Careless People: a cautionary tale of Power, Greed and Lost Idealism

 

Could THIS era become an apocalypse for powerful, greedy people who lost track of their idealism?

Meta’s criticism has hardly curbed the memoir’s popularity. Wynn-Williams’s book is getting the kind of news coverage and social media chatter that many first-time authors can only dream of, having debuted at No. 1 earlier this month on the New York Times bestseller list for nonfiction and sold well ever since.

Published on March 11, 2025 and available wherever fine books are sold (at least in the US).

Could this be the beginning of the end for some powerful people.

It has probably been at least a half century since I first read or heard the adage: Pride goes before destruction.

Might it be time to regroup and prepare for a dramatic change in the political dynamic at work (or play) since... well, since Trump and his ilk, along with other Big Money players arrived on the American political scene.

Nah, I must be dreaming.

Nevertheless, it feels BIG.

Once upon a time Sarah Wynn-Williams worked for Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook/Meta.

She published a memoir of her time at the right hand of a capitalist god.

Since a US court determined she would not be allowed to promote her book, the gods of Capitalism and Publicity dropped their mic and said, here let me take over for you.

Meta scrambled to silence a tell-all book. Now it’s a bestseller.

An arbitration ruling bars author Sarah Wynn-Williams from promoting her memoir tarnishing Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg with what the social media giant says are lies. Sure, just because a capitalist god tries to convince you something is a lie, you should believe them, right?

Maybe WE the people of Facebook should weigh in on the brouhaha. 

“By the end, I watched hopelessly as they sucked up to authoritarian regimes like China’s and casually misled the public. I was on a private jet with Mark the day he finally understood that Facebook probably did put Donald Trump in the White House, and came to his own dark conclusions from that. But most days, working on policy at Facebook was way less like enacting a chapter from Machiavelli and way more like watching a bunch of fourteen-year-olds who’ve been given superpowers and an ungodly amount of money, as they jet around the world to figure out what power has bought and brought them. That’s the story I’m here to tell.” -- Sarah Winn-Williams