When Facebook made its Nasdaq debut ten years ago, the prospectus named six CEOs.
On Wednesday, Cheryl Sandberg announced her departure from the company, now called Meta, leaving behind a complex 14-year legacy at the social media giant. This job made her a billionaire and one of the most influential women in business.
In 2012, he was deemed so necessary to Facebook's trust by customers and investors that he was identified as one of the two key people when the company went public.
"Currently, we rely on our key employees' continued service and performance, including Mark Zuckerberg and Cheryl K. Sandberg," Facebook wrote in the prospect's risk area.
The language is stuck and repeated in the company's latest annual documentary. But it's getting further and further from reality.
Sandberg's star has faded in recent years following uncomfortable reports of misrepresentation of Russian disinformation stories following the 2016 presidential election. In addition, according to a 2018 Wall Street Journal report, Zuckerberg blamed Sandberg in the wake of the Cambridge scandal at Analytica. This data analytics firm abused Facebook accounts for political research. As a female technology champion, Sandberg was also arrested last year after former team member Francis Haugen found documents showing that the company knew its products could harm the mental health of teenage girls -- and refused to make changes.
In October, investor Whitney Tilson released a letter she wrote to Sandberg after Haugen appeared on 60 Minutes.
"Horrible doesn't begin to describe how I feel," Tilson wrote. "If you and Mark think you can start an old book that has worked every time in the past - apologize and take a few symbolic steps but not actually change anything - and it will just go wrong, then you are very wrong.
Sandberg, 52, continues to appear in revenue talks about the advertising business and issues such as regulation. And then he got into a difficult situation. Away from its days as a growth driver in Silicon Valley, Facebook recently reported first-quarter growth of under 10% and said second-quarter revenue could fall year over year.
