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Sitting Down With The Facebook Whistleblower, Frances Haugen — Transcript

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0:02corporate fraud works best in the
0:04shadows
0:06behind corporate walls
0:09how does the government bring these
0:11wrongdoers to Justice
0:13whistleblowers
0:18these are the stories of those who risk
0:20their careers to shine a light on
0:21allegations of fraud
0:25today on Broad in America
0:30welcome to today's episode of fraud in
0:33America today we have a very special
0:35guest we're meeting with Francis Haugen
0:38she is an American data scientist an
0:40algorithmic product manager we'll find
0:42out what that is and a whistleblower
0:45she's a graduate of Franklin W Olin
0:47College of Engineering and the Harvard
0:49Business School she worked at listen to
0:51this lineup Google Yelp and Pinterest
0:53before joining Facebook now known as
0:56meta in 2019 uh she worked in the Civil
1:01Integrity Department along with a couple
1:03other departments and then in 2021 she
1:06disclosed tens of thousands of pages of
1:08internal documents to these Securities
1:10and Exchange Commission and the Wall
1:12Street Journal revealing Facebook's
1:14awareness of and complicity and
1:16radicalization and political violence
1:18around the world that's the thumbnail
1:21biography on the back of her soon to be
1:24New York time best-selling book The
1:26Power of One how I found the strength to
1:29tell the truth and why I blew the
1:32whistle on Facebook we're going to dive
1:34into her book and her story thank you so
1:37much Francis having to be here so I'm
1:40going to start off with a I'm going to
1:42read it apart from your book that I
1:44think summarizes your concerns and we'll
1:47get in maybe translate with some of this
1:49uh stuff means for people who
1:52um who don't have a science background
1:54or think the algorithm algorithmic has
1:57something to do with Al Gore
1:59um so previously uh the Facebook news
2:03feed had been configured to optimize for
2:06how much time you spent on Facebook now
2:10after a change in the algorithm it would
2:13be reconfigured to give the most
2:14distribution to content that provoked
2:17the most interactions overnight the
2:20content creation rates were turned
2:23around give people more comments and
2:25thumbs up and they'll give Facebook more
2:28free content to sell ads against yet
2:31within six months the Civil Integrity
2:33team discovered that new content wasn't
2:36exactly free Facebook just wasn't the
2:39one paying for it democracy was paying
2:42the price Society was paying the price
2:44civil discourse was paying the price and
2:48some areas of the world people were
2:49paying the price with their lives
2:53so what is an algorithm and why is that
2:57so important when it comes to social
2:59media sure one
3:04Facebook yeah you know a lot of us are
3:06anchored in the expectation of what that
3:08is from when we first started using it
3:10back in the 2000s back then we saw
3:13things in basically the order in which
3:15our friends produced them right it was
3:17more like a an email inbox where like
3:19you're emailing you know the most recent
3:21emails are the top and it keeps going
3:22down
3:23at some point Facebook realized your
3:25friends and family make a certain amount
3:26of content on any given day you know the
3:28reality is unless you have a very very
3:30active friend Network in terms of
3:32posting you're gonna have you know
3:34probably run out of content if you like
3:35using Facebook and people people were
3:38okay with that it used to be you knew
3:40when when it ended once when to stop you
3:42knew when to log off
3:44but Facebook realized If instead of
3:46having your friends basically pick what
3:47you see if they could pull from pull
3:50from like a much larger pool of content
3:52they could just keep you on there for
3:54longer and longer and so they invented a
3:56little computer program that said Hey
3:58how do we pick from this giant pool of
4:01content so you know when you open your
4:03phone there's probably a hundred
4:05thousand or a million pieces of content
4:07you'll post a video whatever that they
4:10could show you maybe this is stuff that
4:12you know your friend didn't create but
4:13they commented on you know maybe this is
4:15something from a group you joined or a
4:17group you were invited to for and for 30
4:19days Facebook treated that like a join
4:23um
4:23all that content they have to decide
4:25what's the first thing I'm going to show
4:27you and that process of picking out okay
4:29I'm going to show you this first I'm
4:30going to show you the second I'm going
4:31to show you this third that is an
4:32algorithm
4:34got it and this change that happened it
4:37used to be to encourage you to stay on
4:39uh so you can see Grandmama's uh
4:41biscuits you took a picture of is now
4:43showing you other things that are
