Facebook’s chief technology officer, Mike Schroepfer, is stepping down from his role after around 13 years at the social networking platform. He will move to a part-time position and will become Facebook’s first Senior Fellow.
While the exact date of his stepping down has been revealed, it is said to happen sometime in 2022. Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, the current Hardware lead at the company will take the position of CTO next year. Mark Zuckerberg has said that a “few other groups” will join Bosworth as part of the transition.
Schroepfer first joined Facebook in 2008 as a vice president of engineering and took the CTO position in 2013. In his new role from next year, Schroepfer will help foster talent and improve the development process at Facebook. He has also made clear that his exit is voluntary and added that it was a “difficult decision” for someone still excited about Facebook’s prospects.
He helped build Facebook’s AI organization and has been supervising it. The group is responsible for the technology that Facebook uses to automatically find and remove content that violates its policies.
Andrew Bosworth taking over the CTO role makes sense given that Facebook has been increasing its focus towards hardware products, including smart glasses, AR headsets, and the new Portal displays.
However, given his past record, it is a risky choice as he wrote several controversial memos in the company. He has previously justified growth at any cost and has also expressed reluctance to fact-check politicians.
