated about who would be Zuckerberg’s potential successor if he leaves. Ms Sandberg’s outgoing departure has now shortened the list and left no clear answer.
“Over the years, few people other than Sheryl have been potential successors to Mark,” said Katie Harbath, director of public policy at Meta, who left the company last year. “It makes sense that Mark would want to offer options for a possible successor.”
“Focusing on just one person can be risky,” she added.
