Big tech executives are heading for the exits. Last week, Meta Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg announced that she would leave the Facebook parent company in the fall. Today, Dave Clark, CEO of Amazon’s worldwide consumer business, explained why he’s leaving Amazon: He’s going to become CEO of the logistics startup Flexport. With the markets on the brink, what other top tech executives will decide it’s a good time to step away?
On this week’s Dead Cat, Tom Dotan, Katie Benner, and I talked to Wall Street Journal reporter Deepa Seetharaman about why Sandberg is leaving Facebook parent company Meta. There have been plenty of reasons cited for Sandberg’s departure: Burnout, a rising philanthropic impulse, a shrinking fiefdom within Meta.
Seetharaman and her colleagues reported that Sandberg has faced an internal investigation at Meta that could have given Sandberg another reason to head for the exits.
Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal contacted Meta about two incidents from several years ago in which Ms. Sandberg, the chief operating officer, pressed a U.K. tabloid to shelve an article about her former boyfriend, Activision Blizzard Inc. Chief Executive Bobby Kotick, and a 2014 temporary restraining order against him.
The episode dovetailed with a company investigation into Ms. Sandberg’s activities, which hasn’t been previously reported, including a review of her use of corporate resources to help plan her coming wedding to Tom Bernthal, a consultant, the people said. The couple has been engaged since 2020.
Last week’s podcast guest, Casey Newton, pushed back against the idea in his newsletter that the investigation likely triggered Sandberg’s departure:
Meta paid Sandberg $35 million last year; I can’t even imagine what she would have to ask her employees to do for her on the wedding front that would merit much more than a “hey, knock it off” from her boss.
Moreover, as Bloomberg’s Sarah Frier noted, for top-level executives at the world’s biggest companies, the personal and professional are often intertwined. Meta, for example, paid $15.1 million last year “for expenses related to protecting its CEO at his homes and during personal travel.” It spent another $10 million on security for Mark Zuckerberg’s family and $1.6 million so he could travel on a private aircraft.
And so you’ll forgive me for being skeptical that Sandberg’s wedding planning had anything to do with her departure, or the timing of her announcement. Particularly when you consider that Sandberg is going to continue working for the company for several more months as COO — and then remain on the Meta board indefinitely.
Toward the end of the conversation with Seetharaman, we talked about the legacy of Sandberg’s “Lean In” campaign.
Lean In helped to kick off a reexamination of how women were treated in the workplace, especially among the management ranks. That movement then started to seem passé as progressive crusaders wanted to shift the focus from individual workers “leaning in” to the responsibilities of the broader society. Today, as we’re starting to see some signs of backlash to progressive social politics, it’s worth reflecting on and celebrating the work that Sandberg undertook to help support women in the workplace.
“We’re moving into a far more regressive era in American society, in a larger way, that’s beyond Sheryl Sandberg, and beyond Amber Heard, or Johnny Depp,” Benner said on the podcast. “[Sandberg] had the financial power, and she had the social and political standing within an extremely powerful company to use that platform to say women are treated like s**t at work. And can we all just agree on that? And so that was — I think we forget — that that was actually a very big deal.”
Give it a listen.
Read the automated transcript.
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00:00:06
Welcome, Silicon Valley. Hey, it's Eric newcomer, this is
00:00:16
dead cat. We have Katie hear Tom's here
00:00:20
and we have our friend Deepa who you've heard before.
00:00:24
We're going to talk about Sheryl sandberg's departure.
00:00:30
Surprise, not surprising departure.
00:00:32
It's like the obit that everybody hadn't really expected
00:00:34
for many several years, but the date of running it was always a
00:00:37
little unclear. I am recording from The New York
00:00:42
Times DC Bureau. I don't know if what Katie is
00:00:45
going to let me say that I the episode or not, she's, you know,
00:00:49
a desk away, stealthily, taking a source, call at the moment
00:00:54
tips for her, is it a wedding headed to San Francisco tomorrow
00:00:58
and was in my Harvard? In yesterday.
00:01:00
So I've been, oh my God, a lot of real Power Player over is the
00:01:05
best. Bragg is.
00:01:07
Anyway, letting us to San Francisco, to send it really
00:01:09
fell off immediately after that. But yeah.
00:01:12
Anyway deep, I mean, you've been covering Facebook for so long it
00:01:17
and to Tom's point, there has been this sense that, you know,
00:01:21
just like recession, there have been.
00:01:23
Yeah, you know, it's easy to predict her departure.
00:01:26
If you predict it wrong a billion times, I do the media is
00:01:29
as it is. As a general mass as certainly
00:01:31
thought she was about to leave any day now.
00:01:33
I don't know what, what do you what do you think of Sir?
00:01:36
Why, why has everyone expected her to leave?
00:01:39
Yeah, forever. It's a bunch of different
00:01:41
reasons. So first of all, she's mentioned
00:01:44
it to friends. It's never been clear on timing
00:01:47
but she's always amused like, okay, I, you know, I'm thinking
00:01:52
about leaving. This is something.
00:01:53
I'm, you know, what do you think I should do next as always
00:01:56
predicated on like, well, you know, she'd leave.
00:01:59
When they Something really good to do next.
00:02:02
And so what I'm a, senior executive role at a different
00:02:06
company, maybe the top executive role or something in politics.
00:02:10
And for a while, this is pre Trump is in 2016 there.
00:02:14
All those rumors going around about her potentially being a
00:02:17
treasury secretary candidate. And so, you know, partly it's
00:02:21
it's born out of, you know, her talking, your own sort of
00:02:25
Limitless ambition sort of like, is this as high as I'm going to
00:02:29
go and So then the media does reflect honestly, her sort of.
00:02:32
Yeah. But then there's also there have
00:02:35
been so many scandals and that company's history and then there
00:02:40
is this. There has been a lot of
00:02:41
speculation about, you know, which one of these scandals
00:02:44
would finally be the one that would like that would mean that
00:02:48
Cheryl would finally leave. I mean I remember the biggest of
00:02:51
the of them all for me, is it from my memory?
00:02:54
And you know in the seven years I've been writing by the company
00:02:56
was the same year as Cambridge analytical at the end of the
00:02:59
year. When I Came out that she was
00:03:01
part of a pretty aggressive lobbying effort against Facebook
00:03:05
critics and so there was a lot of.
00:03:07
Okay, this is Cheryl's Cheryl's. This has got to be the time when
00:03:10
Cheryl leaves this isn't, she's gonna get fired, there's a lost
00:03:13
art, which period was the same year as Cambridge analytic
00:03:16
Affair. Remember that whole year is kind
00:03:17
of a blur for me. But I remember that part and I
00:03:20
remember there was a lot of speculation then like, okay,
00:03:23
this has got to be it, she's going to leave and, you know,
00:03:26
she didn't the board stood behind her, Mark, stood behind
00:03:29
her. And she continued to do the work
00:03:32
and at the time you know she was telling friends and colleagues
00:03:36
that she wanted to stay, wanted to stick it out and you know,
00:03:40
fix things I mean that was something she really believed
00:03:44
that she could do. She could sit there and build
00:03:46
better processes and build better ways, and tools and
00:03:49
detection and kind of get the company back on the right track.
00:03:54
But you know so many years later three and a half four years
00:03:59
later. It's still not there.
