Will I love Careless People?

I devoured this book.

Yes, it’s nonfiction, but it has everything I love about great Silicon Valley fiction: big tech insider energy, corporate absurdity, bizarre culture, powerful people behaving badly, and the feeling that the decisions being made inside an office might eventually affect everyone outside it.

It’s sharp, wildly entertaining, and exactly the kind of tech-industry drama I’d happily take to the beach.

This memoir, with vivid portraits of Facebook personalities and company policies, hits on a visceral level. It starts with a shark attack that almost killed the author as a teenager in New Zealand; then tells of her work on global problems at the U.N. She’s struck by Facebook’s ability to connect people when it becomes the go-to for information after an earthquake in Christchurch. The company hires her to deal with governments. But Facebook makes massive demands on her and imperils her health, while she learns the quirks and privileges the higher-ups take for granted. The company keeps expanding in… show more.

While I'm not a huge fan of memoirs, getting the inside scoop of how Facebook evolved from its early days and of the personalities of the people who shaped it was riveting...and infuriating. After reading this book, you may wonder why you've given up so much of your time (and data) to the platform. Go outside and get some fresh air!

This is a story that needed to be told. It would have taken a lot for the author to put it out there. She is currently being stopped by her old workplace to promote it. This book is full of interesting anecdotes. She was bitten by a shark as a teen and then ended up working for a whole bunch of sharks (I am probably being too mean to sharks with this analogy; they are beautiful creatures). I did find some sections of the book a little meandering, some stories didn't ring entirely true and the author needs to take… show more.

This is the story of Facebook, and of how it shapes our reality - not just making us more divided and intolerant of difference, but even causing real-life massacres and changing the course of elections. Meta is probably more powerful than your government, and with none of the accountability.

"Careless People" is a quote from The Great Gatsby (one of my favourite novels) about Tom and Daisy Buchanan, who "smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness." In the same way, the founders of Facebook chose to "move fast and break… show more.