4:45outside your family is that right so so
4:47the transition like the reason why they
4:48moved from saying let's just let your
4:50friends pick what you're going to see
4:51yeah to let's figure out a way that we
4:55could grow the pool of what you might
4:57want to look at that was done so they
4:59could keep you on there longer okay the
5:01change that you talk about that you from
5:03the excerpt for my book
5:04um talks about you know Facebook has to
5:07decide every time they change that
5:09process because that process of picking
5:11what goes for a second third fourth it's
5:13actually very very complicated you know
5:15it's going to be thousands and thousands
5:16of lines of computer code
5:18um taking into consideration all kinds
5:20of different factors
5:21if we're trying to say this version of
5:23the algorithm is better than that one we
5:25need to have something called a goal
5:26function we need to be able to say Hey
5:29you know if this out if this version
5:31keeps you on the platform for longer
5:33it's better or in the case of the change
5:35they said hey we need people to interact
5:38more
5:39because when you get more interaction
5:40you make more content
5:42they switched over and said that's how
5:44we're going to assess A or B
5:46got it got it
5:48so there's been a lot of talk about
5:50Facebook and other social media
5:52platforms being a closed company or an
5:55opaque company I think that's the
5:56language that you use what do you mean
5:58by that so for you know basically the
6:01the history of the Industrial Revolution
6:02right so for the last
6:05we have been living in a world where as
6:07the economy got more complicated as it
6:09grew it produced products that we could
6:12inspect ourselves right like if you buy
6:14a car even if you don't know anything
6:16about cars today you can buy books you
6:19can go on the internet people will
6:21explain to you how do I take apart this
6:22car how do I fix this car
6:24um if you look at Facebook there is
6:27almost nothing you can do to actually
6:30understand the inner workings of what's
6:31happening on the platform and I'll give
6:34you an example of just how the world has
6:35changed and even the last 20 years so
6:37we're not even talking about you know a
6:391950s automobile I
6:42when we look at something like Google
6:43because everyone who uses Google gets
6:46basically the same version there's some
6:48tweaks for things like if you search for
6:50a zoo in San Diego and a zoo in Seattle
6:52they'll show you the Seattle Zoo or the
6:54San Diego Zoo first but for overall we
6:57basically see the same things
6:58and that means I know this is going to
7:01sound like a rage if you and I sat down
7:03for three weeks and you let me teach you
7:05some programming you could meaningfully
7:07ask questions about what how does Google
7:10work like what does it show what does it
7:12not show are there biases that kind of
7:14thing because we all see the same thing
7:16if we want to do that same
7:18accountability 101 for Facebook we would
7:21have to recruit 20 000 people wow
7:24convince them to put apps on their
7:26phones or on their computers to monitor
7:28like what they were seeing because every
7:30single one of them sees a different
7:31thing like it's it's orders of magnitude
7:33more difficult to do even basic
7:35accountability that's an opaque system
7:37so why is that black box concerning when
7:40it comes to like Facebook sure
7:43so uh we need to remember
7:48I'm always grounded in is I try not to
7:49demonize Facebook I try to say Facebook
7:51is a company working within a system of
7:54incentives and the behavior we see is
7:56consistent with that kind of you know uh
7:59those constraints
8:01in the case of Facebook
8:03um every time they're choosing this
8:05version of the algorithm this version of
8:06the algorithm
8:08we could be assessing is this good or
8:10bad on a lot of different dimensions we
8:12could say things like are people going
8:14to bed when they want to go to bed
8:16our kids getting shown more or less
8:19dangerous content uh is it making more
8:22ad money is it creating more engagement
8:24there's a lot of different ways we could
8:26assess them and right now we are left
8:29with having you just trust them that the
8:31optimizations they're making are good
8:33for society it's kind of like if we were
8:36making that car right imagine a world
8:39where we couldn't measure air pollution
8:41outside the factory
8:42if the company was trying to decide oh
8:44we have this industrial process here
8:46this one but this one creates a lot of
8:48toxic air pollution
8:50imagine if we couldn't know that
8:52trade-off had even taken place and
8:54that's what's happening inside of
8:55companies like Facebook or any other
8:57company where the product is on a data
9:00center it's on a chip
9:02those companies are opaque to our
9:04ability to assess them and I guarantee
9:07you those those little agonizing