00:04:02
When did she join Facebook? 2008 and she's always been the
00:04:06
number to Facebook executive since she's been there.
00:04:08
I mean, she came in. Yeah, and she built this
00:04:12
tremendous business, right? I mean, totally, I feel like
00:04:15
people are split in two directions.
00:04:17
Whether they should the story of her leaving is sort of a Victory
00:04:21
lap for you know, one of the greatest female Business Leaders
00:04:26
of our era versus, you know, this very challenging Top
00:04:30
company that she seemed to be sort of represent.
00:04:33
I don't know. Do you feel that?
00:04:35
I feel like it has reporter the tension.
00:04:37
Yeah, definitely. It's really complicated because
00:04:40
I forgot where she said this. But she said at some conference,
00:04:43
some point that she felt like she was put on Earth to scale
00:04:47
organizations like that was her blood Divine Purpose.
00:04:50
Don't we all feeling. I'm just like scales scales.
00:04:54
That's what I and she did it. She's like a demigod, you know,
00:04:58
like some sort of creation by Zeus.
00:05:00
Down to like teach Mortals about the virtues and path of scale
00:05:05
and she did twice. My favorite part of The Iliad.
00:05:09
She did so many times and she's really effectively and you kind
00:05:12
of have to separate, you know, the functioning of the company
00:05:16
of Facebook on a day-to-day basis verse from its impacts for
00:05:21
just this one exercise, which is, you know, when people leave
00:05:25
Facebook, no matter how they feel about what the company did
00:05:27
whenever I talk to you, former employees.
00:05:29
They kind of lament the fact that the wherever they work next
00:05:33
doesn't function as well as Facebook did.
00:05:36
It had we're processes in place, had had like a functioning HR
00:05:41
department. You know, that they felt like
00:05:44
like employees or managers were trained in some way.
00:05:48
I was literally just talking to a classmate.
00:05:50
Yeah, who is saying they'd work to Amazon and Facebook and
00:05:54
surprisingly they found meta to be much more organized.
00:05:57
Yeah, wasn't sort of I think the Their perception.
00:06:00
That is a surprise amazones. The hyper competent company.
00:06:03
Yes, book is sort of, oh, no pasta.
00:06:05
No, no. I think I think you read it.
00:06:07
Totally backwards. Amazon is a place where they
00:06:09
like grind you. They know you have a desk made
00:06:12
out of doors and there's no love between you and the company
00:06:15
until like, the last couple of years, Facebook was the place to
00:06:18
work, right? You wanted to be there.
00:06:19
It was the best, you know, they had the best recruiters, they
00:06:22
would pay the best. The stock was obviously great.
00:06:24
They had a real nice campus. Yeah.
00:06:26
I mean, obviously everything is changed so much and the last
00:06:29
couple of years ears. But yeah, I mean, maybe it's
00:06:31
like this in a slightly different direction here.
00:06:33
I mean, what I find so fascinating about Cheryl as a
00:06:36
character is she sort of has two main qualities that people
00:06:40
ascribe to her and you know have been both her.
00:06:44
Are her strengths and now like her downfall or whatever you
00:06:46
want to call her current position, right?
00:06:48
One is that she's incredibly talented at scaling businesses
00:06:52
and specifically the kind of digital ad model.
00:06:55
Yeah she really kind of I don't know if they pioneered but like
00:06:58
worked very well at And then her political connections, which I
00:07:02
think like very much a mixed, you know, a mixed report card
00:07:06
on, like, whether or not she really had political skill and
00:07:09
connections that she as far as I can tell me, you tell me do, but
00:07:12
like I think she kind of positioned ourselves in that in
00:07:15
that way is like, hey, I'm a political fixer.
00:07:17
I know these people in d.c. like, when Facebook, suddenly
00:07:20
became this, you know, lightning rod of controversy.
00:07:24
Thank God. They had Cheryl there, who knew
00:07:25
everyone in DC and had, you know, this whole PR apparatus of
00:07:29
Round her to kind of smooth her image and I guess by extension
00:07:32
the company's right mean that was definitely the working
00:07:35
Theory. I mean, if you like Cheryl
00:07:37
before she got to Silicon Valley worked for Larry Summers, right?
00:07:41
She worked in government. She likes to talk about that
00:07:45
experience and it was something she was always really interested
00:07:49
in politics. You know, she was Avid supporter
00:07:52
of Hillary Clinton and drugs. They're saying like we view
00:07:57
everything, you know, if Hillary at one, right.
00:07:59
She might have set up her life perfectly.
00:08:01
Well, you Savvy operator would continue to be the Savvy,
00:08:05
operator, and in some degrees, she made the mistake.
00:08:07
Every most human beings made which is we thought Trump would
00:08:11
absolutely lose and Hillary would win.
00:08:12
And then she was, well, set up for it and now we all
00:08:16
incorporate that into our lives, but for someone as public as
00:08:19
her, it's not as easy to Pivot, your whole existence to a Trump
00:08:23
World. Especially when the platform
00:08:26
that you helped build to the giant that it is.
00:08:29
Is part a sort of implicated in the rise of right-wing thought
00:08:35
and white nationalism and all these other things that are
00:08:38
supposed that supposedly foisted, you know, whatever like
00:08:42
kind of got Trump where he where he is.
00:08:45
So I think that that is a little bit different than other
00:08:49
politically active figures in the valley because she had a
00:08:54
real ownership role in the social media, part of the
00:08:57
disinformation part and that kept coming to buy In the ass.
00:09:00
So, one of the interesting things about the her departure
00:09:04
is that we saw this gap for, I mean, with the 24-hour news
00:09:09
cycle felt like a long Gap, but it's really only a gap about a
00:09:11
day before we started to really understand why she left, you
00:09:16
broke the news that she was also being internally investigated by
00:09:20
Facebook, which seems like something that happens to you.
00:09:22
When your stature inside of a company has really fallen.
00:09:25
So could you talk a little bit about first why her stature
00:09:29
inside the Company had deteriorated so much and then
00:09:32
what was going on with this investigation.
00:09:34
So over the last couple of years, you know, while you know,
00:09:40
while Facebook was just getting hit with all kinds of different
00:09:43
controversies and accusations, or getting more and more and
00:09:46
more hot water in politics in d.c., you saw Cheryl kind of
00:09:50
step to the side a little bit and mark the CEO started to get
00:09:53
more involved in the political side.
00:09:55
And some of that is a natural, it's sort of a natural.
00:09:59
Lucien of what happens. Like, sometimes the problems get
00:10:01
so serious, the CEO has to be involved, but this is this is
00:10:05
also Facebook. It's a little different.
00:10:06
I mean, this is a company that up until 2016 was structured as
00:10:09
almost two companies it was like Mark side of the house and
00:10:13
Cheryl side of the house. And Marcus specifically said she
00:10:16
did all the things he hated doing and he liked that.
00:10:18
Yeah, the business side and the fun side, right?
00:10:22
And for her side, the business side, also included policy and
00:10:25
politics and all these other things that Mark didn't care
00:10:28
about and really Ceded control to her fully and she he just let
00:10:33
it run. And then when 2016 happens,
00:10:36
suddenly he started to gradually get more and more involved and
00:10:40
then the company had to reorient because there were a lot of
00:10:43
different problems within the product that, you know, will
00:10:45
causing a variety of different issues, you know, around, you
00:10:50
know, like it's the making it easy to spread misinformation
00:10:54
and hate speech. And so more people in the
00:10:56
company got involved. And what they would say called
00:10:58
integrity. Chance to fix the company.
