Sarah Wynn Williams

So it says, uh, the book Careless People is a memoir.

The author is Sarah Wynn-Williams.

It's a memoir by, by Sarah Wynn-Williams, former director of public policy at Facebook.

Uh, the book was published in March of 2025, so just a little over a year, or just a little over a year ago.

The book is a critical account of Facebook's internal culture and decision-making pa- uh, decision-making practices during her time there.

And it, a- again, it, I, I, I can't even g- like it would take me a whole podcast to describe the whole book, but if, if this little tease that I'm telling you sounds like something you might be interested in, you need to pick this up.

So the book is called Careless People.

The author is Sarah Wynn-Williams.

Yeah.

I also listened to the book by Sarah Wynn-Williams, who's written the book about, um, Facebook, and she's narrated it.

Oh.

I was watching something-

But it's also true on like a societal level, on a cultural level, on a corporate level.

I was reading over the summer the book called Careless People by Sarah Wynn Williams, who's the Facebook whistleblower, talking about what it was like to work in this organization as it went from being a handful to being worth almost a trillion dollars.

this organization which is shaping the lives of billions and billions of people.

And I was so struck as I read it.

There is a similar case about AI-fueled neoliberalism as neocolonialism in Karen Howe's well-reported Empire of AI from 2025.

Ditto in Sarah Wynn Williams' Careless People, also 2025, which documents, among other things, Facebook's rapacious data harvesting and its studied indifference, the traumatic effects of serving as an underpaid content moderator in the third world.

The genealogical importance of this link, that yesterday's slavery and colonial exploitative practices offer a template for tomorrow's slavery to companies grown rich on AI, spurs Leo to rehash and extend earlier papal apologies about slavery.

It was only in the 19th century that a formal, absolute, and universal condemnation of slavery, that is, by the Catholic Church, was clearly articulated, notably under Pope Leo XIII.

Senator Elizabeth Warren says she wants a crypto bill, but the Clarity Act just wasn't it.

From the block, Sarah Wynn writing this one.

Elizabeth Warren, who has repeatedly called for stronger cryptocurrency legislation to combat illicit finance and protect investors, says she remains determined to get a bill signed into law even if she doesn't support the current Clarity Act.

The Massachusetts Democrat told reporters on Tuesday that the Clarity Act represents Washington's, quote, first chance for meaningful crypto regulation, end quote.

Yeah.

I think, I think about that book, Careless People, that Sarah Wynn-Williams has written, who used to work at Facebook, and she, that book has been out for around a year now, maybe longer, and it is an enormous seller.

And she is not allowed to talk about it.

She is, she literally goes to literary festivals now and sits there in silence, because she's so tied up in legals, but it keeps selling and selling and selling.

Uh, the sage on the stage was basically Mr. or Ms.

Chips, uh, sharing their knowledge, their expertise, exercising their adult authority, introducing children to knowledge, the best that's been thought and written.

The guide by the side is the teacher as encouraging slightly older brother or sister, while children themselves use their natural curiosity to explore and learn, and to work in groups, learning from each other.

Mm.

So, I mean, basically, like the thing that's quite frustrating about this is that even within the realm of neoclassical economics, which is not a good realm of economics.

They have these ideas of things like collective action problems and switching costs where, you know, you love your friends, but they're a pain in the ass.

And it's really hard to convince them to like play a board game with you, much less like leave Facebook with you.

And also because you love your friends, leaving Facebook imposes a high switching cost.

And the amazing thing is that you have these lawsuits against Facebook where they periodically compel them to publish their internal memos, where they're all sitting around talking about how can we increase switching costs and make the collective action problem harder so that we can treat our users worse and they'll stay.

So it's like this person has not even bothered to find out how Facebook conceives of itself before going off on this.

And the amazing thing about this, first of all, that it does show you that the youths, the 17 and 18 year old who built this app are not chopped and unc.

They're young and cool.