Departing COO Sheryl Sandberg is leaving her legacy with an asterisk. She recently came clean about why she is leaving her post as COO at the largest social media conglomerate in the world, founded in part by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg has taken a more passive approach to his own job lately, although he remains in charge, to be clear.
When Sandberg “came clean”, she admitted that the likely, although not for sure upcoming reversal of Roe Vs. Wade by the United States Supreme Court in part affected her decision. There has been some speculation amongst circles of conservative social media influencers that Sandberg was more vocal than Zuckerberg about censorship of conservatives for controversial yet borderline content.
We are, of course, merely speculating on that one, however, and it’s hard to say if Sandberg’s COO replacement Javier Olivan will be more or less active in censorship such as Twitter has been lately, banning people for simply being conservative in our view.
Sandberg’s historical stock sales are also interesting. CNBC reports she has sold off over $1.7 billion dollars of stock before leaving as COO. That is a lot of stock for someone to get who was never a CEO and did not actually found the company.
However, Sandberg has been right there with Zuckerberg since 2008 and an integral part of Facebook, now Meta’s strategy since then. That would explain how she got paid so much. Many may wonder why someone would sell so much stock, and if it means they needed the money, saw a better investment elsewhere, or simply didn’t have faith in Meta’s company growth going forward. There could of course be other reasons as well.
To make matters worse, Business Insider reports that Sandberg was under review for using company resources for a personal wedding. Meta spoke out however and said that that review, in particular, was not the reason for Sandberg’s departure. BI reported in part based on a WSJ expose:
Sandberg’s announcement came around the same time the company was reviewing her use of corporate resources for wedding planning purposes. Sandberg announced in 2020 she was engaged to Tom Bernthal, the founder and CEO of a consulting firm based in Los Angeles.
Only time will tell what happens to Meta, Facebook, and its other subsidiaries in regards to growth, censorship, profitability, and other metrics. Sandberg will remain on the board of directors for Meta, however, and it’s not clear how much influence she will have in that position, or if it’s merely for optics at this point.
Some are concerned that Mark Zuckerberg may be losing his way as well, with lots of vacation pictures and a fascination with the currently money-losing “Metaverse”, which hasn’t done so well thus far for Meta, although he insists it’s worth the investment.
Meta investors are aware of competition from Snap, Tik Tok, and other apps and websites as well as market saturation. It’s not clear if all the innovation in the world can pop up Meta’s growth prospects.
However, since the stock has dropped by around half in recent times, and the company generates lots of profits, many wonder if it’s time to buy even with all the problems at Meta since the stock price has been beaten up so badly. We are not financial advisors however and recommend you seek advice from a professional for any investment advice.
