March 14, 2025, 2:05pm
Sarah Wynn-Williams’s Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams came out a few days ago, and is already making a huge splash. The book is one insider’s look at Facebook/Meta, and how tech fat cats like Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg went off the rails. To quote the jacket copy, the book explores “how the more power they grasp, the less responsible they become.”
Naturally, Meta is pissed at Flatiron Books, and issued an arbitration order demanding that the publisher stop promoting or publishing the book.
But Flatiron is displaying some impressive backbone and is refusing to back down, according to tech outlet The Verge and their own public statement:
Macmillan Publisher’s response to the arbitration order filed by Meta regarding our book Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams, which released Tuesday.
— Flatiron Books (@flatironbooks.bsky.social) 2025-03-13T18:11:33.174Z
Good for them! I’m glad to see publishers standing up against this bullying. Corporate and federal power are marching in increasingly overt lockstep, and we’re going need a lot more defiance and solidarity like this to beat them back.