00:11:01
And this is actually where you start to see a little bit of a
00:11:03
chipping away of her power. Those Integrity teams aren't
00:11:07
under Sheryl Sandberg there under Mark Zuckerberg there in
00:11:10
the product division of the company and they report up
00:11:14
through to ultimately to Mark. Everybody reports ultimately to
00:11:19
mark But Cheryl doesn't really have purview of that.
00:11:21
She gets a different team called the Strategic response team,
00:11:24
which is just, you know, kind of a SWAT team that tackles Rising.
00:11:29
Challenges, basically things that threaten to be massive, PR
00:11:33
fires base like and when they go public and but then, but she's
00:11:39
not involved in some of these larger potential fixes for the
00:11:43
platform, these algorithmic kind of fixes and then you know, if
00:11:47
you look, we last year we got ahold of a bunch of internal HR
00:11:51
data and we did a whole graphic about this.
00:11:53
And there's a point at which in 2014, we're 43 percent of the
00:11:57
company reported to Sam. Who obviously then reports to
00:12:01
mark But A 43%. Like she was the individual
00:12:04
outside of Mark that had the most number of reports and then
00:12:08
you see that shrink to about 31 percent last year and that
00:12:13
though she was still the person with the most number of reports
00:12:15
but it's a pretty big Decline and it is you know she
00:12:19
increasingly all these other divisions of the company are
00:12:23
getting more and more people like there's like the metaverse
00:12:27
obviously but the guy that is now the The CEO of the company,
00:12:31
Javier, Lavon starts to get more.
00:12:33
He's really ascending in the ranks at the exact same time.
00:12:36
And so there's suddenly you get the feeling maybe, she's not
00:12:39
number two, and the way that she was pre 2016, she sort of one of
00:12:44
the Lieutenant's. And that, you know, she starts
00:12:49
to become less and less visible during key moments and key
00:12:54
crises the crises. So, last year, when we reported,
00:12:58
we started reporting out. What we call the Facebook files
00:13:01
which is a series of documents from Francis Haugen.
00:13:05
She wasn't really part of the the response to that even though
00:13:09
there is a story about teen girls being affected by by, you
00:13:15
know, Instagram and feeling, you know, like lowered
00:13:19
self-confidence for a variety of issues.
00:13:21
I mean, this is sort of you would think that the lien in
00:13:23
women would arrive at you would think so.
00:13:26
Are we, well first, as an aside, it's very funny to me that this
00:13:29
p'nay thinks that Integrity is something that should and can
00:13:32
solely be addressed by algorithms or whatever.
00:13:34
Um, but I mean are we to infer them that there was a loss of
00:13:38
trust in Sandberg? And if that's the case, when did
00:13:40
it happen? And why we know that they're
00:13:42
there were moments of increased tension between her and Mark, I
00:13:46
mean there are times where he outright told her after the
00:13:49
Cambridge Atlanta lytic got story first broke, you know, he
00:13:52
blamed her for the public fall out, the public strategy and she
00:13:57
told you, she front run the New York Times.
00:14:00
I don't believe that was her decision.
00:14:02
I think that was somebody else on the pr team, but she
00:14:04
certainly, I mean, she approved it.
00:14:06
I think, right? That's her.
00:14:08
That's her Facebook. Got out ahead of the New York
00:14:11
Times and Cambridge analytical, which almost ended up validating
00:14:14
it. Yeah.
00:14:15
The story that I think several of us on the podcast don't
00:14:18
believe in or at least I'll speak for myself.
00:14:20
Don't think it's a big deal anymore but Facebook almost
00:14:23
convinced every reporter in the world hat that it was a huge
00:14:26
deal by white rice. Plain Dirty with The New York
00:14:30
Times and so it's like a terrible PR strategy.
00:14:34
So, the media is fixated on it and therefore, we were fixated.
00:14:36
Yeah. So, right away, and when you
00:14:37
say, thanks there, when you say deeper that, Mark blames her for
00:14:40
it. I mean, Cambridge analytic aside
00:14:42
because that, when does sound a bit complicated, what else
00:14:44
specifically did? He think she bungled was it?
00:14:47
That there wasn't a competent PR strategy that her connections
00:14:51
and Washington weren't enough to assuage, you know, fears from
00:14:55
from Senators that they didn't put enough interns under, you
00:14:58
know, who It. Who is it?
00:15:00
That their kid was an internet. Facebook.
00:15:04
Sure. Which Senator was it is.
00:15:05
Chuck Schumer said, wasn't it? Chuck Schumer?
00:15:07
Yeah, Chuck Schumer. Yeah, exactly.
00:15:09
Didn't have enough of Chuck Schumer's kids in training,
00:15:11
Facebook for Cheryl specific needs to kind of make all this
00:15:14
go away much faster. I think it will.
00:15:17
A lot of it was the architecture of the public response, right?
00:15:22
So if you remember that period, they were silent publicly for
00:15:24
about five days before. They, they really said anything
00:15:29
about It. And then they he also blamed
00:15:33
her. I think for not managing the
00:15:35
political response so they started getting an incredible
00:15:38
amount of heat from Democrats in DC and it just, and this is, by
00:15:44
the way, coming on the heels of the Russian interference
00:15:47
Scandal. So people are still angry about
00:15:50
that and this happened and so there, it's just escalating.
00:15:53
And so he didn't feel like she, she this is at least my
00:15:57
understanding from the sources. I talk to him.
00:15:59
I feel like she really managed the Facebook's response to those
00:16:03
challenges appropriately. It isn't really clear.
00:16:06
What she could have done differently, but both both just
00:16:12
to zoom out, like, on their personalities.
00:16:14
Like, both Mark and Cheryl are sort of stiff communicators in
00:16:19
very different ways like he's sort of, right?
00:16:22
Like the weird sort of, I don't know it already.
00:16:31
A warm. There were people that were you
00:16:33
have conversations with where it feels like, they're really
00:16:36
trying to like when you over and I don't know.
00:16:39
She she's like totally willing to like, talk to ten reporters,
00:16:43
and say, nothing and just sort of put on a little performance,
00:16:47
but it's not a personal interaction you're having with
00:16:51
her at all right. I mean, she doesn't have to be
00:16:54
emotional Touch of somebody doing, you know, are foiling on
00:16:57
Instagram during the Fourth of July.
00:17:00
I'm just saying, they're both people that feel like they live
00:17:04
in a sort of plane above you sort of, delivering, their very
00:17:08
deeply you feel differently. Or I don't know, I guess I've
00:17:11
had, I think she can come across as very warm.
00:17:14
I think I agree with Katie's assessment which is, she's
00:17:17
often, pretty scripted. She's really disciplined in what
00:17:19
she says and doesn't say you will.
00:17:21
If you listened to enough Sheryl, Sandberg speeches and
00:17:23
interviews, you will hear similar anecdotes like again and
00:17:26
again, and again, he was using the same quote and her departure
00:17:29
and Reviews, you know, the original.
00:17:31
That's was just like any politician, right?
