Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg: Making money isn't a priority (except for her)
Why is Facebook only going to earn $300 million in revenues this year, despite 80 million active users on its site? Not because Facebook has outsourced much of the ad-sales work to Microsoft. Not because Facebook's Social Ads have miserable clickthrough rates. It's because at Facebook, making money isn't the priority. "Our focus is on growth — we believe this is the moment people are joining social networks," Sandberg told a crowd at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference. "Then it's monetization to support that growth." Sandberg, a White House veteran, didn't stop there with the Washington-quality doubletalk.
Asked whether a recent rash of Facebook executive departures had anything to do with her arrival — they absolutely did, a source tells us — Sandberg tossed the question aside like a K Street pro: "There is no specific underlying story behind the few execs leaving our company."