The tell-all insider’s memoir that

Only a few pages into Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work by Sarah Wynn-Williams, you'll understand why Facebook — now Meta — tried so hard to block the publication of this memoir by its former employee.

- By Rebecca Davis

Wynn-Williams is no jaded intern. She was Facebook’s global public policy manager from 2011 to 2017. A former diplomat from New Zealand, she didn’t arrive by way of the usual Harvard-to-Menlo Park conveyor belt.

She had a sharp eye for Facebook's political potential long before most, and she convinced the top brass to let her in. From there, she became a high-level operator, one of the rare insiders with a front-row seat to both the internal chaos and the global reach of Mark Zuckerberg’s empire.

Wynn-Williams has been touted as the most high-ranking Facebook whistle-blower to date. She is also, as the ending of the book makes clear, an aggrieved former employee — having been fired, in her telling, for accusing her boss of harassment. Facebook would have you believe this renders her account fundamentally unreliable.

Perhaps that is the case — but her insider’s vantage point also means that Wynn-Williams comes with receipts. Lots of them. Internal emails, memos, messages: some written by Zuckerberg and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg themselves. It’s this documentary weight that gives her gossipy, fast-paced narrative its punch.

Facebook is extremely unlike other workplaces, she quickly learns. “I learn soon enough that I have no reference points for the obscene wealth that flows through Facebook. What makes it so strange is that it’s based on tenure, rather than title. So assistants and junior staff are often worth vastly more than their bosses,” she writes.

This compensation comes at a considerable personal cost: employees are expected to answer emails at any point between 5am and 1am the next morning. For Wynn-Williams’s team, the work piles up because as Facebook's influence grows, the political complexities mount. Crisis after crisis hits with regard to governments demanding content takedowns and debates over what constitutes permissible speech.