00:17:33
So I think it went that are good at like making you feel like it
00:17:37
was authentic. But I think I think that, you
00:17:40
know what, a lot of people would say about somebody, like Nancy
00:17:42
Pelosi is that when your one-on-one with her, you've
00:17:45
never felt more engaged but she gives a lot of very scripted
00:17:49
speeches. I think I don't think this is
00:17:50
unusual. Sure.
00:17:51
I want to, I want to get to the show Legacy in a second because
00:17:54
there's a lots of kind of mind from there, but Katie did have
00:17:57
this question. I think we were leading to, with
00:17:58
the lake. Some sock, which was like, what
00:18:01
was the straw and, and, you know what specifically, with this
00:18:04
investigation of her, you know, trying to use her as Facebook
00:18:08
resources to set up. Well, we don't want to have
00:18:11
smelly why she left. I'll just speak with speak to
00:18:13
what the Wall Street Journal reported, which was Facebook,
00:18:16
was investigating her. And so, yeah.
00:18:18
Is it, is it safe to infer that Facebook is investigating her
00:18:23
one? Because she's lost so much
00:18:25
stature in the come at the company.
00:18:27
Nobody is giving her the Goodwill to even think that.
00:18:29
She could not have done something wrong, they have to
00:18:32
launch the formal investigation and then two is the was the
00:18:36
formal investigation launched perhaps as a way to push her out
00:18:40
and very few people want to stick around a company, that's
00:18:42
investigating them. So I think there's still so much
00:18:44
about this investigation, we don't know, we don't know, we
00:18:47
know about its existence, right? And that's what we reported and
00:18:51
we don't know what we, there's just a lot.
00:18:56
We don't know. We don't know who called for it.
00:18:57
We don't know what it means yet. There's so I would just want to
00:19:00
say it's all. I got were so like actively
00:19:02
reporting and try to understand that part of it.
00:19:04
I think it's just on the stature question, it is interesting.
00:19:09
I mean, she, if you look at the Facebook proxy, she has an
00:19:15
enormous amount of latitude to use corporate resources for
00:19:19
personal reasons. They she can use the, it's
00:19:22
clearly written in the proxy that she can use a private plane
00:19:25
on the company, dime, for personal reasons, a private
00:19:28
plane. And she has security that she
00:19:33
can has all the time for personal reasons for, for
00:19:38
professional reasons, whatever. I mean, so she gets a lot of
00:19:41
resources and we know that there are a lot of times where I've
00:19:45
seen, you know, I've gone to some of her personal events and
00:19:48
then seen Facebook employees there.
00:19:50
So sometimes, you know, Facebook employees will go and support
00:19:54
her. When she's doing like a look,
00:19:56
some other kind of event, like a personal type of an event.
00:20:00
And that's been happening for years.
00:20:02
So I am not sure what a sparked, these investigations one of
00:20:07
which is into her personal sort of her activities at Facebook,
00:20:12
including the use of corporate resources for her wedding and
00:20:16
the other which it has to do with, you know, using I guess
00:20:21
that Facebook email address and talking directly to the Daily
00:20:24
Mail to try to kill the story about her.
00:20:26
Then boyfriend, Bobby kotick. And so, I think there is Is I
00:20:30
think you just it is it is curious that I would love to
00:20:34
know, understand why that investigation is starting now
00:20:37
especially given how much latitude she's given given for
00:20:39
years. Okay right I think what Katie's
00:20:41
getting as the investigation is almost a sign of her weakening
00:20:45
statute the company more than the investigation itself is some
00:20:50
don't necessarily especially in light of the fact that she does
00:20:53
have the latitude to use Facebook's resources for
00:20:55
personal use. Yeah.
00:20:56
And so this kind of brings me to this other sort of journalistic
00:20:59
About it which is, I genuinely feel for any reporter and I've
00:21:04
been in this case of a major executive stepping down.
00:21:06
And you have to come out with a story as quickly as possible.
00:21:10
Yeah. And you basically have to like,
00:21:11
and it's reasonable to and the, you know, like audiences want to
00:21:14
read it. Reporters editors are demanding.
00:21:16
It and reporters are basically like shaken this, you know, the
00:21:19
tree of sources, familiar with the matter to like rain down as
00:21:22
many, like, acorns of anecdotes to give some explanation as to
00:21:27
what happened and we're sort of stuck in this.
00:21:29
This like first draft of History scenario where we may look back
00:21:33
at this in a couple of weeks and find that it was completely
00:21:36
irrelevant. Yeah.
00:21:37
That, you know, the investigation was a formality,
00:21:40
it had nothing to do with anything broader.
00:21:43
You know, we can maybe make connections that there was some
00:21:45
sort of, you know, signifier of this being her fall and stature
00:21:48
in the company. Or it literally was just ain't
00:21:50
no thing. Like, she just woke up one day
00:21:52
and was like, burnout, I thought there were other themes and they
00:21:56
did it was really neat, anecdote in the story.
00:21:57
And look, you guys were very cautious.
00:21:59
Out and I have utmost respect for the journal.
00:22:01
In not sensationalize. It was the best worry about the
00:22:04
departure. So we're picking among right?
00:22:06
Yeah I'm not criticizing it. I'm just genuinely asking as you
00:22:09
were reporting this out. You come across this anecdote.
00:22:11
We don't really know yet. Whether that was the cause of
00:22:13
anything. I mean how do you how do you
00:22:15
reckon with that? Because that is you know an
00:22:17
interpretation of people will draw from the story.
00:22:19
Yeah, I mean I guess I would just say that this is like live
00:22:23
working with live ammo. I guess you know, we're
00:22:25
constantly reporting this is a real-time really fluid
00:22:28
reporting. When we don't know what we don't
00:22:31
know and we are trying to learn as much as we can.
00:22:34
This investigation is pretty unusual though and it is
00:22:37
something that we've been hearing about and I think it is
00:22:42
that in and of itself is worth informing people.
00:22:46
I mean we LED with burnout we LED with the fact that you used
00:22:49
on the hell is me in the head line and in the lead that she
00:22:52
was burned out and telling people that and that she felt
00:22:54
like increasingly disconnected from things like the metaverse
00:22:57
or a lot of other reasons in there.
00:22:59
But Investigation? I don't know.
00:23:00
It's news. So it's sort of we include it
00:23:03
too, because it's, but we don't know how significant even if she
00:23:08
hadn't left the company. I think the fact that she was
00:23:10
being internally investigated what it in and of itself have
00:23:13
been a good news story. Oh definitely.
00:23:14
Yeah, I mean the context of the explanation idea to Tom's point
00:23:18
in the context, of course, but I mean let's not forget that that
00:23:21
is news and would be reported even if she'd stayed.
00:23:25
Yeah, and so I think the, the fact that it's news is, I mean
00:23:28
that's kind of where Where where it's true, right?
00:23:30
It's Tricky. And by the way, I mean that was
00:23:32
something you'd heard about obviously prior to the ER
00:23:36
announcement like you guys had been kind of digging around on
00:23:38
that and then when her announcement happens you're just
00:23:40
sort of like oh well we have this reporting like we're like
00:23:44
holy not to include as outright or was that investigation out of
00:23:47
the investigation about the wedding was new.
