It Was A Notable Year For Facebook But The Company Did Lose Some Important Talents, Here’s Everything We Know

Multinational technology conglomerate Facebook, now Meta, had quite an impressive year. Although the year had its own ups and downs as a result of the pandemic as well as other factors, it wasn’t a bad year for the company.

This year, the company hit the $1 trillion milestone and became the fifth US company to do so. Automatically, the company joined Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google’s parent company Alphabet, in the league of companies with at least $1 trillion in market capitalization.

The company also reported its fastest revenue growth since 2016 this year. The company had a very important second quarter earnings report. Revenue growth was up by 56 percent YoY, making it the company’s fastest growth since 2016.

Another notable moment for the company was when it launched its Novi wallet this year, two years after first announcing it. The wallet called Novi digital wallet launched in the US and Guatemala first as a pilot program. The pilot program was announced as a partnership with crypto exchange Coinbase. Coinbase would be in charge of the program as the custody partner and will hold the actual funds for the pilot.

The last quarter was a good one for Facebook. Although there were some setbacks especially with Apple’s privacy policy, the company had a quarter that surpassed the estimates of analysts.

This year, the company also changed its corporate name from Facebook to Meta. According to the company, the name change does not have an impact on its individual platforms – Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Marketplace, etc., and its other business. The name change only affects the parent company. The company said that the name change better reflects the company’s ambitions beyond social media; the new name encompasses the company’s drive into futuristic tech and other businesses that surpass the social media business that it started with. The company’s new name Meta is adopted from sci-fi terminology metaverse, used to describe the virtual world.

All the notable happenings for the company this year failed to hold down some talents. C’mon, its Facebook! Anyone would want to be a part of such big brand. Even with a new name, new strategies and new milestones set by the company, there were still quite a number of departures from the company.

While a handful of senior executives have already departed the company, there are still some who plan on leaving the company in the nearest future. The following are some of the notable departures from Facebook.

DEBORAH LIU – FEBRUARY

Deborah Liu is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Ancestry.com. She left Facebook in February to take on the aforementioned role. She has also worked as the Director of Product for the end-to-end buyer experience at eBay and was very instrumental to eBay’s integration with PayPal.

KEVIN WEIL – MARCH

In March, Kevin Weil, who was instrumental to building Facebook’s Novi cryptocurrency decision which he co-founded left the company for Planet. Planet is a satellite imagery company and it was in the news this month for going public. The former executive played a crucial part to developing Facebook’s Novi cryptocurrency unit and wallet. Novi, which was first announced about two years ago, launched this year thanks to Coinbase’s technology. He joined Facebook from Instagram where he held the position of Vice President of Product.

DAVID FISCHER – MARCH

Also in March, David Fischer who held the position of Chief Revenue Officer and was the head of the Facebook’s advertising business and also in charge of its worldwide sales organization, announced his exit from the company. His departure came around the time the company was preparing to face the challenges that Apple’s privacy changes brought, which made it very difficult for the company to deliver personalized ads anymore. Marne Levine, Vice President of Global Partnerships, was announced as David Fischer’s replacement in June and also named Chief Business Officer.

HUGO BARA – MAY

Hugo Bara left Facebook in May. Before leaving Facebook, he was the Vice President of Virtual Reality. He has held roles at Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi and Google where he was the Vice President of Android Product Management.

He is currently the CEO of Detect, a covid-19 testing startup he joined earlier this month.

CAROLYN EVERSON – JUNE

In June, Caroline Everson who held the position of Facebook’s Global Business Group announced that she was leaving the company.

Following her departure from Facebook, she went to work at Instacart in August filling the role of President of the grocery delivery service company. Her time at Instacart was, however, short-lived as she announced that she was leaving the company after spending only three months.

FIDJI SIMO – JULY

Fidji Simo held the position of Head of the Facebook app before he left in July to become the CEO of grocery delivery service Instacart, where Carolyn Everson was President briefly. Before leaving Facebook, she spent about ten years and was one of those employees that worked their way to the top. She was also very instrumental to the company.

MIKE VERDU – JULY

In July, Mike Verdu left Facebook for Netflix. He held the position of Vice President of Augmented Reality Content and worked on content for Oculus VR headsets before leaving for the position of Vice President of Game Development at Netflix.

MARK D’ARCY – AUGUST

In August, Mark D’Arcy stepped down from his role as Facebook’s Chief Creative Officer. He spent over ten years at Facebook before stepping down from his position.

SAMIDH CHAKRABARTI – SEPTEMBER

In September Samidh Chakrabarti left his role as Facebook’s Head of Civic Integrity. Today, he is well known as one of Facebook’ outspoken former executives as he always has something to say on Twitter regarding the company.

MIKE SCHROEPFER – SEPTEMEBER

Although the executive is still present at Facebook as its Chief Technology Officer, he announced in September that he’d be leaving the company in 2022. Andrew “Boz” Bosworth has been named as his replacement.

BRANDON SILVERMAN – OCTOBER

In October, Brandon Silverman who joined Facebook through the acquisition of CrowdTangle, a company he founded, left the company. CrowdTangle is an analytics tool that can be used to track popular posts on Facebook’s services.

DAVID MARCUS – NOVEMBER

David Marcus is still currently working for Facebook. In November, however, the Head of Facebook’s cryptocurrency efforts announced that he’s be leaving the company by the years’s end.

JULIEN CODORNIOU – DECEMBER

Earlier this month, Julien Codorniou announced that he has joined venture firm Felix Capital. He held the role of Head of Workplace Business Communications Software while he was at Facebook.

STAN CHUDNOVSKY – DECEMBER

Also this month, Facebook’s head of its Messenger division, Stan Chudnovsky, announced that that he’d be leaving Facebook in the second quarter of 2022.