6 Minute Read
6 Minute Read
The Illusion of Endless Perks
I picked up Sarah Wynn-Williams’ opus Careless People, a reflection about her Facebook journey. Is it perfect? No. But she hooked me with the Fitzgerald quote.
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
I’m a sucker for Gatsby. Short (can be read in an afternoon). Packs a punch. Changes the reader, no matter if it’s the first or fiftieth time through. Quote aside, I loved Wynn Williams’ story for two surprising reasons—neither involved the salacious details the social media company tried to suppress. You see, to begin, there aren’t enough memoirs like this in the wild. Publishers gravitate toward the powerful. Obama. Clinton. Trump. And the Founding Fathers (read Chernow’s homages). Or Walter Isaacson, he’s written about Franklin, Leonardo, Jobs, and Musk. And don’t forget Prince Harry because, well, the Royals sell. Don’t shame me, the Buckingham Palace outcast holds the all-time record for fastest-selling non-fiction book.1
But the mid-level manager or individual contributor?
We don’t see enough of these so if you fit the profile get to writing. If you want to tackle your own, what are the key components of a solid memoir? Lucky for all of us, Mary Karr drafted a guide after reading hundreds. I love this quote early on, “I once heard Don DeLillo quip that a fiction writer starts with meaning and then manufactures events to represent it; a memoirist starts with events, then derives meaning from them.”
Memoirs are ultimately journeys of self-reflection for both the reader and writer. Trauma sells books.
Sarah Wynn-Williams dissects her time at Facebook, beginning by describing how she landed the job. Of course, she used the platform to forge connections. It’s all about who you know.
And yes, I read portions of the book and wondered about the more troubling, headline-worthy accusations. Some moments felt odd—yet I know nothing good happens in Davos, where the wine flows and your mode of transportation hints at class and status. Still, no matter what Facebook’s Public Relations team spins, I believe the writer is being truthful to quote Obi-Won from a certain point of view.
Yet, the book violates many of Karr’s memoir rules, nothing is gained without self-reflection. Did the writer question their own decisions? Or learn anything meaningful? Is the hero’s journey earned? There is some of this here, Every time someone told me I was lucky to survive, I thought, Shouldn’t I be doing something with this life? Devoting myself to changing the world in some way? How do you do that?
And there is more than enough justification to her pen’s venom as she describes her complications during child birth. Spoiler, she felt the company gave little support, forcing her to return early. Yet, I felt she made Mark and Cheryl caricatures. The recount of Zuckerberg’s election-denial conversations with Obama or lavish corporate retreats at White Lotus resorts feels unfair without more inner monologue and self-examination. I mean, she worked for a company bending over backwards to gain access to the Chinese market. Zuckerberg learned Mandarin, even awkwardly asking Chairman Xi to name his first child. By pandering to the extremes, one wonders how much of Facebook’s code made its way into Chinese tools to crush internal dissent, or how much AI research was freely shared for favors. From the book, It’s an incredibly valuable tool for the most autocratic, oppressive regimes, because it gives them exactly what those regimes need: direct access into what people are saying from the top to bottom of society.
Yes, Wynn-Williams is the hero in her own story, a secret agent battling the forces of corporate evil. But I believe she can’t reflect on her role too much for legal reasons. Yes, there is a pending lawsuit. All industry players, Facebook included, grant options and signing bonuses but this comes with confidentiality clauses and fine print. These used to be normal fair, narrower and often limited to trade secrets or proprietary code. But lately, they’ve ballooned, making truthful disclosures hazardous. Legal departments and risk management firms must lie awake at night after reading William Blake, “A truth told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.”
She’s exposed herself legally by even writing this play-by-play account of excess and forays into dangerous global hotspots. Her only legal out might fall under whistleblower protections due to the immense detail around Zuckerberg’s China at all costs strategy. And it’s hard to have self-reflection if you’re blowing the whistle, the logic doesn’t land. I suppose every writer is an unreliable narrator. We all are.
That’s why this is a story about what’s left unsaid. There is magic and meaning in the silent ommissions. Here’s a favorite quote:
Sheryl tells me that the punishing scale of work is by design. A choice Facebook’s leaders had made. That staffers should be given too much to do because it’s best if no one has spare time. That’s where the trouble and territoriality start. The fewer employees, the harder they work. The answer to work is more work. To encourage this, the Facebook offices are overflowing with “perks.”
I remember joining a certain tech company; the onboarding trainer asked new hires to name their favorite company perk—SWAG, 401K match (money is good), healthcare coverage, etc.,
For her, it had to be the free food. She described her day, arriving at the company gym for a run before dawn. Breakfast followed, unlimited greasy bacon. Lunch with colleagues. And then, finally, her family swung by for dinner, meeting at the office. Life revolves around the buffet line.
Breaking it down further, let’s say she arrives at 5.30 AM for that morning workout (note, there is less traffic with this approach) and leaves after dinner and emails at 8.00 PM. Well, do the math, there isn’t much of a day left after the commute. This explains why a 23-year-old bought a moving truck and parked it in the parking lot of a major tech company in 2015. Why buy the house if you’re never there?
Social media hate and banter tends to analyze these perks, plug them into their own working routine, and think they are extravagant. Unlimited vacation looks great on paper but with overworked, small teams it becomes impossible to use. Guaranteed sabbaticals are often punted to next year. Yes, the phrase cultural commitment requires, you guessed it, extended hours. If you’ve ever walked the Las Vegas Strip, there’s a reason for the granite and opulence—they want you to stay forever.
And then there is the justification. Why does she stay? Wynn-Williams does wrestle with these choices.
They could have exercised basic human decency. It was all within their power. Instead, they focused on commencement speeches, vanity political campaigns, vacation properties, raising artisanal Wagyu beef from macadamia-eating cows, whatever their latest plaything was. And it seemed that none of these choices, these decisions, these moral compromises, felt particularly momentous to Facebook’s leadership.
But I tell myself I joined Facebook because I believed the platform was a force for good that would change the world.
Yeah, leaving work behind can feel like escaping Stockholm syndrome. We rarely understand the true cost of endless perks, the status of working at certain companies, and career meaning until we find ourselves asking, like the great philosopher Thanos, “What did it cost?” and realizing the answer might be, “everything.”2
