Why Facebook Needs Sheryl Sandberg

Facebook HQ: Sandberg in the user operations department. Facebook plans to move into Sun Microsystems' old campus later this year Photograph by Robyn Twomey

By Brad Stone

On a Tuesday afternoon in late April, 30 managers of Facebook's various business units come together to discuss a matter that preoccupies its famous founder: how to keep their rapidly growing little company from getting too big. The meeting, organized and led by the second-most-famous person at the social network, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, focuses on how to solve the problems of users, advertisers, and partner websites by using automated systems rather than bringing in thousands of new employees.

One by one, the managers stand and present their progress on new productivity-generating tools. A service called social verification offers a way for Facebook members who get locked out of their accounts to have friends verify their identity. Another new system intends to scare away creators of fake profile accounts by displaying their locations on a map and asking if they really want to continue.

Sandberg, sitting with one leg tucked underneath her, the other folded over the arm of the chair, listens intently and responds with a mix of positive feedback and disarming camaraderie. "That is a huge accomplishment," she says when an international manager talks about new efficiencies in the Hyderabad office. "Whoever worked on this, you guys should feel great. It took us four years at Google to do this." The success of an automated tool that eliminates duplicate profiles on the service evokes an "awesome."

Sandberg hopes the new procedures discussed at these meetings will allow the Palo Alto company to maintain a moderate pace of hiring. She believes that other booming Internet companies that doubled and tripled their staffs during similar periods of unchecked growth—Google (GOOG) has more than 26,000 employees—eventually came to regret the innovation-killing bureaucracy that resulted. Facebook has only 2,500 employees. A new headquarters under renovation one town over in Menlo Park, on the former Sun Microsystems campus, currently maxes out at about 3,600. "We think one of the best ways to stay small is just to stay smaller," Sandberg says later.

As the meeting winds down, a product manager shows a slide that nearly makes Sandberg jump out of her seat. The chart displays Facebook's advertising revenue and volume—both lines are tilting upward. It also shows the number of man-hours spent on support operations, a line that holds steady. "This is a beautiful chart. I might frame it on my wall," Sandberg says. "Guys, this is the difference. This is about, how big do we want to be as a company?"

Ever since Silicon Valley started turning out companies with beautiful growth charts, entrepreneurs and their investors have talked about the need for "adult supervision"—a seasoned executive who can take over a startup from its inexperienced founders, guide it through the hazards of hyperkinetic expansion, and convert a great idea or breakthrough technology into a bona fide business. Today, however, young founders generally want to remain at the helm of their companies, and there's a new shorthand for the kind of leader who's willing to serve as a second-in-command, complementing without overshadowing the wunderkind entrepreneur: a Sheryl Sandberg. As in, "we're growing, but God knows how we'll make money. What we really need is a Sheryl Sandberg."

No one needs a Sandberg more than the company that currently has her. In the three years since Sandberg, 41, defected from Google and joined Facebook as its COO, she has helped to steer the company to previously unimaginable heights, devising an advertising platform that's attracted the world's largest brands and forging a remarkably trusting partnership with Mark Zuckerberg, its imperious 26-year-old founder. (He turns 27 on May 14.)

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