Meta's longtime infrastructure head to leave company
What's the story
Meta's long-serving head of infrastructure and co-head of engineering, Santosh Janardhan, is leaving the company. The news was confirmed by Meta to TechCrunch. Dave Brown, who joined as vice president of infrastructure earlier this year, will take over Janardhan's responsibilities. Before joining Meta, Brown worked at Amazon for 19 years focusing on compute, cloud, and AI technologies.
Transition details
Transition period and advisory role for Janardhan
Janardhan will stay on for a transition period before leaving next year.
A Meta representative said, "Santosh will stay on for transition and he is moving into an advisory role on Meta Compute."
Janardhan joined the company in 2009 and has been instrumental in its growth into a major internet player.
However, the reason behind his exit remains unclear as neither the internal memo nor Meta's response clarified this matter.
Future plans
Meta's push toward AI and compute leadership
In recent years, Meta has heavily invested in its infrastructure to keep pace with competitors in the AI race.
Earlier this year, Janardhan was appointed to lead Meta Compute, a company initiative aimed at scaling data center investments and strategy.
The move comes as part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg's plans to expand data center operations under new leadership amid rising investor scrutiny on capital expenditure spending by social media giants like Meta.
Leadership transition
Brown takes charge amid financial pressures
Brown will now lead Meta's infrastructure efforts and serve as chief technical officer of the Meta Compute initiative.
The company expects full-year capex to fall between $135 billion and $145 billion.
In its recent third-quarter earnings report, Meta reported a negative free cash flow of $2.12 billion, prompting S&P Global Ratings to revise its credit rating from AA- stable to AA- negative in late October.