Chris Cox (Facebook)

Chris Cox
Chris Cox of Facebook
Born	1982 (age 34–35) Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.
Education	Stanford University
Occupation	Chief Product Officer, Facebook
Spouse(s)	Visra Vichit-Vadakan (m. 2010)

Christopher "Chris" Cox (born 1982) is Chief Product Officer at Facebook, where he serves as chief of staff to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on product development and leads the company's worldwide product management, design and marketing functions.

Cox received a bachelor's degree in symbolic systems with a concentration in artificial intelligence from Stanford University, which he attended from 2001 to 2004. Cox dropped out of a graduate degree program at Stanford to join Facebook in 2005. He started as a software engineer and worked on first versions of many key Facebook products, including News Feed. As a 25-year-old engineer, he was promoted to Director of Human Resources and later to Vice President of Product before becoming Chief Product Officer. As of July 2016 he held approximately 391 thousand Facebook shares worth $45 million.

Cox oversees hundreds of engineers, designers and product managers responsible for new features and products. He helped build Facebook’s News Feed and still oversees the News Feed team. His May 2014 promotion to Chief Product Officer “cements (him) as a leader of Facebook alongside COO Sheryl Sandberg.” Cox gives a talk to all new recruits about Facebook’s mission, culture and philosophy.

Business Insider called Cox “a triple threat — an engineer who can build company-defining products, an operator who can recruit and manage good people, and a long-term strategic thinker.” He is also known for his focus on bringing people and technology together. “Technology does not need to estrange us from one another,” Cox told Wired. “The physical reality comes alive with the human stories we have told there.”

Cox envisions a future in which what your friends recommend on social networks plays a bigger role in what you buy, do, or watch on TV. He told The Wall Street Journal that he believes there will be a time “when you turn on the TV, and you see what your mom and friends are watching, and they can record stuff for you. Instead of 999 channels, you will see 999 recommendations from your friends."