I had no knowledge of Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism (2025) by Sarah Wynn-Williams when my book club decided it would be our next book. I'm usually a fan of listening to memoirs on audiobook, especially when they're read by the author, so I downloaded the audiobook.
Sarah Wynn-Williams (Williams) is a New Zealander who had idealistic aspirations of changing the world. She began at the United Nations and then saw an opportunity at Facebook as Facebook became more international. Williams aggressively went after a job at Facebook that was not even a position at the time. In her time at Facebook, Williams worked closely with Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, some of the best-known names of the company.
However, the longer Williams stayed at Facebook, the more she struggled. Her entire life was dedicated to the job, her immediate supervisor sexually harassed her, and she became disillusioned with the work Facebook was doing. Eventually, Williams was fired, and she left and wrote this book.
I should say that I didn't have too much interest in Facebook or in their day-to-day dealings before I read this book. I probably would not have read this one if left to my own devices, but I'm glad my book club chose it. I do understand that Williams left as a very unhappy employee, and I'm only hearing one side of the story. But Williams tells a good story. She includes a lot of details and it comes across as believable.
There's a lot going on in this book, and there's no way I can possibly summarize it all. But I will try to highlight some of the parts I found most interesting.
-In the beginning of the book Williams describes how she was bit by a shark in New Zealand. After going to the doctor, she began internally bleeding but her parents didn't believe how sick she was until she almost died.
-Williams was given a bad performance review for while she was on maternity leave because she was not "responsive" enough while she was on leave.
-Facebook did not have any moral standards when it came to spreading their app across the world. If dictatorships wanted information or control over what was posted, Facebook gave it to them.
-Facebook targeted the insecurity of teens and used insider knowledge to prey on them with targeted ads.
-Williams has a number of stories with Mark Zuckerberg, but the one I remember best is that everyone lets Zuckerberg win when they play board games.
-I found the parts of the book about Sheryl Sandberg to be some of the most interesting because back in 2013 I had read and really liked Lean In by Sandberg. It was disappointing to hear that Sandberg was not a helpful, feminist advocate in the workplace after all. In fact, she made William's job harder because Williams was always required to accompany her to book events. There was also a very uncomfortable scene where Sandberg wanted Willams to go back in the bedroom on the private jet to sleep with her and took it personally when Williams refused. (Literally sleeping, but definitely weird and creepy).
Again, I do realize this is only one side of the story, but it was a very interesting read. Recommended.
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