Careless People

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and physical abuse.

The title of this book is intended to draw an analogy between the fictional characters of Tom and Daisy Buchanan from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Zuckerberg and Sandberg. In Wynn-Williams’s epigraph, she quotes the book: “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” (vii).

Like Zuckerberg and Sandberg, the Buchanan couple are spectacularly wealthy. Jay Gatsby, also very wealthy, throws extravagant parties in New York to win the attention of his former lover, Daisy. Both Tom and Daisy fail to accept any responsibility for their actions and care little about the consequences of their behavior. They can retreat back into their comfortable bubble of wealth. Tom conducts an affair with Myrtle Wilson, whom he physically abuses. Daisy, driving Gatsby’s car, accidentally hits and kills Myrtle. Consistent with her character, she flees the scene and accepts no responsibility. Tom tells Myrtle’s husband that Gatsby hit her, and Myrtle’s husband then murders Gatsby. Tom does not care about the deadly consequences of his lie.

Wynn-Williams argues that Zuckerberg and Sandberg have similarly failed to accept any responsibility for their actions. They have promoted and enforced policies at Facebook that led to genocide in Myanmar, repression in China, and divisive politics in democratic countries. They have refused to make adjustments to those policies when confronted with these consequences. Retreating into their own comfortable bubble of immense wealth, they do not care. Thus, she suggests that they are, just like Tom and Daisy, “careless people.”

Wynn-Williams additionally references the film Citizen Kane. When Zuckerberg toyed with a presidential run, she said the word “rosebud” to him, and he had no idea what she was talking about. The film is roughly based on the life of William Randolph Hearst, the publishing magnate. A media mogul of his time, the character Kane runs for president. Due to the revelation of a sexual scandal, he loses badly. Kane lacks meaningful relationships with people and believes that money is the source of happiness. His dying word, “rosebud,” is possibly the name of his childhood sled. The insinuation is that he last experienced true happiness as a child.

In her conversation with Zuckerberg, Wynn-Williams explained the reference. Elliot Schrage, a top leader at Facebook, assisted with the explanation. He explained that if Zuckerberg were to run for office, he would be a “modern-day William Randolph Hearst” (286). Zuckerberg then asked if that would be a bad thing. Here again, Wynn-Williams draws an analogy to a character who lacks an ethical compass and is self-absorbed to provide commentary on Zuckerberg’s behavior.