9:08trade-offs are happening every day
9:11and we have to just trust that you know
9:13their better angels are saying no we're
9:15going to turn down that profit we're
9:16going to turn down those expenses you
9:18have a line in the book that I love the
9:20um that we were relying on big Tech to
9:23grade their own homework yeah right yeah
9:25that really uh struck with me
9:28um we're gonna get to some more of your
9:30concerns and allegations that are laid
9:32out in your book but I'd love to take
9:33people back sure
9:35um I love your backstory
9:37um you grew up in Iowa I would say Iowa
9:41City uh attending a public elementary
9:43school and publicize public high school
9:45in public high school you are the
9:46daughter of two professors one Professor
9:49two professors two professors and the
9:51great granddaughter of a Dean yeah
9:53so academics uh was very important to
9:56you growing up or at least to your
9:58family I imagine my parents
10:00never put pressure on us to go
10:03into a household like um our house had
10:04at least 5 000 books in it right like
10:07like every single room except the
10:08laundry room which was maybe like four
10:10feet by four feet or six feet by six
10:12feet had books in it including bathrooms
10:14right
10:15um just because my parents didn't like
10:16where to stash them so it's just a
10:18different environment and did you grow
10:20up
10:21um
10:21in the sciences and math you know
10:24thinking about where you ended up I
10:25would think that you know you had a dry
10:27erase board at the kitchen table Yeah so
10:29interesting so
10:30um I would say like uh early on I was
10:34exposed a lot to my parents left to
10:36Garden so I grew a lot of food like I I
10:38really like I love growing plants and
10:41it's funny there's like I look back on
10:43my college Years and there's this like
10:44singular moment where like I feel like
10:45the course of my life veered which was I
10:48was taking biology because we had to use
10:50requirement and I was talking to my
10:52professor I was like guys like you know
10:53I've kind of thought about like what if
10:54I got like a botany PhD because like my
10:57mom was a botany minor right
11:00um and or one of her majors in college
11:02was about it was botany
11:04um and my my professor said everything
11:06interesting and botany got resolved in
11:08the 70s which is not true right but like
11:11I'm a naive 19 year old like I don't
11:13know if that's true or not yeah I
11:14sometimes wonder like God how different
11:15would my life have been and be like hey
11:17I could grow plants every day right and
11:20like see where they go but um no so I
11:22that was kind of you know it's I think
11:24uh gardening and growing plants is a
11:26great way to expose kids to the idea
11:28that your actions can have consequences
11:30so right because like I had a plot of
11:33ground and if I worked that ground if I
11:35tilt it before we planted I got a
11:37different outcome yes than if I had not
11:39done that right and my brother and I had
11:41very different attitudes on like how we
11:43cultivated our own spaces right and uh
11:46and I I got I really liked um like
11:49building toys right so like my parents
11:51had an attitude of they they wouldn't
11:54buy me toys except for like Christmas or
11:56birthdays I could save my allowance but
11:58if I wanted basically anything from the
12:00hardware store they would give me the
12:01thing from the hardware store gotcha and
12:03so we had built stuff out of PVC pipes
12:05and or they take me to the arts and
12:07crafts store you know I loved elaborate
12:09doll houses that kind of
12:11um and so I came into High School
12:12thinking I'm I want to go to MIT
12:15that was kind of my goal and I joined
12:18debate because I like they always tell
12:20you like you need to be well-rounded
12:21like if you're just like a math and
12:23science person okay it's actually harder
12:25to get into some of the more prestigious
12:27things and the thing I found so funny
12:29was by the time I left High School I
12:31learned enough more about the world that
12:33I didn't want to go
12:34to a place I got my tea okay I really
12:37wanted to go to like Yale yes and um I
12:40didn't get any assistance in applying to
12:41college so like my parents are
12:43sufficiently hands off that like no one
12:46sat me down and was like Hey you are
12:48most likely to get in if you fill out
12:49the forms this way yes and uh and as a
12:52result I got into MIT Caltech and Olin
12:55yes
12:56um and so now imagine you're this like
12:5818 year old and you're like I I totally
13:00get why I was accepted to these schools
13:02like this was actually what I set out to
13:03do when I was you know 14. team but I I
13:06really wanted to be a policy major or
13:07something
13:09this is the part I fantastic so you
13:11decided to go into debate to round out
13:14your application get into this technical
