Sheryl Sandberg
Sheryl Sandberg
Sheryl Kara Sandberg is an American technology executive, activist, and author. She is the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook and founder of Leanin.org. In June 2012, she was elected to the board of directors by the existing board members, becoming the first woman to serve on Facebook's board. Before she joined Facebook as its COO, Sandberg was Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google and was involved in launching Google's philanthropic arm Google.org. Before Google, Sandberg served...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusiness Executive
Date of Birth28 April 1969
CountryUnited States of America
We're focused on doing one thing incredibly well. If you look at other companies, all of these companies are doing a lot of different things but we're still, as we grow, doing exactly one thing.
Social media has created a historical shift from the historically powerful to the historically powerless. Now everyone has a voice.
There is no straight path from your seat today to where you are going. Don't try to draw that line. You will not just get it wrong, you'll miss big opportunities. And I mean big-like the Internet. Careers are not ladders, those days are long gone, but jungle gyms. Don't just move up and down, don't just look up, look backwards, sideways around corners. Your career and your life will have starts and stops and zigs and zags. Don't stress out about the white space-the path you can't draw- because there in lies both the surprises and the opportunities.
For any of us in this room today, let's start out by admitting we're lucky. We don't live in the world our mothers lived in, our grandmothers lived in, where career choices for women were so limited.
When looking for a life partner, my advice to women is date all of them: the bad boys, the cool boys, the commitment-phobic boys, the crazy boys. But do not marry them. The things that make the bad boys sexy do not make them good husbands. When it comes time to settle down, find someone who wants an equal partner. Someone who thinks women should be smart, opinionated and ambitious. Someone who values fairness and expects or, even better, wants to do his share in the home. These men exist and, trust me, over time, nothing is sexier.
We cannot change what we are not aware of, and once we are aware, we cannot help but change.
I would love to meet J.K. Rowling and tell her how much I admire her writing and am amazed by her imagination. I read every 'Harry Potter' book as it came out and looked forward to each new one. I am rereading them now with my kids and enjoying them every bit as much. She made me look at jelly beans in a whole new way.
Don't let your fears overwhelm your desire. Let the barriers you face-and there will be barriers-be external, not internal. Fortune does favor the bold, and I promise that you will never know what you're capable of unless you try.
Until women are as ambitious as men, they're not gong to achieve as much as men.
We want to do something that is innovative.
We have a desire to do things at scale, and by scale we mean the kinds of things that can touch not just millions, but hundreds of millions of people, and an approach that combines real innovation, technically and otherwise,
I really don't have any plan to leave Facebook. I put it so many times on the record, and I just don't get what to do to say it as clear as possible: I'm staying in Facebook; I really love my job.
I think it is too hard for men to talk about gender. We have to let men talk about this... because we need men to talk about this if it is ever going to change.
Every company I know is looking for more women at the table. Every board is looking for more women at the table. There's a reason why men want to understand the challenges women face, address them, because then they're going to be better hirers, attracters and retainers of women.