Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is a “careless” executive who sought to convince China to let his company operate on the mainland by helping it develop censorship tools and bolster its artificial intelligence capabilities — all while concealing those efforts from Congress, according to a new memoir.
Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former Meta employee who worked at Facebook for seven years before the social media giant rebranded as Meta, is the author of “Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism.”
The book detailed an alleged “rotten company culture” that included “shocking accounts of misogyny and double standards” under Zuckerberg and ex-No. 2 Sheryl Sandberg, who were described as “callously indifferent to the price others would pay for their own enrichment.”
Wynn-Williams, the former director of global public policy at Facebook, left the company in 2018.
“We haven’t seen the book, but this former employee was terminated in 2017 and an investigation at that time found she made false claims,” a Meta spokesperson told The Post.
“As Mark himself said in a televised address in 2019, ‘[He] wanted our services in China … and worked hard to make this happen. But we could never come to agreement on what it would take for us to operate there.’ That is why we don’t operate our services in China today,” the Meta spokesperson added.
Described by publisher Flatiron Books as “a deeply personal account of why and how things have gone so horribly wrong in the past decade,” the memoir claims to shed light on the company’s leadership and culture.
The book is also being published by Pan Macmillan in the United Kingdom, whose website calls the book “an explosive dispatch from someone who had a front-row seat to the inner workings of one of the most influential companies on the planet.”
Wynn-Williams “takes readers inside Meta’s board rooms, private jets, and meetings with heads of state, revealing the appetites, excesses, blind spots, and priorities of executives Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and Joel Kaplan.”
According to Pan Macmillan, the trio of executives are portrayed as “profoundly flawed, self-interested, and careless human beings.”
The more power the three executives amassed, “the less responsible they became, with far-reaching consequences that continue to this day.”
Pan Macmillan promises the “previously unreported lengths to which Mark Zuckerberg went to convince the Chinese Communist Party to allow Meta to operate in China.”
According to Wynn-Williams, those efforts included “providing briefings to CCP officials on new technologies like artificial intelligence, developing bespoke censorship tools with the CCP, and making efforts to hide Meta’s cooperation with the CCP from the United States Congress.”
Wynn-Williams also takes aim at the company for failling to stop “genocide-fueling lies” overseas as well as for “shocking accounts of workplace harassment and misogyny.”
The book also singles out Sandberg for not addressing “the grueling demands and humiliations of working motherhood” while she was winning “international acclaim for urging women to ‘Lean In.’”
The book is available for preorder through retailers such as Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.
Notably, its release was kept under tight wraps, with Flatiron announcing the book less than a week before publication.
Amazon’s listing initially carried the vague placeholder title “Untitled-Flatiron-Author-Revealed-March.”
Zuckerberg has made multiple attempts to expand Facebook’s presence in China, despite the country’s strict internet regulations and the platform being blocked there since 2009.
He courted Chinese officials by learning Mandarin, meeting with government leaders, and even jogging through Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in a widely publicized visit.
Despite these efforts, Facebook was unable to gain entry into the Chinese market, as the government maintained its strict control over foreign tech companies and digital censorship.
In 2016, the New York Times revealed that Facebook had created software that would allow a third party, likely a Chinese partner, to suppress certain posts from appearing in specific geographic areas.
The tool was designed to comply with China’s strict internet regulations, but its existence sparked internal debates at Facebook, with some employees expressing concerns over its implications for free speech.
Ultimately, Facebook never launched the tool, and the company’s efforts to enter China remained unsuccessful.
In a 2019 speech at Georgetown University, Zuckerberg said the company’s refusal to bow to China’s censorship demand is one of the factors that led to its continued absence from the country.
“It’s one of the reasons we don’t operate Facebook, Instagram or our other services in China,” Zuckerberg said in the 2019 speech.
“I wanted our services in China because I believe in connecting the whole world and I thought we might help create a more open society.”
Zuckerberg said he “worked hard to make this happen. But we could never come to agreement on what it would take for us to operate there, and they never let us in.”
“And now we have more freedom to speak out and stand up for the values we believe in and fight for free expression around the world.”
Wynn-Williams, a diplomat and policy expert, has also served as the chief negotiator for the United Nations on biosafety liability, according to her bio on the World Economic Forum.
Sandberg joined Facebook as chief operating officer in 2008, becoming a key figure in transforming the company into a global advertising powerhouse.
Before Facebook, she held leadership roles at Google and served as chief of staff for the US Treasury Department under President Bill Clinton. At Facebook, she was instrumental in scaling its ad business and shaping its corporate culture, often advocating for gender equality in the workplace.
In 2013, Sandberg published “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead,” which became a bestseller and sparked discussions about women’s leadership and career advancement.
The book encouraged women to take initiative in their professional lives but also faced criticism for overlooking structural barriers that many women face.
During her tenure, Facebook faced scrutiny over data privacy issues, misinformation, and its role in political controversies, including the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Sandberg defended the company but later admitted to missteps.
In June 2022, she announced her departure from Meta — stepping down after 14 years. While she cited a desire to focus on philanthropy and personal projects, reports suggested internal tensions and growing regulatory pressures played a role in her exit.
Kaplan is Meta’s vice president of global public policy and a former White House deputy chief of staff under President George W. Bush.
At Meta, he has played a key role in shaping the company’s political strategy, often advocating for conservative perspectives and influencing content moderation policies.
A spokesperson for Sandberg declined to comment.
