Colin Stretch, Facebook’s most prolific lawyer and the vice president of the company’s legal arm since 2013, has announced that he will be parting ways with the social media giant at the end of 2018. According to a Facebook post detailing his decision, Stretch decided to move back to Washington, DC, with his wife for personal reasons, and he did not want to maintain his role because the Facebook legal team needs a leader figure in Menlo Park to refer to personally, a role he will obviously no longer be able to fill. Stretch’s post did not contain any details about his future plans.
Stretch will continue in his role until the end of this year, at which time he will be passing the torch and leaving the company altogether, rather than stepping down to a smaller role. While he does not directly mention any future plans, a few basic things can be ascertained from pertinent facts. For starters, Facebook is a big company and Colin Stretch has played a big role in its massive legal efforts over the years. He’s also served as an executive over the past five years. This means that it’s all but guaranteed that he has more than enough money to retire at this point, if he wishes to. His age makes things a bit more ambiguous, though; he is 48 years old, nearing the common retirement age of 55, but given the stature of his talent and previous role, demand for him will likely be high once he’s officially free. Whether he takes any of those inevitable offers or ends up going to another company or entity in his local area is, obviously, his future prerogative and not something that can accurately be predicted.
Colin Stretch joined Facebook in 2010 as deputy general counsel under the person who hired him, Ted Ullyot, and within three years’ time, became the vice president of the legal department. In his time at Facebook, he also served as a secretary. Before Facebook, he worked at a private law practice from 2002 to 2010, and before that, he was a court clerk under Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.