⭐ 4.5/5 Review: Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams

👉 Grab your copy of Careless People on Amazon here (affiliate link)

⚠️ Trigger Warnings

This memoir discusses:

Illness & near-death experiences
Gender discrimination & workplace harassment
Sexual harassment/violence
Death, physical abuse, and war-related violence
Genocide and political violence
Toxic work culture

First Impressions 💭

I’ll be honest—I was hooked. Sarah Wynn-Williams pulls no punches in this tell-all about her time working inside Facebook. Writing something that directly criticizes Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and Joel Kaplan? That takes serious guts.

This book balances hard-hitting corporate whistleblowing with personal anecdotes (her shark attack survival story is WILD 🦈), giving it a mix of suspense, drama, and humanity. But—because I’m picky—I knocked off half a star. Why? Because while Wynn-Williams is excellent at pointing out everyone else’s mistakes, she doesn’t really admit to her own. Most whistleblowers at least acknowledge their blind spots (“I should’ve spoken up sooner” etc.), but here it felt a little too one-sided.

That said: still a fascinating, courageous read.

🚨 Spoiler Warning: Full Plot Summary Ahead 🚨

📘 The Setup: Diplomat to Facebook

In 2009, Wynn-Williams was a diplomat in Washington, DC, fascinated by Facebook’s potential in politics.
She met with Marne Levine at Facebook, who wasn’t interested in global politics… until Wynn-Williams mentioned regulations that might hurt profits. Suddenly, Facebook wanted her on board.
She was hired in 2011 as manager of global public policy, basically tasked with making sure Facebook looked good to governments.

🏢 Inside Facebook: Carelessness at the Top

From the jump, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg were painted as brilliant but shockingly disengaged from the real-world impact of their platform.
Mark ignored foreign leaders (refusing a photo with New Zealand’s PM) and Sheryl managed to offend German diplomats, sparking investigations.
Even as Facebook grew to 1 billion users in 2012, its leadership still had no clue how to handle global politics.

🌍 Wynn-Williams on the Road

Pregnant? Recovering from near-death in childbirth? Didn’t matter. Facebook sent Wynn-Williams to dangerous places like Myanmar, Colombia, and South Korea to smooth things over with governments.
She realized the company prioritized profits over people at every turn. Example: Mark personally removed a protest post about Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, to keep Facebook running in Russia.

💰 Profit > People

Zuckerberg became obsessed with China, bending over backward to allow surveillance and censorship just to break into the market.
He also started showing up late, unprepared, and arrogant with heads of state—seriously offending leaders (including Colombia’s president).
Facebook launched Internet.org (later Free Basics) to bring “the internet” to poor countries… but it was basically a Facebook-only internet, which drew massive criticism.

🇺🇸 The Trump Campaign & Politics

By 2016, Facebook’s strategy of rewarding inflammatory content backfired.
The Trump campaign weaponized Facebook ads, disinformation, and micro-targeting to help win the election. Zuckerberg first laughed off suggestions that Facebook swayed the election—then later admitted it played a role, but offered no real reforms.
Advertisers were even allowed to target emotionally vulnerable teens, something Facebook denied responsibility for.

💔 Myanmar Genocide

Perhaps the darkest section: Facebook ignored its role in spreading hate speech and violence in Myanmar, which fueled genocide against the Muslim minority.
Wynn-Williams highlights how the company looked the other way despite massive red flags—because profits always came first.

👩‍💼 Harassment and Betrayal

Wynn-Williams’s boss, Joel Kaplan, sexually harassed her. Twice.
The first time she reported it, she was pressured to withdraw the complaint.
The second time (after Kaplan allegedly grinded on her at a party 😡), she reported it again—but Facebook staged a sham investigation that cleared him.
Not long after, she was fired, supposedly for “not growing her team fast enough.” She says Kaplan blocked her hires, setting her up to fail.

🎲 Personal Touches

My favorite parts were the personal stories.
- Surviving a shark attack because she trusted her gut even when doctors didn’t believe her 🦈
- Struggling with work/life balance while breastfeeding
- And the Settlers of Catan story 😂: Wynn-Williams swears that Mark’s friends would bend rules/trades to let him win. As a die-hard fan of the game, I have to disagree—it’s not always about robbing the leader. Strategy can make it look like favoritism. Mark might not be as oblivious as she suggests!

⚖️ The Ending

Wynn-Williams leaves Facebook, moves into the AI field, and warns that Meta may repeat its careless history with artificial intelligence.
Her closing message: unless tech giants change, the future of democracy, safety, and even humanity could be at risk.

💡 Final Thoughts

This book is equal parts memoir, corporate exposé, and cautionary tale. Wynn-Williams gives us a raw, inside look at Facebook’s culture of greed and negligence. It’s not perfect (I wanted more ownership from her), but it’s bold, compelling, and necessary reading.

⭐ My Rating: 4.5/5

📚 If You Liked This Book, Try:

An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination by Sheera Frenkel & Cecilia Kang
Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley by Emily Chang
Lean Out by Dawn Foster (a counterpoint to Sandberg’s Lean In)
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

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Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams