Sheryl Sandberg Lean In & TED: Facebook Chief ‘Rules Out’ Running For Office
Facebook's chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg has denied rumors that she may run for political office.
Sandberg told TODAY's Savannah Guthrie in a recent interview, "I have ruled it out. I don't think that's for me."
The now denied rumors claimed that the millionaire COO had plans to secure one of California's U.S. Senate seats in 2016 which is the same year that Hilary Clinton is expected to run for President.
The Daily Dot reports that if Sandberg did in fact run for office, she would have challenged incumbent Democratic senator Barbara Boxer for her seat in 2016 since Boxer was up for re-election that year.
In addition to her rumored political aspirations, Sandberg also denied rumors that she was seeking to be CEO at other companies since Facebook's current CEO Mark Zuckerberg has no plans to retire anytime soon.
Sandberg told the TODAY show, "I have plans to stay at Facebook. I love my job. I love what we do every day to connect the world, and I love being able to work on 'Lean In' in my personal time."
The "Lean In" that Sandberg refers to is her best selling book, entitled Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, that encourages women to confidently assert themselves in the workplace while paving the way for working equality between sexes.
"We know that this can be the generation that can get us to equality. That means we have to give women and men the tools, but especially women, to get paid the same as men," she told Guthrie. "They deserve it, to get the same opportunities as men, not just to enter the workforce but to get into jobs like yours and jobs like mine."
Sandberg's Lean In book has sold 1.75 million copies to date, and has influenced over 16,000 "lean-in circle" movements in 72 countries.
Because of her success with Lean-In Sandberg admirers have expressed their disappointment in learning that the 44 year-old would not be running in politics.
"It's too bad, because she's clearly a leader of great skill, a woman who cares deeply about helping other women to succeed, and someone many of us would strongly support," said Susan Estrich, a veteran Democratic political strategist who teaches law at the University of Southern California to Sci-Tech Today.
Sandberg's current estimated net-worth is 965.2 million according to Forbes.