00:23:50
Yeah. That's I mean, we had written
00:23:52
about the codec investigation and then at what was the codec
00:23:56
investigation again. So she A few years ago when she
00:24:01
was dating Bobby kotick, there are a couple of different
00:24:03
occasions where the Daily Mail was about was about to write a
00:24:07
story about a restraining order that one of his former
00:24:12
girlfriends had against him and that and that she called The
00:24:18
Daily Mail to basically plead her case and infant try to
00:24:23
inform them and persuade them that it wasn't true or that.
00:24:27
There were, there was a lot more to the story.
00:24:29
Yeah. And that they that and try, it
00:24:32
gets try to get them, not to publish the piece, right?
00:24:35
I think that's maybe the easiest way of saying it.
00:24:38
I mean in as much specificity and comfort, as you can deeper,
00:24:42
can get the sense of like the spinning that's going on behind
00:24:45
the scenes between the different camps.
00:24:47
And are you seeing any sort of concerted effort by those
00:24:51
aligned with Cheryl or those, you know, quote unquote aligned
00:24:54
with Mark or the company to try to push a narrative that is
00:24:57
going to be, you know, explanatory in a way that one
00:25:01
wasn't a huge failure. When wasn't a huge asshole?
00:25:03
You see it. Let's put it like this.
00:25:05
Are you seeing that kind of formation set up as this is
00:25:09
happening? Because, you know, Facebook is
00:25:10
such a powerful company. It is, you know,
00:25:12
quasi-governmental, you know, it has former government PR people
00:25:17
running their communication shop.
00:25:19
Like, you know how, you know, how much is the politicking of
00:25:22
this figuring into the narrative right now?
00:25:24
Yeah. I'm silent cause I'm trying to
00:25:27
figure out what I can say, right?
00:25:28
I mean, we're in some ways, he's asking, well he's thinking about
00:25:32
it. Yeah, well deep is formulating
00:25:36
an answer who's more quasi-governmental apple or
00:25:40
Facebook? What do you guys think?
00:25:43
It's like apples better at it. Yeah, you know, Apple better
00:25:46
than I do apple on those clothes.
00:25:48
Yeah, I mean, Facebook is hiring, you know, Nick Clegg to
00:25:51
had their PR. I mean, you know, they certainly
00:25:54
recognize that they need to have as much political connection and
00:25:58
import as possible. I just like apple uses Tim Cook
00:26:01
and like because he's a CEO can actually he should run the state
00:26:05
department. I swear to God, I mean he's a
00:26:07
CEO can actually meet with people and have these sort of
00:26:10
difficult conversations. I think in a way that Mark
00:26:13
Zuckerberg cannot because Apple has real power, you know, that
00:26:16
was always, I felt like the true Revelation about these companies
00:26:19
at, you know, with the stock market correction is like one is
00:26:22
still worth over a trillion, and the other one is, you know,
00:26:26
Piddling 400 billion, right? I mean, Apple leaks less, it's
00:26:29
more professional. They have way more control over
00:26:33
the message. I just think they can operate in
00:26:35
China, much Messier. Like well, they ovulate in some
00:26:39
ways. Yes, they have this huge
00:26:41
Manufacturing Company anyway, so Deepa back to question, the
00:26:49
story, kind of shift a lot in the last few days and so Whether
00:26:55
that's reflective of what's going to happen going.
00:26:57
Forward is, you know, I guess TV.
00:26:59
But look, we can talk about what's happened.
00:27:01
So like the day she actually decides, she announced that
00:27:04
she's gonna resign. It's there are so many like,
00:27:08
kind of coordinated messages wishing her well talking about
00:27:12
her influence, all the ways in which he shaped the company
00:27:15
forever. Mark, puts out a very long
00:27:18
statement, just embracing her and congratulating her.
00:27:20
Other two of them were Partners in this and how she sort of
00:27:24
helped Navigate become an bilka Facebook into what it is and you
00:27:30
know and then you know then he does the same thing in the next
00:27:33
day with employees at a Q&A According to some of the leek
00:27:37
transcripts of that Q&A that have been floating around.
00:27:40
So they are the Facebook is very much tried to be like these two
00:27:46
or a unified front. But then at the same time, you
00:27:49
know, you see when what we're discussing, you know, no one's
00:27:54
really talking on the record. About these investigations but
00:27:57
Cheryl's. PR person did provide us with a
00:28:00
comment about 24 hours. After our story ran is saying,
00:28:05
Cheryl did not inappropriately use corporate resources to plan
00:28:09
her wedding. And the word inappropriately was
00:28:12
is in there as part of that quote.
00:28:14
And so I don't know what new statements are going to come out
00:28:18
as more and more of the reporting, you know, kind of
00:28:21
gets is surfaced, but things are already sort of subtly.
00:28:25
Shifting and that it's only been a few days so I think that's the
00:28:29
best I can do for you. Tha want that particular answer.
00:28:32
I think you're going to see a lot of different Eugene response
00:28:35
they put out. Okay.
00:28:36
First of all the conspiracy theory that they announced this
00:28:41
when the Johnny Depp Amber Heard trial was out, you seem I know
00:28:45
all the Facebook reporters seem to hate this Theory and I know
00:28:48
you think there was too much teed up for that to beep.
00:28:50
I mean, it's felt like they were bearing.
00:28:51
It's one of the biggest social media news stories like this is
00:28:55
Is all over my Tick. Tock feed.
00:28:56
I assume all over Facebook and you're telling me they don't
00:28:59
know that this is going to be a big news Vortex.
00:29:02
Yeah. I mean, but then it's not as if
00:29:05
Cheryl stepping down would not have drawn attention like you,
00:29:10
no matter what was happening, but the goal was either, the
00:29:13
suggestion is this was meant to bury it by, right?
00:29:16
I think. If they were going to bury it,
00:29:18
wouldn't they do it on like a Saturday or Friday night at
00:29:21
11:00. Yeah, yeah.
00:29:23
Mang because there's a whole Score that is dedicated to trust
00:29:29
writing my Facebook, you know, like and and there are a lot of
00:29:32
reporters who even if they're not dedicated to writing about
00:29:35
Facebook on a daily basis, they have sources there, they talk to
00:29:38
people there. They're trying to uncover
00:29:41
stuffing, it's like one of the most scrutinized companies in
00:29:43
the world. It certainly of all the
00:29:45
companies I've ever covered the most scrutinized and so, I don't
00:29:48
know II. Yeah, I don't know that there
00:29:51
was absurd. You're being so diplomatic about
00:29:53
this D, but that is the stupidest fucking thing.
00:29:55
Heresy Theory, I can imagine you're trying to tell me that
00:29:58
there that there are that there were reporters that were on the
00:30:01
Facebook beat that because of the Johnny Depp Amber Heard
00:30:04
verdict came in. They were like I do distracted.
00:30:06
Yeah cannot cover Cheryl I'm sorry I wouldn't rise that it.
00:30:11
Well, I'm sorry bro. I'm sorry.
00:30:13
Jason I know you probably think this is a big deal about Cheryl
00:30:15
but literally there is no one doing analysis on Amber Heard
00:30:19
and Johnny Depp right now. If I don't do this story, I mean
00:30:21
that's so that is just like the blinkered mind.
00:30:25
Of people on social media that, you know, change their minds as
00:30:28
to what they care about on like a five-minute timer but in the
00:30:31
moment that they care about, I think nothing else matters.
