Careless People is Sarah Wynn-Williams’s memoir of her time at Facebook from 2011-2017 as the director of global public policy. The book had a Streisand effect moment in early 2025 when Facebook prevented her from promoting it with a disparagement clause. Wynn-Willams’s book paints a poor picture of Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. They both come off as “careless people” who do not notice the damage they leave in their wake as they pursue further wealth and growth. There are lurid details about Sandberg miss-behavior including a claim that she sexually harassed underlings and hypocritically had postpartum mothers working through their maternity leave while promoting Lean in. Zuckerberg comes off as aloof and uncaring, an amalgam of Succession characters.
At times, Wynn-Willams’s book strains credulity and we are reminded that this is a memoir and only her perspective. Her narratives of her harrowing medical experiences are imbued with main-character hero energy where she is dramatically saving herself or struggling valiantly to see her baby. While these things may have happened that way, it seems just as likely that she is miss-remembering or playing up her own role. Should we be suspicious of other pieces of the narrative? There is a tension in the memoir between Sarah’s role in the story and the picture she paints of Facebook. Wynn-Williams rose to a director role, a few reporting levels below Mark and Sheryl. She is a lawyer (practiced in New Zealand) who also worked as a diplomat and facilitated interactions with world leaders for Facebook. Yet when she describes the sexual harassment by Sheryl or her boss Joel, and subsequent interactions with Facebook HR, she paints herself as naïve ingénue totally unprepared to navigate the situation. I cannot think of someone more prepared to navigate this type of challenging situation. On a more macro-scale, in Sarah’s telling she is the lone voice of reason speaking out against Facebooks international failures. She is nobly fighting the “good fight” while everyone else focuses on avaricious growth. However, she was at Facebook for six years during heady times of international growth. She was likely well compensated and freely admits that she had millions of dollars of equity. I have no trouble buying the stories Wynn-Williams shares, but she is as complicit as anyone in Facebook’s failures during this period. There aren’t any heroes in this story.
Cite
- Wynn-Williams, S. Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism. (Flatiron Books, 2025).
Metadata
Title:: Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism Year:: 2025 Publisher:: Flatiron Books ISBN:: 978-1-250-39123-0
Abstract
#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. .
Notes
.