EVERY Monday a bit before 10 a.m., Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, dashes off a quick e-mail to her boss, Mark Zuckerberg. “We have a routine,” Ms. Sandberg says. “I e-mail, ‘Coming in?’ He replies, ‘On my way.’ ”
A few minutes later, Mr. Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder and chief executive, walks into the company’s headquarters here, says a few hellos and heads to a conference room where he and Ms. Sandberg huddle for an hour. The two executives end the week the same way, with a closed-door meeting on Friday afternoon. They discuss products, strategy, deals, personnel — and each other.
“We agreed that we would give each other feedback every Friday,” Ms. Sandberg says. “We are constantly flagging things. Nothing ever builds up.” At a recent meeting, for instance, they ironed out a disagreement between them over the details of Mr. Zuckerberg’s pledge to give $100 million to schools in Newark.
If all of that sounds a bit touchy-feely, well, it is. Ms. Sandberg, a well-regarded Internet executive, is known for her interpersonal skills as much as for her sharp intellect. And her regular meetings with the famously introverted Mr. Zuckerberg have helped to keep one of Silicon Valley’s most unusual business partnerships working wonders for Facebook.
Indeed, for a variety of reasons, Ms. Sandberg may well have become Mr. Zuckerberg’s most valuable friend.
Since Ms. Sandberg joined the company more than two years ago, Facebook has successfully navigated one of the more perilous stages in a start-up’s life: a period of hypergrowth. Facebook’s work force has expanded sixfold, to nearly 1,800, and its global audience has multiplied by more than seven, to half a billion. Revenue, once little more than an afterthought, is expected to balloon to around $1.6 billion this year, according to estimates from Wedbush Securities. (Facebook, a private company, doesn’t disclose its revenue.)
Part of the reason for that sales growth is Ms. Sandberg’s close ties to many of the world’s largest advertisers, relationships she first developed as a senior executive at Google. Ms. Sandberg also brought stability to Facebook, which had suffered from a long period of turmoil and the departure of several executives and early employees, including the company’s other co-founders.
“One of the reasons the company is doing so well is because the two of them get along so well,” says Mike Schroepfer, vice president for engineering.
Ms. Sandberg has focused on building the business, expanding internationally, cultivating relationships with large advertisers and putting her polish on things like communications and public policy. That has freed Mr. Zuckerberg to focus on what he likes best: the Facebook Web site and its platform.
Donald Graham, the chairman of the Washington Post Company, who once tried to hire Ms. Sandberg, says that in the last two years a lot of questions about Facebook’s viability have been put to rest.
“The combination of Mark and Sheryl is the primary reason,” says Mr. Graham, who is also a member of Facebook’s board.
These days, Ms. Sandberg is also juggling another duty: mounting a defense of Mr. Zuckerberg at a time when a new movie, “The Social Network,” portrays him as an aloof and conniving student who may have stolen the idea for Facebook from others. Ms. Sandberg will have none of that.
“He is shy and introverted and he often does not seem very warm to people who don’t know him, but he is warm,” Ms. Sandberg says of Mr. Zuckerberg, her voice rising with empathy. “He really cares about the people who work here.”
She can be just as protective of Mr. Zuckerberg in private.
At a technology conference this summer, for instance, Mr. Zuckerberg flopped during an onstage interview. He gave rambling answers to questions about Facebook’s privacy policies, became visibly nervous and started sweating profusely. After the interview, Ms. Sandberg encouraged him not to beat himself up over it, but to focus on parts of the interview that went well so he could do better next time, according to people briefed on their interaction who didn’t want to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
“She really wants him to succeed,” says one of these people.
For all her achievements, there’s one area where Ms. Sandberg’s influence has yet to work its magic: privacy concerns. While Ms. Sandberg is not ultimately responsible for the features on the Facebook site — that’s Mr. Zuckerberg’s job — she is deeply involved in the planning that revolves around them. She readily acknowledges that Facebook has made mistakes.
“It is completely fair to say that we have had our challenges around privacy,” she says.
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