Andrew "Boz" Bosworth is an American business executive who has been Chief Technology Officer of Meta since 2022. After graduating from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 2004, he worked as a developer on

Microsoft Visio Microsoft Visio ( ) (formerly Microsoft Office Visio) is a diagramming and vector graphics application and is part of the Microsoft Office family. The product was first introduced in 1992, made by the Shapeware Corporation, later renamed Visio ...

for almost two years, then joined

Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (; born ) is an American business magnate, internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is known for co-founding the social media website Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook, Inc.), o ...

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

in January 2006, where he helped create News Feed.

Early life and education

Bosworth was born and raised in

Santa Clara County Santa Clara County, officially the County of Santa Clara, is the sixth-most populous county in the U.S. state of California, with a population of 1,936,259, as of the 2020 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring San Benito County together f ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. He grew up on a farm in Saratoga and was involved in agricultural endeavors with nonprofit 4-H as a child. Bosworth attended

and met

while working as a teaching assistant in an artificial intelligence class. Bosworth graduated from Harvard University in 2004.

Career

Bosworth began his career working for Microsoft as a developer on

. In 2006, Bosworth received a call from a recruiter looking for a candidate with a background in artificial intelligence. From this, he joined as one of the first 15 engineers at

. In 2012, Bosworth took initiative over the transition between desktop advertising and mobile advertising, where he oversaw the mobile ad product. In August 2017, Facebook CTO

Mike Schroepfer Mike Schroepfer is an entrepreneur, technical architect and manager who was the chief technology officer (CTO) at Meta Platforms between March 2013 and March 2022. Education Schroepfer attended Spanish River Community High School in Palm Bea ...

announced that Bosworth would be transitioning to the role of vice-president for augmented reality and virtual reality, and Mark Rabkin would assume Bosworth's current responsibilities.

Memo controversy

On June 18, 2016, Bosworth wrote a memo circulated internally within Facebook titled "The Ugly", arguing that connecting people was a paramount goal for Facebook, and justified many of the company's practices. The memo also acknowledged that this could have negative consequences, such as the potential to be used by terrorist attacks coordinated via Facebook. The publication date of the memo was a day after the shooting and death of a Chicago man was recorded via

Facebook Live Facebook is a social-network service website launched on February 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg. The following is a list of software and technology features that can be found on the Facebook website and mobile app and are available to users of t ...

. The memo generated strong, polarized reactions within the company. The memo was leaked to and reported on by ''

BuzzFeed BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson III to focus on tracking viral content. Ken ...

'' on March 29, 2018. In a statement given to ''

'' after publication of the story, Facebook CEO and principal founder

said: "Boz is a talented leader who says many provocative things. This was one that most people at Facebook including myself disagreed with strongly. We've never believed the ends justify the means. We recognize that connecting people isn't enough by itself. We also need to work to bring people closer together. We changed our whole mission and company focus to reflect this last year." Responding to the publication of the memo by ''BuzzFeed'', Bosworth wrote: "I don't agree with the post today and I didn't agree with it even when I wrote it. The purpose of this post, like many others I have written internally, was to bring to the surface issues I felt deserved more discussion with the broader company."

Philanthropy

Bosworth serves as the vice chair on the board of directors for the

Peninsula Open Space Trust The Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) is a nonprofit land trust headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Mission and Work POST mission is to protect open space on the Peninsula and in the South Bay for the benefit of all. The organization has bee ...

. He is additionally involved in his local community by being recognized as the 2019 keynote speaker for the Burlingame/SFO Chamber of Commerce. Bosworth also participates in events as an alumnus of nonprofit 4-H, where he has previously received recognition such as the Distinguished Alumni Medallion award.

Personal life

Bosworth is married to April Bosworth (née Wood).

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bosworth, Andrew Living people Harvard University alumni American computer programmers Facebook employees Year of birth missing (living people)