Facebook Technology Head Mike Schroepfer to Step Down

Longtime Facebook government Mike Schroepfer stated on Wednesday that he was stepping down as the corporate’s chief know-how officer.

Schroepfer stated in a Facebook put up that veteran chief Andrew Bosworth, who heads up the social media firm’s augmented actuality and digital actuality efforts, together with merchandise like its Oculus Quest VR headset, will take over the position in 2022.

Schroepfer, who is named “Schrep” and spent 13 years at Facebook, stated he would transition to a part-time position as the corporate’s first Senior Fellow someday subsequent yr.

Bosworth, or “Boz,” created Facebook’s AR/VR organisation, which was renamed Facebook Reality Labs (FRL) in 2020.

“As our next CTO, Boz will continue leading Facebook Reality Labs and overseeing our work in augmented reality, virtual reality and more, and as part of this transition a few other groups will join Boz’s team as well,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated in a message to staff that was posted on Facebook’s blog.

“This is all foundational to our broader efforts helping to build the metaverse, and I’m excited about the future of this work under Boz’s leadership,” he stated, referring to the Silicon Valley concept of shared areas that merge the digital and bodily worlds and may be accessed by completely different gadgets.

Facebook is underneath strain from world regulators, lawmakers, and civil society teams who’ve criticised it over abuses on its platform similar to extremism and misinformation and wish it to enhance on a slew of points together with transparency, its content material moderation and advice techniques, and its approaches to consumer privateness and security.

The firm has been pushing its position in constructing an embodied Internet, or “metaverse,” which Zuckerberg is betting would be the subsequent huge computing platform.

In July, the corporate stated it was creating a brand new product workforce to work on these ambitions, as a part of Facebook Reality Labs.

Zuckerberg stated Schroepfer’s new position would come with serving to the corporate recruit and develop technical expertise and foster investments in synthetic intelligence.

Other central leaders who’ve left the corporate in latest months embody the pinnacle of Facebook’s principal app, Fidji Simo, who left to develop into Instacart CEO, and world adverts chief Carolyn Everson, who was employed because the start-up’s president.

© Thomson Reuters 2021