13:16school yeah
13:17but you seem to fall in love with debate
13:19I mean you taught debate in college too
13:22right to local high schools so you fell
13:24in love with them I I um this is again
13:27one of these things were like if you
13:28want to get into a good graduate program
13:30you need community service that kind of
13:32thing and um I really yeah I really I
13:34love teaching yeah right I love I love
13:36helping people wrestle with issues that
13:38are meaningful to them right right and
13:41um coaching high school debate is really
13:42fun because smart high schoolers have a
13:46lot of um they have a lot of emotions
13:48right like they can understand enough of
13:50the world they feel conflicted they
13:52might feel agonized
13:54um and like one of the things that you
13:56know if we can get certain building
13:58blocks around like reasonable guard
14:00rails on on social media in place like I
14:04would love to work with high schoolers
14:05on like
14:07you know how do we live with the digital
14:08world you know like what is a scaled
14:10intervention with high schoolers and
14:12Junior High kids for a world where we've
14:15actually lost a lot of Social Capital
14:17like a lot of skills about in-person
14:19connection because these kids have been
14:21online since they were eight right and
14:24so that's kind of like one of my dreams
14:25once we get like the legal the legal
14:28piece is kind of like squared away love
14:30it love it yeah
14:31so um I I love your book for many
14:34reasons but I'd like that throughout
14:36your story you say by the way this
14:38helped me later on when I became a
14:39whistleblower yeah like you did that
14:40throughout the book which I love in
14:42which when I hear whistleblower stories
14:44I can't help but do that myself I see
14:46that the seats here what became
14:51the my husband
14:53so
14:56the internet I'm not saying he believes
14:58them but he loves them as like cultural
15:01artifacts right because they tell you
15:03like what are people's fears or the you
15:04know their how they view the world and
15:07um uh he like the thing that drove me
15:10crazy when after my Senate testimony was
15:12there was a large number of people
15:13online who said she couldn't be that
15:15good right
15:16and and or or she must be a government
15:19plant because there's no way she could
15:20be that good right or you know an
15:22interesting but a sentence together yeah
15:25and so part of why I include all the
15:26great stuff is like you know my coach in
15:28high school he became the head of the
15:30national debate Association yeah right
15:32right like he was that good or like I
15:34was the sea debater right they're like
15:36the the top drank person in the country
15:38the second ranked person in the country
15:39were both on my team yeah and so I never
15:42thought I was like that good at these
15:44things because compared to them you know
15:46right yeah
15:48so you got into MIT Caltech and Olin
15:52Olin at that time was not yet accredited
15:55no it was a first class you were the
15:57first class 30-something freshmen uh we
16:00had 75 75 totally there were 30 that
16:02didn't experimental here before us and
16:04then all together we made 75 for
16:06her so to me that says entrepreneur
16:08we're like I'm gonna take a chance on
16:10them and they're going to take a chance
16:12on me why did you pick Olin right it's
16:14interesting like I think it a lot of
16:16people
16:18look have a really high risk tolerance
16:20yes and like the thing that
16:22like I I'm always shocked when people
16:24say that because like I'm someone who
16:26builds like little risk waterfalls where
16:28it's like you know what does it mean to
16:30actually make this choice and for me
16:32um I skipped a grade in junior high
16:34right so I knew I was already Young
16:36and I was like you know I got into these
16:39other places once I'm not going to be
16:41less interesting if I go do this for a
16:44year
16:45like why not go take this experiment
16:47right right and so
16:49um uh I've eaten is like not very risky
16:51because I was like if it's interesting
16:52it's gonna be really cool and if it's
16:54like a dud whatever it's like my Gap
16:56Year yes fascinating so Olin College of
16:59Engineering in Massachusetts uh very
17:02well respected engineering school today
17:04today maybe not impacted
17:07um tell me about your experience there
17:13Olin is uh with sometimes known as like
17:15a lab school so it exists to develop new
17:19ways to teach engineering and they
17:21actively coach other engineering
17:22programs on like here's other ways you
17:24can get higher performance more
17:26participation out of your students
17:28because for context back in the early
17:3290s the Natural Science Foundation came
17:34out and said hey like we have a method
17:38for teaching engineering that was
17:40established in like the 40s and 50s
