# Julie Zhuo

> Julie Zhuo is Facebook's first intern turned VP of Product Design, author of the WSJ bestseller 'The Making of a Manager,' and co-founder/CEO of Sundial - an AI-powered analytics platform backed by Sequoia Capital with OpenAI as a client. She spent 14 years at Facebook helping scale it from under 100 employees to over 2 billion users, overseeing the design of News Feed, the Like button, and Reactions. Today she runs a 95,000+ subscriber newsletter called The Looking Glass and is building what she describes as 'the analytics platform for the AI era.'

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Sundial
- **Organizations:** Sundial, Facebook/Meta, Inspirit
- **From:** Shanghai, China
- **Nationality:** Chinese-American
- **Education:** B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science, Stanford University, Mayfield Fellows Program, Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP)
- **Known for:** Facebook's very first intern (2006) - company had fewer than 100 employees, Scaled from intern to VP of Product Design at Facebook over 14 years, Oversaw design of News Feed, the Like button, Facebook Reactions, Profiles, Photos, and core mobile navigation

## Career timeline

- **1984** — Born in Shanghai, China
- **~1990** — Immigrated to the United States; family settled in Texas
- **2002** — Enrolled at Stanford University for Computer Science
- **2006** — Joined Facebook as its very first summer intern (fewer than 100 employees at the time)
- **2006** — Graduated from Stanford with B.S./M.S. in Computer Science; joined Facebook full-time
- **2009** — Became a manager at age 25, beginning the journey that would inspire her book
- **2013** — Launched 'The Year of the Looking Glass' blog on Medium; wrote 52 essays in 52 weeks
- **2014** — Named one of Fortune's top tech stars; promoted to lead the Facebook app design team
- **2019** — Published 'The Making of a Manager' (WSJ bestseller, Amazon's #1 Business book of 2019)
- **2020** — Left Facebook after nearly 14 years as VP of Product Design; co-founded Inspirit advisory firm
- **2021** — Co-founded Sundial (sundial.ai) with Chandra Narayanan
- **2025** — Sundial raised $23.3M in funding; clients include OpenAI
- **2025** — Appeared on Lenny's Podcast discussing AI and management

## Achievements

- Facebook's very first intern (2006) - company had fewer than 100 employees
- Scaled from intern to VP of Product Design at Facebook over 14 years
- Oversaw design of News Feed, the Like button, Facebook Reactions, Profiles, Photos, and core mobile navigation
- Helped scale Facebook from ~10 million to over 2 billion users
- Published WSJ bestselling book 'The Making of a Manager' (2019)
- Amazon's #1 Best Business and Leadership Book of 2019
- 95,000+ subscribers to The Looking Glass newsletter
- 175,000+ Twitter followers
- Co-founded Sundial; raised $23.3M from Sequoia Capital and other top-tier investors
- Sundial counts OpenAI among its clients
- Contributor to New York Times, Fast Company, Forbes, and Wired
- Speaker at major global tech conferences

## Latest updates

- **2025-07** — Sundial raised $23.3M led by DJ Patil at GPV; investors include Sequoia Capital, with OpenAI as a key client
- **2025-09** — Appeared on Lenny's Podcast discussing 'From managing people to managing AI: The leadership skills everyone needs now'
- **2024-11** — Spoke at Lenny & Friends Summit 2024, talk titled 'How to Win Friends & Influence Decisions'
- **2025-01** — Continues publishing The Looking Glass newsletter to 95,000+ subscribers on Substack

## Links

- Website: https://juliezhuo.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-zhuo
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/joulee

---

Profile page: https://yespress.io/julie-zhuo
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-04-26