Facebook's Chief Technology Officer To Step Down Next Year

(RTTNews) - Social networking giant Facebook Inc. (FB) Wednesday announced that its Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer will step down next year.

Schroepfer is a 13-year veteran who oversees Facebook's artificial intelligence, virtual reality and the blockchain programs. Schroepfer had joined Facebook in 2008 and has been CTO since 2013.

"I want to take a moment to thank Schrep for his extraordinary contributions to our community and our company over the last 13 years. He has played a critical role in almost everything we've done — from building and scaling our teams to mentoring many of our key leaders, and from helping us develop new technologies like AI and VR to operating our infrastructure and business services at global scale. Schrep and I have had a close partnership over the years, and in addition to being a great leader, he's also a great person and a close friend," Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement.

As Schrep transitions out of the CTO role sometime next year, he will become Facebook's first Senior Fellow, the company said. In that role, he will focus on helping the company recruit and develop technical talent, improve projects like Move Fast, and continuing to foster AI investments in technologies like PyTorch.

Meanwhile, Facebook executive Andrew Bosworth will take over as CTO. Boz will continue leading Facebook Reality Labs and overseeing work in augmented reality, virtual reality and more.