00:30:34
So awful conspiracy theory, say something like, you know, Cheryl
00:30:37
was hoarding baby formula or something like that.
00:30:39
That would be a little bit more like enticing and realistic to
00:30:42
me. What did you make of Fortune?
00:30:44
Fortunately, ran a headline saying that Roe versus Wade.
00:30:48
Had some sort of you see this story.
00:30:50
Well, they said that she wanted to leave to work on her
00:30:52
foundation and she felt galvanized because of the
00:30:55
potential end of Roe versus Wade and the need to like think about
00:30:59
women's reproductive health. So which is very um brand
00:31:02
Energy. That's what she said in the
00:31:03
interview, that's what she said. Yeah, and I think I mean, I can
00:31:06
see. I think there's not one reason
00:31:08
anybody leaves us like a company after 14 years.
00:31:11
Right. I mean, like I that's that.
00:31:12
I think it's certainly leaving liberates her to do more of
00:31:17
that. Is that why she left?
00:31:20
I don't know II. That's not we, we didn't hear
00:31:23
that. We had heard is largely Of the
00:31:25
other issues we talked about, like, around burnout and just
00:31:27
feeling like she didn't really care.
00:31:29
And what if, I think that I think the fortune story was
00:31:32
based on the interview, she gave to the states that we just like,
00:31:36
it wasn't like they talked to 12 people familiar with the matter
00:31:38
and that's not quite. It was because she sat with him
00:31:40
and said, this is why I'm doing, but I do think the Public
00:31:44
Communication, I mean the mark posed her post about it.
00:31:47
Yeah. They're very boring.
00:31:48
Like don't they, I don't understand.
00:31:50
Do they want to tell more exciting story?
00:31:52
I've got a spicy like Departure announcement.
00:31:56
Have you ever don't want the media to endlessly speculate
00:31:59
about other things? You won't ever seen that
00:32:02
strategy deployed? Like, I've, I've can't remember
00:32:04
it, but it have you ever seen the strategy where the company
00:32:07
puts a lot of greedy, Tales of interesting, cool stuff in
00:32:11
their, departure press release. I've never seen it.
00:32:15
My understanding is the first draft of the show.
00:32:17
Resignation, was just the middle finger emoji.
00:32:20
That's what she was going to put, and that was it.
00:32:22
That was it, and that she was going to be gone the next day.
00:32:25
You could be, you know, I'm I feel like if you worked on a
00:32:28
particular product, you could sort of have like a last liked,
00:32:31
or about like the inside story of that.
00:32:33
And then, you'll eat. You have more of a, like, you
00:32:35
have something you finish. So that people actually got
00:32:38
really just Capstone, he's not really done with Facebook.
00:32:41
First of all, she doesn't leave her job until the fall and
00:32:43
secondly, she's on the board. She's still there.
00:32:46
You know, I don't think that she's left heard role as like a
00:32:50
very powerful executive inside the company.
00:32:52
You know, the person that's going to take the CEO Ooo job
00:32:55
after her isn't going to have her same type of power and
00:32:59
influence on Mark that she did at the had her height of her
00:33:03
powers, right? And that's the way it is but
00:33:06
she's but she's still another another six dimensional chess
00:33:11
Theory would just be. You know, she sees the world and
00:33:15
like the markets are going to get worse and leave Facebook.
00:33:18
What before it's like a true bloodbath and if you know the
00:33:22
economy really does go into a recession and this is she could
00:33:24
have left. Room 2.0, hasn't her wealth
00:33:27
still tied up in the stock to a great degree.
00:33:29
Like if you look at the proxy statement, she still paid and
00:33:31
shares and they and they vanished over like five to seven
00:33:35
year period. So leaving now doesn't actually
00:33:37
sound like she can leave. And that, will you just take it
00:33:39
all your muscles down more than 50% of peak?
00:33:42
Like, if she was such a 6 dimensional, chess player left
00:33:45
last November? Yes, she's still like at the
00:33:48
mercy of the stock market for a lot of her.
00:33:50
Well yeah, I mean, the thing, the thing about it that I find,
00:33:53
you know, challenging As a reporter and just as a person,
00:33:56
how to make it out, is that she is also just a human being and
00:33:59
people are complicated. And there's often like, a
00:34:01
constellation of reasons legitimately as to why she
00:34:05
decided to leave the job when she did.
00:34:07
You know, like she probably was, you know, feeling marginalized,
00:34:11
then she literally was by Zach, she was less interested in this
00:34:14
direction towards meta. Yeah.
00:34:16
She'd also been doing it for 14 years and maybe, you know, there
00:34:19
are there's a straw, whether it's the investigation or or
00:34:23
something that hasn't been announced yet.
00:34:25
Or report yet. And all of it together are
00:34:27
legitimate and it doesn't have to be one thing or the other.
00:34:29
But I guess like, when I think about it that way, if I were
00:34:31
working in the New York Times. And one day, I woke up and
00:34:34
because of a series of things, my boss blame me for, you know,
00:34:37
she was like, even doing a lot of reporting and we'd like you
00:34:40
to do a little less of it. We have a great role for you in
00:34:45
Reading audience, comments and I did that for a while and I'd
00:34:50
survive this to your pandemic, where I worked ton but been
00:34:53
marginalized anyway, And then I thought that my company was also
00:34:56
investigating my expenses at some point.
00:34:58
I would think you know what fuck it.
00:35:01
Fuck it. The difference being that I'm
00:35:03
not a multi-billionaire dark side.
00:35:05
I'm sure you can find Katie's you know you know you just think
00:35:11
that sort of how much we know is fundamentally limited by sources
00:35:15
and that. Yeah the this is not like
00:35:17
something where they're just everybody like Zoe Kazan
00:35:21
background Cheryl's. I'm everybody's just like giving
00:35:23
their spin against each other so you get to the Truth then gets
00:35:26
this one's just hard, it's really sensitive.
00:35:29
There's a lot of different moving Parts.
00:35:31
Yeah. It's we're trying, I mean, all
00:35:34
we can do is what I'm just I mean it's I don't know.
00:35:40
They are in there. Yeah, they are.
00:35:41
But it was, it was interesting to hear like around when Cheryl
00:35:45
was like the day that she were the, you know, decided to step
00:35:50
down there. There were the company also
00:35:53
said, it had nothing to To do with a bobby kotick matter or
00:35:57
that and that that particular review on to that subject was
00:36:00
was closed and that is a tactic confirmation of the story from,
00:36:05
you know, a couple of months ago on Bobby, which is so there's
00:36:09
there's something like the there's a little drip drip of
00:36:13
information coming from the company in public eye, I don't
00:36:16
expect that to ever turn into a gush where they suddenly start
00:36:20
talking about. Also, to be fair, I think it's
00:36:23
legitimately something that took a lot of By surprise.
00:36:26
And so, when something is so close, hold, it's hard for there
00:36:29
to be a lot of good leaks because most people don't know
00:36:31
what they're talking about. And so, yeah, it's the only
00:36:34
people who really know what happened.
00:36:36
Our Sheryl Sandberg Mark Zuckerberg and for other human
00:36:39
beings, you have to wait for those for other human beings to
00:36:43
talk runner for other people, for the information to come out.