17:42right right it was like we're gonna have
17:44this giant military-industrial complex
17:46and Engineers need to slot into their
17:48desk in a 5 000 person military military
17:51industrial complex contractor and like
17:54make their widget really well yeah right
17:57we're about to move into a world with
17:58cold Wars over like we're gonna need
18:00Engineers to go into the world and like
18:03listen to people and understand their
18:04problems and then go solve those
18:06problems with engineering and then
18:08actually bring things to Market like
18:10that's a very different set of skills
18:12then you're going to sit at your desk
18:14you're gonna be happy with it yeah and
18:15you're gonna like contribute to them
18:17soon
18:18and uh 2000 rolled around so nine years
18:21eight years later
18:22and nothing had changed right because
18:24there's institutional inertia right like
18:26coming in and saying hey we have to
18:27rethink how we do this is a really hard
18:29question and
18:31um the Olin Foundation which at that
18:34point had given I think on the order of
18:35like 70 or 80 buildings uh like large
18:38engineering buildings and science
18:40buildings to universities around the
18:41country
18:43um noticed that even though they framed
18:46these gifts as transformational uh they
18:49were starting to give second second
18:50buildings to college campuses so this
18:53was meant to be transformational like
18:55why am I giving you another building
18:56right
18:57um and so they decided instead of
18:59continuing to do this they were going to
19:00make a terminal gift and found a college
19:05College of Engineering ended up being
19:08that terminal gift
19:10um so they came in and said let's
19:12actually try to change how engineering's
19:14taught and so Olin put a much larger
19:17emphasis on the humanities it put a much
19:19larger emphasis on design like all the
19:22skills around if you know if I was going
19:25to sit down with you and talk to you
19:26about your problems you know how would I
19:28elicit for me like actually being able
19:30to like um
19:32communication isn't just about being
19:33able to hear it's about can I make you
19:35feel safe enough you can talk yes and
19:37and can we can we see each other eye to
19:39eye kind of thing
19:40um you know how do you teach people
19:42those skills and um I'm I'm extremely
19:45grateful I got that experience because
19:46it meant that uh I came into the world
19:49with for example a lot more history
19:51classes like I I might effectively
19:53minored in Cold War studies because I
19:55really like history
19:57um I like the intersection of like
19:58history and technology in that space
20:00um I you know I I took a bunch of design
20:02classes so I was good at uh seeing like
20:05understand people's problems and like
20:07how do people interact with the world
20:08which is why I got the job at Google
20:10right so you mentioned your favorite
20:13class in college yeah was it Wellesley a
20:15seminar class can you talk about that
20:17yes
20:18um the biogeography yes yes so uh uh so
20:21what is it my favorites but definitely
20:23been the most useful
20:25um uh so uh Olin and Wellesley are five
20:28minutes apart by car and uh they're very
20:31close collaborators and if I ever get an
20:33SEC award I'm going to give like a large
20:35fraction of it to Wellesley because I
20:37think I think they're just amazing and
20:39uh
20:40the uh I took this class on biogeography
20:44which is the the distribution of living
20:46things around the world
20:48um and for context uh biogeography uh
20:52deals a lot with something called
20:53speciation which is you had this animal
20:56here on the mainland
20:57there's a scattering across this series
21:00of islands where it gets slightly
21:01different over time like how does that
21:03happen like how do you go from species a
21:05to species B
21:07um and what's interesting about that is
21:08you have to I understand kind of like
21:12what are the forces that are pulling
21:13these populations apart
21:15and why this was so important to my
21:17career later on was we think of AI as
21:20very clean you know like before I gave
21:22the analogy of like is version a of your
21:25algorithm better or is version B better
21:28the reality is when we talk about
21:30industrial artificial intelligence which
21:33these systems are a form of
21:35there's not one stakeholder there's not
21:38one way of assessing is this good or bad
21:40there's 20 or 30 stakeholders right is
21:44it good for kids is it good for people
21:46who don't speak English is it good for
21:49older people is it good for new users
21:51power users there's a lot of different
21:53ways to cut that that problem and
21:56biogeography taught me how to think
21:58about populations instead of being like
22:00here is a population is it good or is it
22:02bad to be like no every population is
22:05heterogeneous it has lots of different
