Sheryl Sandberg and Facebook's Growth Story

Tell us about that Sheryl Sandberg you met all those years ago in 2001 and what you make of her leaving at this moment today. I met Sheryl in November, December of 2000 and I was fishing around as the Clinton administration went out of office to see if there were any business-minded people who wanted to stay in Washington, maybe work for a business. So I offered Sheryl a job at the Washington Post at that point. I knew she was a super hot property. Every single person I talked to in the White House said this is the person you've got to get. It is ironically she was offered jobs both by me and by Arthur Sulzberger, the publisher of the New York Times. So Sheryl had her choice between the New York Times and the Washington Post and was crazy enough to pick this Google place that she thought might have a future. So she went off to Silicon Valley. We stayed in touch. I called on her whenever I would go out there and then I tried to hire her again in 2007. I tried to get her to come back to our company this time as president. I felt that I knew that our company badly needed somebody who knew a lot about technology and Sheryl knew both a lot about technology and a lot about advertising and knew every big advertiser in the United States. So that would have been quite good. She couldn't do that because she was married to Dave Goldberg, who was making a career as a CEO in Silicon Valley. So then later on, she and Mark both called me when she was thinking about going to Facebook. It's clear you think very highly of her. For many people, I think she has a complicated legacy. The critics think she didn't do enough to address the negative consequences of Facebook. What do you think? You know, 14 years isn't that long a time, but let us start with Facebook when Sheryl Sandberg joined it. 2008, when she joined, happened to be the year that she and Mark invited me to join their board. So I went out to Facebook for the first time in late 2008. Advertising at Facebook at this point consisted of three little three-line ads on your homepage, one of which always used the word belly fat. There was absolutely not a brand advertising on Facebook at that point. There was next to no revenue because there were next to no ads that advertisers could buy. And Sheryl, as Mark had to build Facebook, Sheryl had to build its business. It is not too strong to say that in 2008, the business, the revenue, the advertising didn't interest Mark a lot. And Sheryl had to hire the people who were going to turn Facebook into an actual business, build the business, make it work for advertisers. And I knew one, I had one odd status on the board. I was the only person who came from an advertising supported business. And I knew that advertising, if you had good advertising, it made television or newspapers or Facebook better for users. If you had terrible advertising, it made it worse for users. So Sheryl, I watched Sheryl build that business and it was pretty awesome. David Kirkpatrick wrote that Mark Zuckerberg brought Sheryl Sandberg on board in part because of her experience in governance and to help Facebook govern itself one day, and also to help build a bridge to Washington. This is another thing that critics seem to think she failed to do. You are at the center of power in Washington. How do you think she excelled at that part of the role? Well, again, I would go back and ask another set of questions. How many people can you name, Emily, with your deep knowledge of American business, who are made an enormous record as a number two of a company currently? How many one, two teams are there that built big businesses where you know the number two as well as you know the number one? Very few. Yeah, I knew people, you know, Don Keogh and Roberta Gazzetta is the first one that comes to mind at COPEC, who had a fantastic run. But what always strikes me about Sheryl is that as one of the, as Silicon Valley royalty is really the number three or four person at Google, she went to work for a 23 year old. She had the courage to say, I think Facebook is going to be important. I think Mark is a good person, and I'm going to go work with him and see what we can build together. But they, again, you have to remember that when she enters the company, there's almost nothing there. There is very little revenue, very little advertising, and very little team. And she has to build that just as Mark is building the product. Right. And she talked about that when I spoke with her yesterday. She was 38. He was 23. It was a leap, a big leap of faith. I asked her what she's going to do next. She talked about her philanthropy, focusing on women's advocacy, spending more time with her family, getting married. This summer, I asked about business in particular and politics and whether we will see her in another business role or a political role. Take a listen to what she had to say. I learned a long time ago, never make any predictions about the future. But I think a lot of that is pretty unlikely. And I really think there's a lot, hopefully, that I can do with my foundation philanthropically. What do you think she'll do next, Don? Or maybe you know. Will we see her again in business or politics? I don't know, because I'll guarantee you Sheryl Sandberg doesn't know. But you are correct, Emily, when you said that Facebook, Sheryl had 14 years at Facebook, eight of which were people couldn't say enough great things about Facebook and about her. And for the last six years, Facebook has been the subject of an unusual amount of criticism. I think both the praise and the criticism got a little overheated. But Sheryl is leaving at a time when Facebook is down in reputation, although up in business. And, you know, she doesn't know what she's going to do next. She doesn't know what she's going to be doing five years from now or 10 years from now, but she is young. She is incredibly talented. And whatever she does in the rest of her life, she'll do it very well. She'll make an enormous impact. She's written two bestselling books while she was also the CEO of Facebook. And I have a feeling that that will continue to be a part of her life. It'll be it'll be a very impressive life. Ambitious, indeed. You wrote an op-ed, Don, in 2019 titled Why I Still Have Faith in Facebook. Do you still have faith in Facebook today, knowing the critiques, knowing the the negative consequences? Do you have faith in Facebook without Sheryl Sandberg? And do you believe in the metaverse? Emily, I was an insider at Facebook for seven years. I left the board in 2015. I haven't been an insider since then. I am not party to their discussions. I don't know in depth any of the most recent business issues you're referring to. Yes, I have faith in Facebook. I think Mark is a very good CEO. I think Mark Zuckerberg is a very good person. I think Sheryl Sandberg is a very good person. They have faced decisions that would be daunting for anybody. There's never been anything like Facebook, just as there's never been anything like Google or Amazon or Apple. And they've done their best. I know that they've always done it in a principled manner. And yes, I still have faith in Mark outlined a team under him, almost all of whom I know. It's a team of very good, very highly principled, very admirable people who've been at Facebook for most of them for eight or 10 years or more. Chris Cox, who Mark referred to, who runs product at Facebook, is someone you should have on your air. He is one of the most impressive people I've ever met. He left for a time because he didn't like certain business decisions. Talked it over with Mark, returned in the same role. Facebook has deep issues to address. You couldn't have better people addressing them than Facebook has.