Facebook or Meta explored legal avenues to take this book down or at least limit the amount of promotion. It succeeded. So I was curious about why one of the richest companies in the world that is not a stranger to controversies did not want people to read “Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism“. I wanted to give it a try.

Sarah Wynn-Williams is from New Zealand. She was a diplomat for her country at the UN. Her idealism and will to do good for the world led her to believe that she had to work at Facebook and influence the interaction between the company and policymakers around the world. Reading how she tried and succeeded in landing a job at Facebook, you gotta admire her drive and efforts.

After a few years, Sarah climbed the corporate ladder and managed to be in close coveted company of the top leaders like Joel, Mark or Sheryl Sandberg. But it came at the expense of her physical and mental health. Sarah suffered major complications from the birth of her children as well as alleged sexual harassment of her boss, Joel. After successfully managing to convince Mark Zuckerberg to embrace collaboration with global lawmakers, the author soon realized that she was so naive that she forgot that at the end of the day, Facebook is a corporation designed to chase profits. She was distraught that her bosses turned a blind eye to many issues derived from the reach of Facebook in order to maximize growth and profits. Eventually, Sarah was let go from the company. It is not clear from the book what she did after Facebook, except giving birth to her third child and writing the book.

If you don’t already know how much capitalist companies expect you to contribute, you’ll be shocked at the length to which Sarah went to do her job. She was pregnant with her child, yet went to Myanmar alone to meet with the junta while her finace/husband tried and failed to reach her for two days. She was already in the delivery room with her feet up, ready to push, yet grabbed her laptop to send talking points to Sheryl. Also, when she was at Davos, her child was sick. Yet, she had to go and find some missing boots for her boss, Joel.

I don’t think I’d do what she did, but her devotion was unbelievable, I admit. With that being said, such dedication raised a question: how complicit was she? She would not have made it to the inner circle and traveled on a private jet with Javi, Sheryl & Mark had she not done well enough what was asked of her. Yes, she admitted in her book, or should I say, indicated that she regretted, her failure to influence Mark’s thinking and actions. But I would love to see a more straightforward and honest admission of all she did and that she wrote this book to expose her former bosses and to apologize for whatever her contribution was. I think the book stopped short of that.