The book that Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t want you to read, by Facebook’s highest-ranked whistleblower!
Blurb:
An explosive memoir charting one woman’s career at the heart of one of the most influential companies on the planet, Careless People gives you a front-row seat to Facebook, the decisions that have shaped world events in recent decades, and the people who made them.
From trips on private jets and encounters with world leaders to shocking accounts of misogyny and double standards behind the scenes, this searing memoir exposes both the personal and the political fallout when unfettered power and a rotten company culture take hold. In a gripping and often absurd narrative where a few people carelessly hold the world in their hands, this eye-opening memoir reveals what really goes on among the global elite.
Sarah Wynn-Williams tells the wrenching but fun story of Facebook, mapping its rise from stumbling encounters with juntas to Mark Zuckerberg’s reaction when he learned of Facebook’s role in Trump’s election. She experiences the challenges and humiliations of working motherhood within a pressure cooker of a workplace, all while Sheryl Sandberg urges her and others to “lean in.”
‘Careless People’ is a deeply personal account of why and how things have gone so horribly wrong in the past decade—told in a sharp, candid, and utterly disarming voice. A deep, unflinching look at the role that social media has assumed in our lives, ‘Careless People’ reveals the truth about the leaders of Facebook: how the more power they grasp, the less responsible they become and the consequences this has for all of us.
My Review:
My initial thoughts while reading (and upon finishing) this book, were rather mild: “poor woman, she went through quite an ordeal”, “she had to work with some pretty horrendous people”, “this all seems so unfair, people are power-hungry and can be so nasty” etc. etc. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized something just didn’t sit right about all of this. Something was niggling at me, and I couldn’t let it go. So I turned to trusty Google … which I’d just discovered was one of Facebook’s (now Meta) biggest rivals. Unsurprisingly, I landed up traversing a rabbit warren of information that led me to a somewhat different conclusion to the (somewhat simplistic) one I’d first reached.
In a nutshell, here are just some of the issues that bothered me:
- Sarah Wynn-Williams is no blonde bimbo. OK, she is actually blonde … but she is certainly not as vacuous and simple and surely not as naive as she would like us to think she is for the vast majority of this book! I can only assume that she has ‘dumbed herself down’ for the sake of storytelling, and because she wants to appear more likable, and less complicit for what went down during her time at Facebook (Meta) – and basically the duration of this book.
- Before she worked at Facebook, Sarah was a young diplomat in New Zealand. I’m guessing you need to be quite smart and possibly a tad sassy for a position like that. She spotted Facebook’s potential role in the global political arena, and pitched for a job that didn’t yet exist. She was rejected, so she appealed to them again, and again and again … until they gave her a job! (You see: sassy!) Her title eventually was Director of Globabl Public Policy. It sounds like a high-powered position, doesn’t it? And indeed, many of the descriptions of what she does, and who she interacts with in her role would indicate that this is the case: hanging out with the head honchos at FB (Zuckerberg and Sandberg), flying in the company’s private jet, coordinating meetings with world leaders at some of the biggest gatherings and summits where these individuals make major decisions. And yet … there’s this “dumbing down” feeling. All. The. Time. The insinuation that she was just a worker bee; that she was barely making ends meet on her meagre salary. It bugged the hell out of me. It didn’t make sense.
- Sarah seems to spend a lot of time explaining how she attempts to get stuff done, only to be prevented from doing so by red tape, misogynistic colleagues, and her general overriding frustration at being the only person in the entire organisation (I’m talking globally here) who is trying to do the right thing! This, amidst sexual harassment (and not only from her male bosses), a CEO who behaves like a child barely out of short pants (and who seems to be unaware that he needs a passport to leave the USA to travel to a foreign country, placing the blame on everyone else for any and all of his wrongdoings), and a COO who expects the entire organisation (especially the women) to ‘lean in’ and support her private venture when she publishes a book! And yet Sarah is the only one who, all this time, is noticing that things are very amiss.
- How can you maintain this naive ‘Bambi in headlights’ attitude, while at the same time leading readers through years of negotiating with (and befriending) numerous global heads of state, and managing the socially awkward Zuckerberg’s many unsuccessful (cringeworthy) interactions with them? There’s the whole Trump campaign ‘plant’ saga, where Facebook staff are literally embedded among his staff, and Sarah appears to be shocked at the implications, especially when they lead to Zuckerberg himself believing he could (maybe, possibly) run for president! And I won’t even get into the details of Facebook’s hand in Myanmar and the ongoing saga of their negotiations with China … all of which Sarah continually seems to (understandably) have a problem with, but with no voice or agency throughout the actual process, even though these would clearly fall within her sphere of control. One would expect that someone, somewhere would have, could have, listened to a word or two that she said … apparently not. One has to wonder how she was even promoted to the position that she had, and how she managed to stay there for as long as she did (nearly 7 years). Was it because her superiors thought she could be easily manipulated?
I admit … after all of this, I was left feeling rather confused.
Despite these criticisms, the book is a good (albeit horrifying) read and Sarah Wynn-Williams is an adept storyteller. And again, regardless of those issues that bugged me (only after I’d finished the book), I would definitely recommend it! We cannot discount the fact that this is one person’s account of her own experience, as it happened to her, so if you’re seeing reviews from ex-colleagues of Sarah’s saying that she’s over-exaggerated things, or that they’d never heard about certain incidents she’s described – just try to remember that: this is her story!
I think one of my favourite comments from a review, given by an ex-colleague whose time at Facebook overlapped with Sarah’s is: “… more importantly, the vibe she captured is spot on. It was all just so juvenile.” Apart from trying to get back at the many who are attempting to bury this book (not gonna happen!), this is a direct hit at those aiming to discount Sarah’s criticism of Zuckerberg’s childish whims constantly having to be catered to by his staff, going as far as to always letting him win when they played boardgames!
Apparently many of the facts that she discloses are not as surprising as one may think. However, it still has all the makings of a bombshell – even more so, now that Meta has won an arbitration, ruling that Wynn-Williams is not permitted to promote her book! So, we’ll just have to do it for her. Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work should be read! Add it to the top of your TBR list now!
Thank you to Exclusive Books for my review copy.
jansbookbuzz.com 
Leave a comment