Yeah it’s okay, it’s no Aaron Sorkin’s social network.

I plowed through the last third of this cause my next book on hold is in transit to Parker Hill, and wasn’t sure if I paused this one if I’d pick it up again. I am 2 for 2 on books about Facebook which I feel do not have enough primary source accounts to make me believe that it is accurate to events. Ben Mezrich says he’s got anon sources in the aknowlagemets but like…who was talking to him! Surely not anyone on the facebook side, say what you will about Carless People but SWW put her name to her story. I know that Mezrich’s prose rubs a lot of people the wrong way but honestly you kinda need it to remind you that these are speculations of how people felt not direct quotes from interviews.

The movie is better in all ways. It has some of my favorite actors, Reznor & Ross’ killer score, and Sorkin’s sharpest work ever. The one thing I would say that the book has on it is that it is more able to clearly delineate who’s perspective it is currently taking, which allows the reader to think about the situation from both Saverin and Parker’s perspective, whereas in the film Saverin is the unequivocal protagonist. I would say the movie is about how power leaves you lonely, and the book is more about cycles of betrayal as we are given more time to sit with the Winkelvoss twins and Parker’s removal from Plato. But yeah there’s a good case to be made that the social network is in the top 10 of the 21st century and the accidental billionaire is certainly not on that level.

Oh boy I devoured this.

This book is at its best when it is a memoir. Sarah Wynn Williams is great at telling her story. She draws great contrast contrasts between the values which Facebook was espousing and her personal experiences as a worker and mother. I really appreciated all the stories from her pregnancies and the commentary on navigating motherhood at high levels of business. All of the anecdotes about the executive suite are insane too. The gossip in this book is crazy and gave me the same kind of chills as a succession episode.

The book is at its worst when it is an exposé. This is a first hand account, not an investigative piece. And while the account is from someone who had a high level of access it cannot be presented as hard facts cause there’s just no way to corroborate her claims. And all of the stuff she wistleblows about has to be in there because it would be incomplete without it, but as it’s a first person telling she ends up absolving herself from a lot of responsibility. I think she needed an editor to either tell her to take more accountability or cut like half of the times she goes “and I almost left!” But I can understand that, it’s very human to not want to look your mistakes in the eyes and I think as long as keep space for that it’s well worth the read.