On Thursday, The New York Instances printed a lengthy story concerning the rise in energy of Stephen Miller, a longtime loyalist of Donald Trump identified for his hardline views on immigration. Usually, a narrative like that wouldn’t get a lot consideration within the tech press. However the piece opened with an anecdote about Mark Zuckerberg that instantly raised eyebrows.
The story detailed a latest assembly Miller had with Zuckerberg when the Meta CEO traveled to Mar-a-Lago final 12 months. In response to The Instances, Zuckerberg — who would quickly surrender Meta’s prior fact checking efforts and ditch corporate diversity packages — “blamed his former chief working officer, Sheryl Sandberg, for an inclusivity initiative at Fb that inspired workers’ self-expression within the office.”
That line set off a contemporary spherical of hypothesis (and a few outrage) in tech circles. Sandberg, who left Meta in 2022 and rose to fame after authoring her girls within the office manifesto Lean In, was identified for her as soon as shut partnership with Zuckerberg on the prime of Fb. That Zuckerberg would blame his former prime lieutenant for fostering “inclusivity” at his firm, raised eyebrows even amongst longtime observers of the corporate.
“She at all times knew who Mark Zuckerberg and coated for him,” New York Instances reporter Sheera Frankel, who co-wrote a guide about Fb’s dominance, noticed on Bluesky. “ The query is whether or not she is going to proceed to take action when he so blatantly throws her below the (Trump) bus.” Journalist and longtime tech pundit Kara Swisher likewise noted that “of us I talked to tonight from the Mark/Sheryl Fb period are shocked however not shocked by his blaming her.”
I additionally weighed in on my Threads account, sharing a hyperlink to a Enterprise Insider story from February that quoted an interview by which Zuckerberg mentioned that Sandberg had raised him “like a mum or dad.” I joked that the remark hadn’t aged effectively.
However on Friday, Zuckerberg determined to let me (and I assume everybody else) know that he and Sandberg are nonetheless cool, in any case. “Sheryl did superb work at Meta and can endlessly be a legend within the trade,” he wrote in a reply to my put up. “She constructed one of many best companies of all time and taught me a lot of what I do know.”
A couple of minutes later, Sandberg jumped in to helpfully let me know there are not any laborious emotions on her facet, both. “Thanks, @zuck. I’ll at all times be pleased about the numerous years we spent constructing an incredible enterprise collectively – and in your friendship that received me by means of a number of the hardest instances of my life and continues to at the present time.”
Zuckerberg responded with a single heart emoji.
I requested Zuckerberg if he felt Sandberg was too targeted on DEI initiatives at Meta, or whether or not she took away from the “masculine vitality” he just lately told Joe Rogan firms ought to embody. Notably, he has not denied The Instances’ reporting about his feedback relating to Sandberg, although he claimed they’re being misconstrued.
“I answered a query about the place the phrase ‘carry your entire self to work’ got here from, and now there’s a complete bogus narrative saying I blamed Sheryl for a bunch of stuff that I by no means did and by no means will,” he said. (Bringing your “entire self” to work is a slogan popularized by Sandberg in Lean In. Comparable language usually appeared on Meta’s careers site when the corporate highlighted range amongst its workers. “Being your genuine self is the muse of who we’re as an organization,” Meta wrote on a since-deleted web page of its company web site the place it shared its inside range experiences.)
So, I assume that settles it. Nothing to see right here, of us. Mark and Sheryl are undoubtedly nonetheless buddies. They might not work on the identical firm anymore, however they’re nonetheless in a position to come collectively to go off a possible PR crisis. What may very well be extra inspiring than that?
Replace, January 17, 2025, 4PM PT: This put up was up to date to replicate a further remark from Zuckerberg.
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