Facebook Vice President of AR/VR, Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth, will take over the role of Facebook Chief Technology Officer (CTO) after current CTO Mike Schroepfer announced plans to step down from the role sometime next year.
Schroepfer has been with Facebook for 13 years and after stepping away from his CTO role, he will move to a Senior Fellow role within the company. Here’s a copy of his full Twitter thread announcing his departure:
After 13 years at FB, I’ve decided to step down as CTO and pass the baton to @boztank at some point in 2022. I will stay on as long as it takes to ensure a successful leadership transition.
My new role as Senior Fellow will enable me to stay deeply connected to the company, working on key initiatives including recruiting and developing technical talent and fostering our AI investments in critical technologies like @PyTorch
It has been a privilege to lead our technology teams during a time of incredible growth & advancement. I am proud of what the team has achieved, from unleashing the benefits of AI & bringing VR to life to connecting more people around the world through technology.
I am still incredibly optimistic about the potential for AI and AR/VR to improve the lives of people every day. I am honored to be able to continue to support Facebook’s exciting future in my role as Senior Fellow.
Facebook VP of AR/VR Andrew Bosworth has taken on an increasingly public facing role over the last year or two, becoming a prominent spokesperson for Facebook’s VR/AR efforts. Bosworth has hosted Instagram AMAs (‘ask me anything’) with user-submitted questions on Facebook’s VR/AR efforts (his responses to which often flirt between informative, teasing and promotional all at once), moderated talks with Mark Zuckerberg and John Carmack on various VR and VR-adjacent topics, and dropped public hints and winks towards new products like Quest Pro.
In a statement, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that as CTO, Bosworth will continue to lead Facebook Reality Labs:
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 leadership.
Responding to Schroepfer’s thread on Twitter, Bosworth said, “Congratulations Schrep on an epic 13 year run. Lots to do still and I’m glad you’re sticking around to help.”
Facebook released Quest 2 near the end of 2020 and, last month, doubled the storage of the base $299 model to 128GB. The company also recently partnered to make Ray-Ban brand sunglasses that start at $299 and connect to your phone to answer calls or play music, or capture square stabilized 30 second videos and wide angle photos. As of the end of June 2021, Facebook employed more than 63,000 people with a significant percentage working on VR and AR technologies.
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