Facebook Is All Grown Up

While the rest of Silicon Valley hunkers down to prepare for a recession, Facebook continues to aggressively build out what it hopes will be the Valley's next Web powerhouse. And as All Things D reported, Sheryl Sandberg is going to be a big part of that. She left the reigning Web titan, Google, to become Mark Zuckerberg's no. 2. I met with Zuckerberg yesterday to plan our upcoming on-stage interview at the South By Southwest Conference in Austin. I can't divulge a lot of what we talked about-- stay tuned for Sunday-- but I was struck by his respect and reverence for Sandberg. Believe me, the 23-year-old Zuckerberg doesn't just hand accolades like that out. Frequently a "grown up" executive is forced on a young founder, but not this time. Can she help Facebook monetize all those eyeballs? We hope to get a sit down with Sandberg later this month.