22:08things and when you put a differential
22:10force on that when you put something
22:12that's going to be exerting
22:14um you know pressure
22:16some of those groups are going to move
22:18more than others and that way of
22:20thinking is is not obvious but it ended
22:24up being super impactful in my time at
22:26Pinterest which is the first time I
22:27really started dealing with we have to
22:30think about success in these numerical
22:32ways it was extremely useful at my time
22:34at Facebook
22:36so you graduate as a history loving
22:38engineer
22:39and you find yourself going to the West
22:42Coast to work for Google how did that
22:44happen uh they're the only ones who gave
22:46me a job wow it was really simple I
22:50[Music]
22:53I graduated from college like I thought
22:54I would go try to do a startup
22:57um I I a lot of my friends I think were
22:59smarter and they went straight to get
23:01phds they're like we're not accredited
23:03I'm gonna weigh this out for a couple
23:05years oh yeah when you graduated yeah
23:06your school wasn't yet or credits okay
23:08so we were um for to give you context uh
23:12there's another small engineering
23:13College called Harvey Mudd which is on
23:15the west coast uh when they went through
23:18their accreditation process they
23:20actually accepted
23:21it's either two or four transfer
23:23students
23:25as Juniors when their main kids were
23:27freshmen okay because that allowed them
23:30to educate a few students so they could
23:33get accreditation yes in the case of
23:36Olin we all came in as one batch and so
23:39when we hit that wall
23:41which is graduation
23:42there was a six month lag before we got
23:45a credit
23:45right so I graduated with an
23:47unaccredited engineering degree and one
23:49of the things I talk about in the book
23:50is that I you know
23:53baby Engineers like when you go first
23:55you know crack out of the egg of an
23:56undergraduate education you're not super
23:59useful right you're you're very raw
24:01you're informed you can be very bright
24:03and will have potential but like you you
24:05really need to be embedded in a
24:07community like a company that can help
24:10you actually then you know get to the
24:12boots on the ground face right
24:14and the companies that generally do that
24:17kind of formation are in as a general
24:19role in terms of the largest share of
24:21that work are big companies
24:23and those big companies because they
24:25know they're channeling a bunch of young
24:27Engineers through a filtering process
24:29they often have long timelines you know
24:31it's like you apply in the fall to start
24:33a full year later
24:35they have strict criteria because they
24:37want to be fair an unaccredited
24:39engineering degree is going to
24:40immediately knock you out of that
24:42pipeline
24:43um and I hadn't really thought about all
24:45those constraints when I was either in
24:47school or uh you know applying to
24:49bowling and so what was interesting was
24:52Google didn't really care right like
24:54Google had you know they they had enough
24:57money that they could be like whatever
24:58we'll do a bespoke process for everyone
25:00some other best Engineers for high
25:03school dropouts right why would they
25:05care for my engineering degree was
25:06accredited
25:07um and I I got the initial interview
25:10because one of my professors had worked
25:12with an early engineer at Google okay
25:15and then when I got on on the ground at
25:19for my in-person interviews I was like I
25:21have to get this job I have to get this
25:24job there have been no other like you
25:26know tentacles out for like interesting
25:27jobs that have made any real movement
25:30um and so I I made a portfolio of
25:33product ideas like I I sat there and I'd
25:35run the yearbook in college and these
25:38skills that we don't realize are going
25:39to be useful in the future so I laid out
25:41like 10 really lovely designed product
25:43ideas for Google and explain like why
25:45this would be good for the business
25:46model and I made a bunch of copies so
25:48each interviewer could have their own
25:50you know glossy folder kind of thing and
25:54uh in the the you know eight years I was
25:58at Google so I would go for most of my
26:00career I before I got sick and the uh
26:05it's it's really fascinating so I
26:07interviewed probably 150 people for that
26:09job so associate product manager or
26:12product manager like one so Junior
26:14product managers
26:15um in the entire time how many people
26:18even brought their resume to the
26:20interview
26:21how many give me a guess I would guess
26:23half at least five wow maybe five right
26:26no one brought anything because like
26:28probably the recruiter was like you
26:29don't even bring anything right we have
26:30look we have a PDF
26:32um uh so imagine I show up and I'm like
26:34here yeah I really want this job yes uh
26:37and I ended up being the the first woman
