AR / VR Facebook vice president Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth will take on the role of Facebook chief technology officer (CTO) after current chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer announced his plans to step down from the role sometime next year.
Schroepfer has been with Facebook for 13 years and, after stepping down from his CTO role, will move on to the position of Senior Fellow at the company. Here is a copy your full Twitter thread announcing his departure:
After 13 years on FB, I decided to leave the CTO position and take over at @boztank sometime in 2022. I will continue for as long as necessary to ensure a successful leadership transition.
My new role as a Senior Fellow will allow me to stay deeply connected to the company, working on key initiatives such as recruiting and developing technical talent, and fostering our investments in AI in critical technologies, such as @PyTorch
It has been a privilege to lead our technology teams at a time of incredible growth and advancement. I am proud of what the team has achieved, from unleashing the benefits of AI and bringing virtual reality to life to connecting more people around the world through technology.
I am still incredibly optimistic about the potential of AI and AR / VR to improve people’s lives every day. I am honored to be able to continue to support Facebook’s exciting future in my role as a Senior Fellow.
AR / VR Facebook Vice President Andrew Bosworth has taken on an increasingly public role over the past two years, becoming a prominent spokesman for Facebook’s VR / AR efforts. Bosworth has hosted Instagram AMA (“ask me anything”) with user-submitted questions about Facebook’s VR / AR efforts (their responses often flirt with news, teasing, and promotions at the same time), moderating conversations with Mark Zuckerberg and John Carmack on various topics related to virtual reality and virtual reality, and dropped public suggestions and winks at new products like Quest Pro.
In a statement, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that as a CTO, Bosworth will continue to lead Facebook Reality Labs:
As the next CTO, Boz will continue to lead Facebook Reality Labs and oversee our work in augmented reality, virtual reality and more, and as part of this transition, other groups will also join Boz’s team. All of this is critical to our broader efforts to help build the metaverse, and I am excited about the future of this work under Boz’s leadership.
In response to Schroepfer’s thread on Twitter, Bosworth said, “Congratulations Schrep for an epic 13-year career. There is still a lot to do and I’m glad you’re here to help. “
Facebook launched Quest 2 in late 2020 and, last month, doubled the base model’s storage from $ 299 to 128GB. The company also recently partnered to manufacture Ray-Ban-brand sunglasses starting at $ 299 and plugged into the phone to answer calls or play music, or capture 30-second square stabilized videos and wide-angle photos. At the end of June 2021, Facebook employed more than 63,000 people with a significant percentage working in virtual reality and AR technologies.