00:36:46
Yeah. For for Deepa to infiltrate that
00:36:49
for person Circle. Poor truth, serum down the
00:36:52
throat of one of those people and then sit there and take
00:36:55
notes, while they spend three hours telling her everything
00:36:58
that happened. And while that is a best case
00:37:00
scenario, I don't know how realistic it is.
00:37:02
It standard journalistic person. Like what I do all the time,
00:37:06
someone's house, obviously, it's going to be really hard, you
00:37:12
know, I it's a challenging story to get more to get more out of
00:37:16
him. We're trying, it's just and but
00:37:19
it is, it's really complicated. And it is also Complicated by
00:37:22
this idea that like is it, there's a lot of Like sexism in
00:37:26
coverage of Sheryl Sandberg and there's a she's extremely
00:37:30
sensitive to that. I thought one of the things
00:37:33
that, you know, had kind of made her feel burned out and very
00:37:38
increasingly disconnected with the fact that she felt she was
00:37:41
particularly singled out for criticism at the company even
00:37:45
though she stopped the CEO. And she doesn't make all the
00:37:48
decisions there. And, you know, some of these
00:37:51
upcoming TV portrayals that I think Claire Foy is and One of
00:37:55
the projects there, where she's going to play Sheryl Sandberg,
00:37:59
she's really nervous about those things.
00:38:01
I mean, she's she literally told one of her, advisers that
00:38:04
there's no scenario where a powerful businesswoman isn't
00:38:07
portrayed as a quote, raging bitch, right?
00:38:10
Like Sheen. There's a lot of criticism that
00:38:13
she's feels, she's endured particularly because she's a
00:38:17
woman and she feels like more is coming and I think that's also a
00:38:22
which is almost certainly true. I mean, It's like there's almost
00:38:26
no scenario in which, like a really successful CEO is not
00:38:29
portrayed as a raging asshole. If it's a man but Society
00:38:32
responds well to raging asshole dudes, right?
00:38:35
So if you watch like, you know, a movie where the leader of the
00:38:41
company is slamming doors and pounding on the table and
00:38:44
screaming at people and throwing computer monitors at their
00:38:46
heads. We like celebrate that a little
00:38:48
bit and women did that. Yeah we would be like wow she
00:38:50
should probably be fired rather than wow.
00:38:54
Jack Welch was. Cool.
00:38:56
Yeah. Well this like gets into like
00:38:58
the other, you know, moving off of why she stepped down but like
00:39:00
the larger questions about her Legacy and when she kind of
00:39:04
represents as an executive in Tech because I thought, you
00:39:07
know, so much of what she even when she was being revered as a
00:39:11
bit as an executive. There was a not even small tinge
00:39:14
of sexism to it. I've always thought the idea of
00:39:17
like, you know, companies need their Sheryl Sandberg.
00:39:19
Right. That's the archetype, you know,
00:39:21
the hot-headed and Brilliant CEO needs the, you know, woman to
00:39:25
Him and teach him about the like sensibilities of business was
00:39:29
probably very limiting. Yeah, she's nice everyone.
00:39:31
Everyone needs a mom. You need a mom to tell you like
00:39:33
how to manage your checkbook and was basically the role of Sheryl
00:39:37
Sandberg. And, you know, I'd be interested
00:39:40
in your opinion, having covered her and seeing high-powered, we
00:39:43
know women and in politics to kid, I mean, having written
00:39:46
about it. Like, you know, I would imagine
00:39:49
certain, you know, Cheryl also capitalized a bit on it, right?
00:39:52
I mean, lean in was a huge PR push on her image.
00:39:55
Age based very much on, you know, her being a high-powered,
00:39:57
successful female executive. I think there was a lot of
00:40:00
criticism that it wasn't really attainable unless you were
00:40:02
extremely wealthy and it was sort of like an unimaginable
00:40:06
Paradigm to force onto not rich, women simply not rich white
00:40:10
women, but at the same time, I don't know.
00:40:13
To me, it always hurt image whether she contributed to it or
00:40:17
not felt sexist through and through.
00:40:19
Yeah, it's specifically on the question of lead in.
00:40:23
I've we could just do a whole different Gaston sort of the
00:40:27
most me to era and how it seems to have come to a close and that
00:40:31
we're moving into a far more progressive era in American
00:40:34
society, you know, in a larger way that's beyond Sheryl
00:40:38
Sandberg and you know beyond Amber Heard or Johnny Depp, but
00:40:42
on her on lean and specifically what was so interesting about
00:40:45
that is that she had the financial power and she had the
00:40:49
sort of like social and political standing within
00:40:52
extremely powerful company to Use that platform to say women
00:40:56
are treated like shit at work. And can we all just agree on
00:40:59
that? And so that was I think we
00:41:01
forget that that was actually a very big deal because women
00:41:04
female Executives up until that moment had basically always
00:41:08
said, some version of having worked at Fortune Magazine and
00:41:11
worked on the most powerful. Women in business list, I can
00:41:13
tell you, with great certainty, that almost every narrative was,
00:41:17
yeah, it's a boys club. But, you know what?
00:41:18
If you just work hard and, you know, more and you come, in more
00:41:23
prepared, you can do. Wow.
00:41:25
And I'm so grateful to whatever company does is.
00:41:28
I work for that. They gave me that opportunity
00:41:30
and Sheryl Sandberg came in and was like, I'm grateful but let's
00:41:34
be real and that was such a weird.
00:41:37
It was a big watershed moment and it this outpouring of.
00:41:41
Thank God. Someone finally said it.
00:41:43
Now like all movements did it need to be refined, did it need
00:41:48
to account for class disparity for racial disparity also for
00:41:52
the fact that not everybody wants to get ahead by.
00:41:55
Amen. Which was a big part of them you
00:41:56
to sort of like the link the lien is, right?
00:42:00
They have the lead, excuse me. It was a big part of the
00:42:03
following in strategy which was placate men.
00:42:07
Of course, those things were always going to eventually come
00:42:10
into question but I don't think we can dismiss the fact that she
00:42:13
used her platform to say something that nobody else had
00:42:15
yet said. And now she's sort of destroyed
00:42:18
by the current political environment where obviously the
00:42:21
right hates that for whatever you know for short of
00:42:24
regressive. Ins and the left hates it is.
00:42:26
It wasn't really a lot of reasons.
00:42:28
Well, right left hates it. Both for regressive reasons that
00:42:31
I can't ever had - it's some taxes to not be those
00:42:34
unacknowledged, right? Get them, blend pretends not to
00:42:36
be sexist, right? And then also, yes.
00:42:40
Then their progressives who are like we should have done more,
00:42:43
she should have said more. Yeah, right.
00:42:46
And so it's a terrible time to have sort of what's probably
00:42:49
still a popular among most Americans message, but she can't
00:42:53
even get it. Sort of abandon it, right?
00:42:56
I mean, she's sort of moved away.
00:42:57
I mean she's still celebrates it but she's not saying it anymore.
00:43:01
You know. Well she said in her goodbye and
00:43:03
I think, yeah, continue to say it's sort of like, does the
00:43:06
message makes sense in this moment anymore?
00:43:09
And is there a way to, is there a way to reveal the message?
