Zuck\'s right hand man quits Facebook

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's right hand man is packing up his desk and leaving.

Chris Cox, the chief product officer at Facebook is calling it quits after 13 years, following other high-profile executives out the door.

Reuters tech reporter Paresh Dave.

SOUNDBITE: REUTERS CORRESPONDENT, PARESH DAVE, saying: "Mark Zuckerberg has had two people he's really trusted for guidance.

Sheryl Sandberg on the business side and Chris Cox on the product side.

When it comes to the design of Facebook apps its features all of that, Chris Cox was the intermediary between Mark Zuckerberg and all of the Facebook engineers and developers and designers.

So his departure is a big deal for Facebook." And that wasn't the only departure announced on Thursday.

WhatsApp vice president Chris Daniels is also on his way out.

SOUNDBITE: REUTERS CORRESPONDENT, PARESH DAVE, saying: "Chris Daniels is also a surprise departure from Facebook.

He just moved over a year ago to oversee WhatsApp which arguably is the biggest future business for Facebook at the moment.

And he had stepped in after WhatsApp co-founders had left and him being a direct link to Chris Cox and Mark Zuckerberg.

It's suggested that Zuckerberg wanted to exert more control over WhatsApp.

And now with Daniels out of the picture Zuckerberg could be exert even more control over WhatsApp." Last year in September, Instagram co-founders also quit.

The high level exodus in the past months follow Facebook's data privacy scandals from last year.

In an effort to regain trust with users, Zuckerberg last week laid out a major strategy shift saying he's putting privacy first by encrypting conversations and allowing posts to disappear after a set time.

And as Facebook struggles with privacy - tech giant Apple has been using it to sell more iPhones with this ad campaign launched Thursday that says QUOTE "If privacy matters in your life, it should matter to the phone your life is on." -0-