Meta, which has been struggling to keep up with its competitors in the AI race and just lost its Chief AI Scientist, is shedding another key official. The company’s chief revenue officer is leaving, apparently for greener pastures.
Bloomberg reports that John Hegeman, who has been with the company for over 17 years, will be stepping down from his role as CRO to start his own company. Hegeman, who has been in the role for a little less than a year, had previously served in several important roles at the company, including working on the Facebook app and the company’s advertising team, according to the Wall Street Journal. Hegeman will be immediately replaced by Andrew Bocking, another longtime Meta employee, Bloomberg notes.
“After 17 remarkable years at Meta, I have decided that it is time to close this chapter and begin building my company—something I have wanted to do for some time,” said Hegeman in a post on an internal Meta message board that was viewed by the Journal. “Working here has been an incredible privilege with many memories to reflect on and a long list of personal thanks that I owe to so many of you.”
The chief revenue officer is tasked with overseeing the company’s entire revenue operations and has a wide range of responsibilities. CROs have become more and more common in recent years and are considered a core part of the corporate hierarchy. It’s unclear what Hegeman’s new company will look like, as the exec hasn’t shared any details publicly yet.
Several other longtime officials have also departed the company in recent weeks. Indeed, Meta also recently lost its chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, who is also leaving so that he can start his own company. LeCun, who has been with the company for about a decade, recently threw cold water on the idea that AI could lead to “human-level” intelligence, and that the tech industry’s interest in LLMs signaled that it was headed in the wrong direction. Bloomberg notes that the company also recently lost the leader of its Business AI unit, and the company’s CISO (top cybersecurity guy), Guy Rosen, is also being given a new AI-related role.
Gizmodo reached out to Meta for more information about Hegeman’s recent departure.
The recent role changes don’t signal anything particularly dire for Meta. The company is chugging along—although its Q3 earnings left something to be desired, and investors are reportedly uneasy about the tech giant’s plan to continue to pour gobs of cash into building out its AI business. “Meta Superintelligence Labs is off to a great start, and we continue to lead the industry in AI glasses,” Mark Zuckerberg said when the company’s Q3 earnings were revealed last month. Skepticism about Meta’s AI investment is on par with what other tech giants are experiencing right now—as investors grow wary of the huge expenses that are being sunk into what feels, more and more, like a bubble waiting to pop.
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