Ms. Sandberg flirted with leaving Facebook. In 2016, she told colleagues that if Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate, won the White House, she would most likely take a job in Washington, said three people who spoke to her about the move at the time. In 2018, after revelations about Cambridge Analytica and Russia’s meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, she again told colleagues she was considering leaving but didn’t want to when the company was in crisis.
Last year, Mr. Zuckerberg said his company took a new bet and went all-in on the metaverse, which he called “the successor to the mobile Internet.” In his announcement, Ms. Sandberg only made a cameo, while other executives were more prominent.
While mr. Zuckerberg reorganized the company to focus on the metaverse, some of Ms. Sandberg’s responsibilities were divided among other executives. Nick Clegg, the president of Global Affairs and a former British Deputy Prime Minister, became the company’s chief spokesperson, a role Mrs Sandberg had once assumed. In February, Mr. Clegg was promoted to president of global affairs for Meta.
Ms. Sandberg’s profile is dimmed. She focused on building the advertising business and increasing the number of small businesses on Facebook.
She was also focused on personal matters. Dave Goldberg, her husband, passed away unexpectedly in 2015. (Mrs. Sandberg’s second book, “Option B,” was about coping with grief.) She later met Mr. Bernthal, and he and his three children moved to her home in Southern California’s Silicon Valley during the pandemic. Ms. Sandberg, who had two children with Mr. Goldberg, was focused on integrating the families and planning her summer wedding, said a person close to her.
Meta’s transition to the metaverse was not an easy one. The company has spent a lot of money on metaverse products while its advertising business has stumbled, in part because privacy changes by Apple have hurt targeted ads. In February, Meta’s market value fell more than $230 billion, its biggest one-day shutdown, after it reported financial results showing it was struggling to make the jump to the metaverse.
In the interview, Ms. Sandberg said that Meta faced near-term challenges, but would weather the storm, as it did during past challenges. “When we went public, we didn’t have mobile ads,” said Ms. Sandberg, referring to the company’s rapid transition from desktop computers to smartphones over the past decade. “We’ve done this before.”