00:43:12
Yeah, like, I'm the big criticism of that is, you know,
00:43:16
she doesn't, she describes a lot of responsibility on individual
00:43:20
women, to basically, you know, show the kind of pluck and Moxie
00:43:23
and and push through. Barriers and have hope and
00:43:26
Thrive and and then help other women do the same thing.
00:43:29
But she doesn't address some of the like the major structural
00:43:33
changes and I think she has and talked about it publicly as
00:43:37
that, that being a problem, right?
00:43:39
Look when she wrote option b, that was her second book on on
00:43:43
Grief, after her husband died. This is something that had come
00:43:46
up in a couple of different interviews and had come up in a
00:43:48
different and like her subsequent commentary, which is,
00:43:51
you know, I think enough about class.
00:43:53
I didn't think enough about those kinds of things.
00:43:55
When I was writing this book and so she acknowledges that it's a
00:43:59
lot more complicated than just any individual woman's will.
00:44:02
Right? So but it that adds to the
00:44:05
complexity of her Legacy, you know, she's not like she should
00:44:09
not have, she's a feminist icon, sort of, you know, she's a
00:44:13
business icon, sort of. If she is all those things,
00:44:16
she's also really there's a real undercurrent of complexity
00:44:21
because there's a lot of people who disagree with what she did
00:44:23
her messaging and what you ultimately, What did she she do
00:44:27
now? I mean, do you think she'll
00:44:28
Samberg just becomes a reply guy on Twitter?
00:44:31
We can start seeing her fighting machine Jack.
00:44:39
You know. It just like these execs, get
00:44:41
bored and then all of a sudden we see them on Twitter.
00:44:43
Like I would love to see that. That would be a real personality
00:44:46
reversal but that'd be funny. I think that she will.
00:44:50
She again, she isn't really leaving the company for a while
00:44:53
and then she staying on the board.
00:44:54
So she stole attached it to Facebook.
00:44:56
She never going to, at least, while she's on the board.
00:44:59
You're not going to really see her.
00:45:00
Do her thing. She's not going to go.
00:45:01
Rogue Marc Andreessen, sits on the board and he's been able to
00:45:04
he tweets all sorts. Oh, I don't mean tweet.
00:45:06
She doesn't excuse anything spicy about Facebook, right?
00:45:09
Like my butt. Yeah, Cheryl is not a poster.
00:45:12
I don't think she has him. I'm yeah, it seems like the off.
00:45:14
No way. But I look, and I see a good
00:45:16
reverse. It would be amazing.
00:45:18
I would love. I wonder there's been a lot of
00:45:20
speculation and also just want to modify one thing.
00:45:23
I said, it's not that nobody had ever said.
00:45:25
You said before, it's just that, nobody really powerful, who was
00:45:29
a woman, had said it because everybody has generally afraid
00:45:31
of the backlash and being punished for it.
00:45:33
And so we built a movement behind her, right?
00:45:35
Breast was right about inorganic higher because certainly there
00:45:38
have been women, you know, for I would say possibly more than
00:45:42
decades saying that they were treated like garbage in the
00:45:44
workplace, but I wonder about the prospects for her political
00:45:49
career because that was always going to a sort of priest 2016.
00:45:53
The thing that was going to be your exit from Facebook was
00:45:55
going into a Hillary Clinton administration and then that
00:46:00
didn't happen. And now given all that's
00:46:04
happened in that, you know, six years.
00:46:08
Do you think she could still see politics?
00:46:10
Potentially as a refuge or a second act?
00:46:14
I don't know what is on her mind.
00:46:16
I know that when I've talked to Democrats, and, and others that
00:46:20
sort of think about her political prospects, it's it
00:46:23
just feels pretty. Is very unlikely.
00:46:26
Like, I don't see, you know, she was at the center.
00:46:30
She's not the full owner, right? The buck that actually did not
00:46:32
stop with her, stop with Mark, but she was the CEO of.
00:46:35
She was one of the most powerful Executives at the company.
00:46:39
The second most powerful executive at a company that
00:46:42
Democrats, really, really, really hate.
00:46:44
And really think our is undermining democracy on some
00:46:49
level, right? And that is very hard to come
00:46:52
back from. You know, she Republican is
00:46:55
Don't trust Facebook because of some of the censorship issues
00:46:58
and you know what? They perceived to be as unfair
00:47:01
unbiased treatment and Democrats, kind of the same
00:47:05
thing. I mean like they sort of they
00:47:07
don't neither side likes the company.
00:47:10
So who is she going to be representing?
00:47:14
Like, what are? What are?
00:47:15
She emerges an anti-facebook candidate like she would be like
00:47:18
the Elise stefanik, right? She come on right right.
00:47:22
It's like seems to hate Twitter now even though it's like The
00:47:25
CEO. So wasn't surprising.
00:47:29
When the watch out guys. All these people, like they work
00:47:31
at the company, you're like leading it and then all of a
00:47:34
sudden you leave and you're like, oh yeah, big mistake.
00:47:37
She has a directive. A surprise me at all.
00:47:39
I mean, I don't know nothin happened.
00:47:41
Here's what you can do. This is the Cheryl Playbook and
00:47:43
if no one is advisor here on this, I will gladly take
00:47:46
Consulting fees to kind of position her next few steps.
00:47:49
You should become a very expensive.
00:47:51
Yeah, well, we can negotiate but as you should, but she could,
00:47:53
she should become a republican. She Just follow the JD Vance
00:47:56
Playbook which is now a perfect Playbook to run, say the office.
00:47:59
Is it everything? You said everything that you
00:48:00
stood for the last couple of years was bullshit, you only did
00:48:03
it because you had to infiltrate that group of people.
00:48:05
You now believe exactly the opposite of what you said, there
00:48:08
is no repercussions, at least as a republican for doing these
00:48:11
things, she could probably be. Well, she's stuck in California,
00:48:15
but I don't know. I don't know.
00:48:16
Whatever is the most vulnerable senate seat.
00:48:17
She could probably run for that as a republican.
00:48:20
That's I agree with that. Yeah, that makes sense.
00:48:24
Yeah. All right, my Uber is already on
00:48:29
en route. I have to get to San Francisco.
00:48:32
We, this is the closest I pushed a flight in a long time.
00:48:34
Under case advisement, Tom, and I have missed so many flights
00:48:39
between the two of us. Yeah, Katie and I with you if
00:48:41
this were us we would have another podcast in us to do
00:48:43
another another 45 minutes just on lean in deep thoughts or I
00:48:50
don't know. What do you think you're
00:48:52
watching? Most for I mean, Works couple.
00:48:55
Weeks. Yeah, I guess we're just doing
00:48:57
more and more reporting. It feels like there's just a lot
00:49:00
more to this story and like there always is just a
00:49:02
complicated person. So there's if you're listening
00:49:05
and you're sourced call me? Yeah, well, I mean, thank you so
00:49:09
much. Thank you so much and
00:49:10
congratulations to you guys. You guys have by far.
00:49:13
None of us. We do call it.
00:49:15
None of us are chasing. That story.
00:49:16
I told them your stories have been excellent on this.
00:49:22
I look forward to your next one. Thank you so much.
00:49:25
For doing this. And yeah, we'll see you next
00:49:27
time people. Thank you.
00:49:28
All right, thank you, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
00:49:44
goodbye goodbye. Goodbye