Book Review
Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism, A Memoir
by Sarah Wynn-Williams © 2025
Sarah Wynn-Williams, once a diplomat at the New Zealand Embassy in Washington, D.C., was among the first to grasp how Facebook would reshape politics and society. In 2011 she joined the company as its first Manager of Global Public Policy—a newly created role without a clear definition. What began as excitement at joining “the positive changes Facebook was sure to bring” soon turned into a seven-year journey that tested her ideals and exposed the realities of corporate power.
In Careless People, Wynn-Williams offers a candid inside view of life at Facebook’s highest levels, including her direct dealings with Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. Her memoir blends policy insights with personal anecdotes, told with humor, drama, and emotion.
Much of the book revisits well-known episodes from Facebook’s history, but Wynn-Williams enriches them with her own perspective, revealing the human side of decisions that altered global politics and public trust. At times the narrative falters—the chronology can be hard to follow, and some claims lack the documentation readers may expect from a memoir so close to history.
What makes the book especially notable is that Wynn-Williams has been barred from promoting it. That is unfortunate, because Careless People is not only an engaging memoir but also a cautionary tale about the unintended consequences of ambition, innovation, and the pursuit of influence. It reminds us that even “good” corporations, staffed by well-intentioned people, can lose sight of their ideals in the pursuit of power.