Sheryl Sandberg announced Wednesday that she is stepping down as chief operating officer of Facebook parent company Meta. The 52-year-old executive has been with the company since 2008 and has overseen its operations through milestones ranging from its IPO in 2012 to reaching a $1 trillion valuation last year.
It’s been a lucrative, if at times volatile, run for investors who have held Facebook stock for the duration of Sandberg’s tenure at the company. If you had invested $1,000 in Facebook when it went public on May 18, 2012, the market value of your shares would be worth $4,964.21 as of Wednesday, according to CNBC calculations.
Over the same period, a $1,000 investment in the S&P 500 index would have increased 216% to about $3,166, compared to Meta’s 396% return.
As CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s right-hand man, Sandberg helped grow Facebook into an advertising juggernaut and one of the biggest names in tech. Until recently, Facebook was valued at over $1 trillion, although that valuation has almost halved amid slowing revenue growth and initial user loss.
She was at Zuckerberg’s side on the high-profile acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp that helped solidify his position as the world’s dominant social network and turned his ads business into a revenue generator of more than $25 billion a quarter.
But her tenure at Facebook has not been without controversy. She was with the company for the massive Cambridge Analytica data leak scandal in 2018 and the aftermath of efforts by foreign actors trying to use Facebook’s platform to influence the 2016 presidential election.
As she leaves Meta, CNBC reports that the company faces an antitrust lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission, as well as a possible scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission, over a whistleblower complaint about the handling of hateful content on its platform.
In a post announcing Sandberg’s departure, Zuckerberg said he has no plans to replace Sandberg’s role in the company’s existing corporate structure, adding that he doesn’t know if it’s even “possible.”
“She is a superstar who has defined the COO role in her own unique way,” he wrote.
Sandberg says she will continue to serve on Meta’s board of directors.
Despite Facebook’s growth since its IPO, past returns on an individual stock are not indicative of future results. Make sure you research your options carefully before investing.
Additionally, rather than trying to predict which stocks will rise and which will fall, consider buying and holding low-cost index funds. This type of diversified fund typically avoids the ups and downs that come with picking individual stocks.
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