The last two departures are the most iconic: YouTube’s Susan Wojcicki and Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg. Voluntary departure or victims of a still very masculine environment, two great women of technology have recently slammed the door. This March 8, International Women’s Day, is an opportunity to return to the place of the leading women in the sector because many of them have left in recent years.
On February 16, 2023, YouTube employees received a message from Susan Wojcicki, then CEO of the platform. After nine years on YouTube, she announced that she wanted to leave her position to “start a new chapter focusing on my family, my health and personal projects that I’m passionate about.”
Her departure marked the end of an era as she was one of the pioneers as a woman in technology and present at the beginning of Google. In a portrait that she dedicated to him in The Guardian in 2019, he remembers moving into a house near Stanford University. At that time he worked at Intel and to pay his mortgage he rented his garage and the two tenants were none other than the two founders of Google, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, where they installed their first headquarters.
He quickly joined them. In 1999, she became the fledgling company’s first marketing director. In her early days at the company, then five months pregnant, she manages the animations for the Google logo that changes by events.
YouTube dispute management
It is also the origin of the AdSense program, launched in 2003, Google’s advertising management that contributes to generating the vast majority of profits. In 2005, he was responsible for creating Google Videos when YouTube had just launched. She advises her friends to buy her competitor. Made another year for $1.65 billion.
Appointed head of YouTube in 2014, she created YouTube Premium and YouTube Music, the two paid subscription formulas, and launched the platform to reach two billion monthly users in 2019 and 80 million paid users in 2022. In this way, it allows many creators to emerge and monetize their videos.
Contrary to worldwide success, he had to handle many controversies. From disinformation content to conspiracy theories, the platform often comes out on top. In 2019, YouTube was criticized for not removing footage of the Christchurch attacks quickly enough. The CEO had to think about the systems to implement: since 2019, content that does not respect the site’s policy is removed or demonetized more effectively.
Susan Wojcicki’s goal was to push YouTube to the top with 1 billion hours of video viewed per day, an objective achieved in 2016. The increase in viewing time and the algorithms that push to stay on the platform with specific recommendations have a lot to do with it.
Policies to include women
Another stated goal of Wojcicki: attract more women to technology and in leadership positions. Under her presidency, the proportion of women on YouTube increased from a quarter to a third. For the record, Google’s 16th employee is the first to take maternity leave in Google history.
Now a mother of five, she believes a more generous maternity leave policy will attract women to tech jobs.
As a woman in technology, she says that she has been supported throughout her career against possible macho leaders and especially points out the micro-aggressions of which some do not take action. This is Neal Mohan, the former YouTube product manager who has just replaced her in her position.
Managing crises, a whole profession
Another departure also caused a stir in 2022. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, stepped down last June after 15 years of good and loyal service.
His last months at Meta were not easy, replacing Mark Zuckerberg during the crises the group was going through. He underlined this in his Facebook post announcing his departure: “To say it hasn’t always been easy is an understatement. But it is normal that it is difficult. Our products have a huge impact so we have a responsibility to design them in a way that protects people’s privacy and security.”
The one that for a long time was number two on Facebook, has shaped the model that today marks the profitability of the social network: based on advertising. Offer free access to your users, while monetizing their valuable personal data for advertisers for targeted advertising. The formula works since Meta (Facebook’s parent company) billed about 34,000 million dollars (about 29,800 million euros) in 2021.
But Sheryl Sandberg’s name was soon at the center of Facebook scandals. Business Insider reports that internally, she had become very low-key and was not involved in any large new projects.
And this since 2016, when it was suspected that Facebook did not regulate misinformation and promoted the exposure of Donald Trump on the social network. Also in 2018, with the Cambridge Analytica affair in which millions of American Facebook profiles were recovered for the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.
replaced by a man
According Wall Street JournalMark Zuckerberg would then have reproached her for her mismanagement of the crisis and would have held her responsible for Facebook’s lack of means in terms of hunting for inappropriate content on its social networks.
Since then, Facebook has been the subject of much controversy with the revelations of whistleblower Frances Haugen, who revealed internal documents highlighting in particular flaws in the social network’s moderation systems outside of the United States.
Since then, Mark Zuckerberg has wanted to take action on the matter: he himself attended parliamentary hearings in the US Congress. Meta is now betting on the metaverse with a new internal strongman, Andrew Bosworth. Javier Olivan replaced Sheryl Sandberg, a Facebook veteran who came on board in 2007 as director of international growth.
The place of women in technology
In the last five years, five notable departures by women leaders in technology should be noted. The most recent departure is that of Marne Levine in February 2023, former commercial director of Meta, after 13 years with the company.
“As we finished one of our most difficult years but with results that go in the right direction, and although (…) I consider that the strategy put in place is welcome, the moment seems propitious” to leave, explained Marne Levine about her account of Facebook, without giving more details about the reasons for his departure.
Marissa Mayer stepped down from Yahoo after running it from 2012 to 2017. In 2018, Meg Whitman stepped down as HP’s CEO. In October 2022, Vijaya Gadde, then the legal director of Twitter, fell victim to the mass firings of Elon Musk.
It’s hard to say that all of these female leaders left because of their gender, even though tech is still a very masculine environment. In France, by 2022, women will represent 17% of the workforce in digital professions.
But for Laure Kray, a professor at the University of Berkeley interviewed by CNNNo doubt: “It’s hard to read the latest departure from a top female leader as anything more than further proof that the tech industry has failed to create inclusive cultures that can attract and retain top talent.
Source: BFM TV
