Technology
What is end-to-end encryption and why are tech companies focusing on it?
Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg announced that she will be leaving the social network in the fall to pursue philanthropic work. Her announcement has come at a tough time when Facebook is facing an uncertain future and fierce competition. It also comes at a time when her influence at the company, she helped build, is waning.
Ms. Sandberg joined Facebook when it was just a start-up and its founder Mark Zuckerberg, only 23 years old. The ex-Google employee who oversaw the search giant’s online sales and operations during her stint between 2001 and 2008 brought her ad selling strengths to Facebook to build the platform’s advertising empire. At Google, Ms. Sandberg was in charge of the company’s AdWords and AdSense. The former helped place text ads on the search results page, and the latter put targeted ads on websites of other companies that contracted with the Silicon Valley company.
At Facebook, the Harvard-educated executive helped build a multi-billion dollar advertising empire, and made the social network a colossus. She developed a more sophisticated promotion system that was largely based on what she spearheaded at Google. But the layer of sophistication came from the network’s ability (or potential at that time) to micro target users based on their interests and activities logged on Facebook’s website. It helped to accurately identify potential customers to target more relevant ads.
Ms. Sandberg’s strategy succeeded. Over 97% of Facebook’s revenue in 2021 came from selling ads. But that success came at a cost. Sometime in 2018, things started to change for the California-based company after reports surfaced that data of Facebook users were used without their consent for political advertising. Britain-based consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, that managed former U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign, agreed that it used nearly 30 million personally identifiable data of users from Facebook.
The information from Facebook was collected through an application called “This is Your Digital Life”, which built psychological profiles of users to push ads (some focused on political campaigns). The revelations fundamentally changed how the social networking giant was generally perceived. Ms. Sandberg is partly responsible for Facebook’s failures as the company initially deflected blame and denied the allegations. Under her leadership, the platform continued to witness fake news, which critics said damaged the overall fabric of society, flourish.
Some prominent founders, including WhatsApp’s Brian Acton faced issues with the company’s fixation on growth at all cost. In a 2018 interview to Forbes, Mr. Acton recalled a meeting with Ms. Sandberg on his plan of charging the messaging app’s users a fraction of a penny after sending a certain number of free messages. That idea was shot down with a terse, ‘it won’t scale’ response. The interview shares details about the company’s strong position on making money through selling ads, which is very different from what WhatsApp’s founders wanted to do — make users pay, and keep advertisers at bay.
Now, as Ms. Sandberg decides to leave the company, the empire she built on selling ads is facing a test. Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature shaved off $10 billion from the company’s revenue. The feature lets users stop apps from tracking them which leaves advertisers without an identifier to target Apple users. And in several instances, it doubled the cost of acquiring new customers and reduced yield from ad campaigns.
While Facebook tinkers with its advertising strategy, it is also fire-fighting its missteps that caused the Cambridge Analytical scandal, the U.S. Capitol attack, and most recently, its failure to act on harmful content that came to light after Frances Haugen released internal company documents. Ms. Sandberg oversaw all these incidents while she helmed the day-to-day operations of the social network.
Facebook stocks have also taken a massive hit. Since the start of this year, the company’s stock has fallen 45% to $190 on Friday. It is unclear how Facebook will find its path back to a near trillion-dollar valuation, which it flirted with briefly last year.
Her exit also comes at a time when Mr. Zuckerberg’s focus is fixed on building the metaverse, a nascent idea of creating digital worlds. And the CEO’s choice of replacement gives a hint at what is to be expected at the social network.
Javier Olivan, a 14-year veteran at Facebook, will take the baton from Ms. Sandberg. The two have very different personalities. While Ms. Sandberg has been the public face of Facebook, and could be see promoting her ‘Lean In’ philosophy, Olivan is reticent and has maintained a low profile. Accepting that it will be a tough job to fill Ms. Sandberg’s shoes, Mr. Olivan noted that his role will be very different from his predecessor’s. “I don’t anticipate my role will have the same public-facing aspect, given that we have other leaders at Meta who are already responsible for that work,” he wrote in a post.
This also means that when Mr. Zuckerberg went looking for a replacement, he had a reduced role in mind. So, Mr. Olivan will be running the company’s day-to-day operations and leave the firefighting to Nick Clegg, who heads global affairs, and Jennifer Newstead, Meta’s chief legal officer.
