Christopher Cox (born September 2, 1982) is a software engineer and business leader. He is the Chief Product Officer (CPO) at

Meta Platforms Meta Platforms, Inc., (file no. 3835815) doing business as Meta and formerly named Facebook, Inc., and TheFacebook, Inc., is an American multinational technology conglomerate based in Menlo Park, California. The company owns Facebook, Instag ...

. He serves as chief of staff to Meta CEO

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.), of ...

on product development and is responsible for its "family of apps": Facebook,

WhatsApp WhatsApp (also called WhatsApp Messenger) is an internationally available freeware, cross-platform, centralized instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by American company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook). It allows user ...

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

, and

Messenger ''MESSENGER'' was a NASA robotic space probe that orbited the planet Mercury between 2011 and 2015, studying Mercury's chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field. The name is a backronym for "Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geoch ...

Early life and education

Cox was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and raised in Winnetka,

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Roc ...

. He is the youngest of three children. He attended

New Trier High School New Trier High School (, also known as New Trier Township High School or NTHS) is a public high school, public four-year high school, with its main campus for sophomores through seniors located in Winnetka, Illinois, United States, and a campus in ...

, where he played in the jazz band. Cox attended Stanford University, where he received a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in 2003 in

symbolic systems Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field concerned with the computational modelling of natural language, as well as the study of appropriate computational approaches to linguistic questions. In general, computational linguistics d ...

with a concentration in

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

. He dropped out of the

natural language processing Natural language processing (NLP) is an interdisciplinary subfield of linguistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence concerned with the interactions between computers and human language, in particular how to program computers to proc ...

group and his graduate degree program at Stanford to join Facebook in 2005.

Career

Cox joined Facebook in 2005 as one of its first 15 software engineers, where he was instrumental in designing and building the first versions of key Facebook features including

News Feed On the World Wide Web, a web feed (or news feed) is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors ''syndicate'' a web feed, thereby allowing users to ''subscribe'' a channel to it by adding the feed ...

. He then became Director of Human Resources, building out Facebook's HR and recruiting programs and leading the process of defining the company's mission and values. In 2008, he became the Vice President of Products, where he built Facebook's product management (PM) and design teams, before being promoted to Chief Product Officer in 2014. In May 2018, he was put in charge of its apps: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. At the age of 28, Cox was listed on the

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

40 Under 40 list, as well as Fast Company's list of "Most Creative People in Business". In 2015, Forbes described him as "The Most Important Executive In Silicon Valley That No One Is Talking About". In March 2019, Cox announced that he was leaving Facebook, as the company aimed for new leadership as part of its new direction toward an encrypted, integrated messaging network. He returned to the company in June 2020. On June 11, 2020, it was announced that Cox would be returning to Facebook as their Chief Product Officer.

Personal life

Cox married a fellow Stanford University grad and movie director, Visra Vichit-Vadakan in 2010. The couple have a son and a daughter, together they live in California. Vichit-Vadakan is the granddaughter of

Luang Wichitwathakan Major-General Luang Wichitwathakan (also known as just Wichit Wichitwathakan) ( Thai หลวงวิจิตรวาทการ, วิจิตร วิจิตรวาทการ; Chinese 金良) (11 August 189831 March 1962) was a ...

, a Thai politician, historian, novelist, and playwright.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cox, Chris Meta Platforms people Living people Corporate executives Stanford University alumni American software engineers People from Atlanta People from Winnetka, Illinois American technology chief executives 1982 births Engineers from Illinois New Trier High School alumni