26:39hired into that program in 14 months wow
26:43so 30 men got hired and then me
26:46and and I'm an anomaly because I have an
26:49analog not a digital analog electrical
26:52engineering degree
26:53and 80 of everyone else has a CS degree
26:56right
26:57so you talk about it we'll talk about
26:59harvests go up here in a second but you
27:01talk about Blue Ocean strategy which by
27:03the way is my favorite book yeah one of
27:05my favorite books this idea of don't do
27:07what everyone else does find your spot
27:09plant your flag and and go out in that
27:11direction how much is that color what
27:13you do it seems like you you do that in
27:15every stop I would say like
27:18um
27:19I think because I have always like I've
27:21never so I I very deeply have actually
27:25back up one so there's a lot of things
27:27about like how I grew up or or who I am
27:29that I didn't really understand until I
27:31studied abroad in Sweden so I started
27:33around Sweden in cop in college and in
27:36in you know just like we in the United
27:38States have American history or like
27:40American sociology like classes you can
27:42take in college
27:44they have Nordic studies right they're
27:46like hey like you know this place in the
27:48world has existed for 10 000 years we
27:50have a culture there's things
27:52um and there were all those kind of
27:53programming that I had grown up with in
27:55the midwest but or with my parents
27:57because I come from a family that is
27:58Norwegian on my dad's side
28:00um that I had never had articulated and
28:02and very strongly I have certain things
28:04like you are you are no better than
28:06anyone else like you don't want to stand
28:08out like you want to blend into the
28:10crowd yeah and I had never had like
28:13those messages articulated to me until I
28:16started abroad in Sweden and my peers
28:18would like explain Nordic cultures you
28:20may be like oh we have this problem in
28:22the Midwest right yes because like for
28:25example like I'd go to class and my
28:27professor would be like I really like
28:28that you're in class Francis because you
28:30raise your hand
28:31I know what do you mean he goes if
28:33you'll notice no one else raises their
28:34hand until you raise their your hand
28:37um because it's considered arrogant that
28:39you would presume that you had an answer
28:41that other people did interesting right
28:43so so imagine uh you have that that's
28:46the program that runs in the back of
28:47your head like I feel very earnestly
28:49about this
28:51um I
28:52it means that you have the freedom to
28:54also just go do things that make you
28:55happy right like if you don't think
28:57there's something special about you it's
28:59like why wouldn't you go just do the
29:01thing that makes you happy and and and
29:03that's just like what I've always done
29:05is you know I've I in high school I
29:08found myself in all these Pockets where
29:10like I was the only girl you know I
29:11would do robotics or something or I did
29:14math very very well so math competitions
29:16and
29:17um you know it it makes you have to
29:19become comfortable with the idea that
29:21you're just different
29:22right right it doesn't mean you're
29:24you're special like I said the Nordic
29:26programming it's right in the back but
29:27it's like you know you might as well
29:28just go do what you want to do because
29:31you know somebody's different about you
29:32and just go go wander as a field love it
29:34yeah
29:36um so speaking of trying to do something
29:37different Harvard Business School
29:40um I'm a little confused about the
29:41timeline there oh sure did you apply
29:43before you went to Google okay okay yeah
29:45why you decided to go apply to Harvard
29:48Business School and buy how did all that
29:51work out so when I was in college
29:53um the
29:55they so HBS saw a trend
29:58which was the average number of years of
30:01work experience people had was going up
30:02and up each year yeah because people
30:05were looking at the admissions criteria
30:07they're saying like the average class I
30:09would say like you know the average
30:10student at HBS has three years of
30:12college oh I need three years of college
30:13right now College work experience yes
30:15now it's three and a half now it's four
30:17now it's four and a half true and uh
30:19when I was in college it had gone up to
30:21four and a half and it was creeping into
30:23a window where um if it got any loose
30:25basically a large fraction of all the
30:27women in the program because it was
30:29going to start to conflict with like
30:30when people generally start having kids
30:32and so uh they were like if we want to
30:35have a diverse class and we want to like
30:37not have us go until people have 15
30:39years of work experience right because
30:41that's that's what's going to happen for
30:42sure
30:43um I we need to start intentionally
