"Careless People" by Sarah Wynn-Williams
Above: "Careless People" - Sarah Wynn-Williams - 300 pages. I completed reading this book in October 2025.
She exposes the "growth hacking" ethos: algorithms prioritizing engagement over truth...
Sarah Wynn-Williams' insider account reveals the dark side of Facebook's power structure, exposing controversial decisions and a toxic culture while working alongside Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg.
Prologue
"Careless People" is not the first book I have read about Facebook. I completed reading "The Ugly Truth" by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang in August of 2021. Following is a link to my review of "The Ugly Truth:"
"An Ugly Truth" by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang | Stephen DeWitt Taylor
My principal takeaway from "An Ugly Truth" was this:
"You can't come away from reading this book without realizing that Facebook and Zuckerberg are interchangeable. Facebook's dichotomous business model... engineer connectivity and profit from it... combined with Zuckerberg's megalomania about growth.... and now ability, seemingly without consequence, to neuter the ability of a former US president to communicate on its massive platform, raise questions about how much power one man should have."
"Careless People"
Sarah Wynn-Williams' "Careless People," published in 2023 by Black Inc., offers an insider's exposé of Facebook's (now Meta) great financial success contrasted with its moral descent. Former New Zealand diplomat, and childhood survivor of a vicious shark attack, Wynn-Williams spent ten years as a communications executive at Meta/Facebook. She chronicles how she joined Facebook with an idealistic view of how the platform could connect the world. But the longer she spent at Facebook she came to view the platform as a machine of unchecked ambition, ethical lapses and societal harm. The book is laced with anecdotes that humanize a tech elite steeped in hubris and amorality. Wynn-Williams positions her narrative as a "cautionary tale" with a sharp focus on internal culture.
Wynn-Williams discusses three pivotal eras during her tenure at Facebook, from 2008 to 2017.
1. The Idealistic Early Days (2000's)
Wynn-Williams recounts joining in 2008, amid the Obama-era optimism, where Mark Zuckerberg was a hoodie-clad visionary promising to "move fast and break things." Stories of all-nighters coding features and impromptu ping-pong tournaments paint a picture of youthful zeal. Cracks in Wynn-Williams idealistic view began to appear following Zuckerberg's infamous quote saying that users "trusting me [with their data] are "dumb fucks."
2. The Greed-Fueled Ascendancy (2010's)
During this period, according to Williams there was a shift in Facebook's idealistic connectivity mission to an undercurrent of greed fueled mammon. She exposes the "growth hacking" ethos: algorithms prioritizing engagement over truth, leading to the proliferation of fake news during the 2016 U.S. election.
3. Lost Idealism (late 2010's to the present)
Wynn-Williams describes boardroom battles over content moderation, Zuckerberg's pivot to "connectivity" as a dodge for accountability, and the 2018 New York Times investigation that cracked open Russian interference. She recounts personal vignettes about mentoring young engineers who quit in disillusionment and clashing with execs over Myanmar's Rohingya genocide fueled by online hate speech. She criticizes Sheryl Sandberg's "lean in" feminism as a bro-culture that sidelined diverse voices.
"Careless People" describes power's corrupting bend: "careless" decisions which prioritized ad revenue over safety; amplified polarization notwithstanding mental health risk to teens; and supplication to authoritarian regimes. Wynn-Williams admits complicity in glossing over red flags for career advancement, thereby adding authenticity to her narrative.
Wynn-Williams's prose is very readable making complex tech-speak digestible. Her account is portrayed through a feminist lens on Silicon Valley, highlighting women's underrepresentation and the toll of unrestrained ambition. Wynn-Williams engages in a bit of self-indulgence by overdoing the name dropping.
For tech skeptics Wynn-Williams' critical account is vindicating and sobering. If not a tech skeptic, I plead ambivalence on Zuckerberg. I was an early investor in Facebook... a beneficiary of its financial success. And am also a regular user of the platform, rare for someone of my age (80). So, my interest in the ins and outs of Facebook and social media in general is heightened. But I saw Zuckerberg's moral capriciousness long before I read any books about him. He seemed to lack the wisdom of the ages: empathy, humility, an ethical framework outside of legal constraint. Is success defined only by financial performance? Questions searching for answers.
"Careless People" enables the reader to be a fly on the wall of Meta/Facebook's Menlo Park headquarters. There the reader witnesses some of the brightest people in the world today. In witnessing the Facebook principals in day-to-day action via Wynn-Williams' account, the reader must make up his/her mind where the line should be drawn, if at all, between unbridled ambition and societal wellbeing.
Recommend.