



Careless People
A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism
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4.5 • 284 Ratings
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
#1 New York Times Bestseller
“Careless People is darkly funny and genuinely shocking...Not only does [Sarah Wynn-Williams] have the storytelling chops to unspool a gripping narrative; she also delivers the goods." -Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times
“When one of the world’s most powerful media companies tries to snuff out a book — amid other alarming attacks on free speech in America like this — it’s time to pull out all the stops.” –Ron Charles, The Washington Post
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Meta is a cesspool of petty tyranny and moral callousness, according to this explosive tell-all. Wynn-Williams recaps her seven years as Facebook's manager of global public policy, which entailed dealing with foreign governments on censorship, regulation, and other hot-button issues, as well as ensuring executives didn't make fools of themselves on the world stage (she once scrambled to prevent CEO Mark Zuckerberg from following Big Bird at the Global Citizen Festival). More seriously, Wynn-Williams describes how her idealistic enthusiasm for connecting the world soured as she witnessed the company collaborate with the 2016 Trump campaign to target users with political ads; bow to the Chinese Communist Party's demands to censor criticism; and refuse to take action when Myanmar's military used Facebook to spread disinformation that fueled the ethnic cleansing of the country's Rohingya minority. She hangs a witty picaresque of Facebook life around colorful profiles of its executives—Zuckerberg is "smaller, paler, and... angrier than I anticipated"—while taking aim at rampant overwork and sexual harassment at the company, claiming that she was forced by former COO Sheryl Sandberg to draw up talking points for a meeting while in labor with her first child and was fired after complaining about her boss Joel Kaplan's sexually charged comments. The result is a withering takedown of Facebook's hypocrisy.
Customer Reviews
Frightening!
A must-read for anyone who uses social media. Understand how they are attempting to control every aspect of your life!
This is the evil of our time
These tech corporations are the darkness of our time. TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, etc…they are evil, vile, and vapid. This book might be about Zuckerberg’s specific flavor of narcissism and incompetence but rest assured that if you peeled up the rocks at any of these places you would see the exact same rot.
About as ingenuous as the subject
Sad it wasn’t better written, and all the sanctimonious virtue signaling. Book needed to be written, sad the agenda ruined facts.