On November 23, 2018, I posted to this site a long piece titled, “Fiasco at Facebook.” (The link is below.) It was a systemic analysis (leaders, followers, and contexts) of how and why the once-fabled company had run into trouble. Since then, Facebook, recently renamed Meta, has, of course, in many ways performed brilliantly. What I was writing about though was not its business metrics, but its moral metrics. The company had already deviated from its original mission which was nothing if not high-minded: To give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Moreover, in 2017, the company’s original mission was updated. This time it read in part: To give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.
In this crusade founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was joined early on by a woman whose title at Meta has long been chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg. What’s arguably most notable about Sandberg is that for years she was, in addition to her prominence as a corporate leader, a feminist icon.
In 2013 she came out with a book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, that instantly hit a nerve, and became a best seller. In subsequent years she capitalized on her feminist fame to expand on her franchise by, among other things, starting an international network of women. Leanin.org, as it was called, described itself as a “global community dedicated to helping women achieve their ambitions.” Since then, in the wake of the unexpected death of her husband, she (co) authored another book, this one titled, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy. It too sold millions of copies, though it never rivaled its predecessor, nor was it especially embraced by women whose main interest was in advancing themselves in the world of work.
It would appear that Sandberg since has lost interest in feminism as a personal and professional cause. She remains deeply entrenched at Meta. The company has profited hugely from trafficking in misinformation. And Sandberg has long since become a billionaire. But not much out of her mouth about women and “the will to lead.”
All this comes to mind because in the last couple of days Sandberg hit the headlines in a way distinctly unsavory. It was reported that in both 2016 and 2019 she pressured the British Daily Mail to kill unflattering stories about her then boyfriend, Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard. According to the Wall Street Journal, she seems to have succeeded in her efforts because both times the stories never ran.
The irony is obvious: the story Sandberg allegedly sought to stop was about a temporary restraining order against Kotick by a former girlfriend. In other words, the woman with a reputation as an advocate for women long had a man in her life accused of attacking a woman.
Meta is reportedly looking into the allegations and deciding if Sandberg violated company rules. But whatever the company’s verdict, it’s not a good look for a onetime, sometime, feminist icon.