Facebook’s long time technology head Mike Schroepfer decides to step down from his position. Andrew Bosworth, leading the social media company's augmented reality and virtual reality efforts, including products like its Oculus Quest VR headset, is all set to take over the role in 2022, Schroepfer said in a Facebook post.
Schroepfer, who is known as "Schrep" and spent 13 years at Facebook, he announced that he would transition to a part-time role as the company's first Senior Fellow some time next year. Bosworth, or "Boz," created Facebook's AR/VR organisation, which was renamed Facebook Reality Labs (FRL) in 2020.
In a message to his employees, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook says, “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. 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 leadershipreferring to the Silicon Valley idea of shared spaces that merge the digital and physical worlds and can be accessed through different devices. Facebook is under pressure from global regulators, lawmakers and civil society groups who have criticised it over abuses on its platform such as extremism and misinformation and want it to improve on a slew of issues including transparency, its content moderation and recommendation systems, and its approaches to user privacy and safety.The company has been pushing its role in building an embodied internet, or "metaverse", which Zuckerberg is betting would be the next big computing platform. In July, the company states it was creating a new product team to work on these ambitions, as part of Facebook Reality Labs
Zuckerberg said Schroepfer's new role would include aiding the company recruit and develop technical talent and foster investments in artificial intelligence.Other central leaders who have left the company in recent months include the head of Facebook's main app, Fidji Simo, who left to become Instacart CEO, and global ads chief Carolyn Everson, who was hired as the startup's president.