Sheryl Sandberg’s mixed legacy

The most important woman in tech is leaving Meta. Will she be missed?

Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg
Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg
(Image credit: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Sheryl Sandberg intended to spend just five years at Facebook when, in 2008, she joined the fledgling company from Google as Mark Zuckerberg’s “right-hand woman”, said Hannah Murphy in the FT. Instead, she stayed for 14 years as Facebook’s (and later Meta’s) chief operating officer, “becoming one of the most recognisable and polarising figures in Silicon Valley”. In recent years, the “power duo” have drifted apart; now Sandberg is off for good in the autumn. She leaves behind a mixed record. On the one hand, she is the female role model who helped grow Facebook into a $500bn-plus company “by supercharging its digital advertising machine”. On the other, she became “a lightning rod for criticism” as the company lurched from scandal to scandal. “Facebook would not be Facebook without Sheryl,” said David Jones of the Brandtech Group – “for good and bad.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us