30:46figuring out how we bring in people
30:47earlier
30:48and so what they did and they were kind
30:51of feeling like they were losing really
30:52high quality candidates to law school
30:54because law school could tell you you're
30:56really bright you can do anything
30:58you can go to law school right now and
31:00it used to be you could go to business
31:01school straight out College like that
31:03was a common thing and so they said
31:05we're going to start this program where
31:07we want you to apply your senior year
31:10and we'll tell you at your senior
31:11whether or not you have a guaranteed
31:13seat interesting only back then they
31:16hadn't formalized into a program now so
31:18now it's called two plus two so it's
31:20like go do two years where experience
31:21two years of HBS we'll do a bunch of fun
31:24enrichment in those two years before you
31:25go Network you will be fun
31:28um I was before that I was like part of
31:29the experimental cohort and um and so
31:32they kind of told us in this open house
31:34you just go straight from college
31:36and then I get this deferral letter so I
31:39I don't get I don't get straight in I
31:42get told go get a job and I was like any
31:44job I need to feel the time yeah go go
31:46work and I was like uh and so when I
31:50wrote to HPS because I I think they
31:52assumed if you're good enough to have
31:54made it through our Hoops of course you
31:56have a job
31:57right there's no way you wouldn't have a
31:58job
31:59and I because I was this little anomaly
32:01in terms of like I have an unaccredited
32:03engineering degree
32:04I like kind of broke their their little
32:06mold so that's why getting that job at
32:09Google was so adorable yeah got it well
32:11it's also like uh the process of trying
32:13to get a job made me realize it was
32:15going to be hard to get a job got it
32:16right because I applied to something
32:18like 55 jobs and I got
32:22maybe four phone screens and three
32:24in-person interviews no two in-person
32:26interviews and do you think that's
32:27because of the unaccredited College I
32:29think I couldn't get over the first time
32:30got it yeah okay so at Google I know you
32:33worked on a bunch of different things
32:34um and I didn't know how to apply for
32:36jobs rather so today if I
32:42we're gonna find people who work at that
32:43company we're gonna send a whole bunch
32:44of emails be like I'm really interested
32:46in your company can we do a phone call
32:47uh I if someone those phone calls went
32:50well I'd be like could you recommend me
32:51you know like I would have known this is
32:54the dance you do yes and I didn't know
32:55that my parents are academics right they
32:57you get a PhD and then you do a
32:59fellowship and you know this is a master
33:01class for people graduating from college
33:04who don't quite understand
33:06how to get that next step yeah right
33:08you're doing something different
33:11thinking through the job that you're
33:13applying for the company what their
33:15needs are showing up to the interview
33:16with pre-thought
33:19yeah
33:20um I hope everyone's listening to that
33:22so Google books yeah became part of your
33:25focuses
33:26um so you grew up in a house with 5 000
33:28books makes sense that you would
33:29gravitate in that area so what were you
33:31working on with Google Books oh sure
33:34um it's also like I spent a huge amount
33:36of my high school years in large
33:39academic libraries right it's a the
33:41University of Iowa is an incredibly
33:43generous institution in that you can
33:45walk in as a community member and say
33:46like a library card and get one and the
33:49nearest kind of public space to where I
33:52lived was either the hospital or the law
33:55library right like that and so sitting
33:58in a hospital Corridor is not like a
34:00great place to do your homework sitting
34:01in a totally empty Law Library great
34:03place to do your homework so I I had
34:05like this emotional attachment to
34:08um libraries and my my great
34:11grandfather's portrait hangs in the Iowa
34:12law library so like there was a table
34:14where I could send do my homework and
34:15like he was there right and
34:18um the uh I so I I I finished my first
34:24year at Google so they assign you to a
34:26job first year on this program
34:28rotational Management program and I
34:30worked on ads which was a really
34:31educational experience
34:33um I and then you do your first rotation
34:36and um Marissa Meyer who is then my
34:39boss's boss or no I said I was in the
34:41ads change but she was she ran the
34:42program okay later CEO Yahoo yes okay
34:45yeah
34:47um she suggested I go talk to Google
34:49books like it hadn't even really been on
34:50my reader and as soon as she suggested I
34:52was like oh that's fascinating yeah
34:54um because I I have this like little
34:56secret dream uh which is not that secret
34:59because it's in the book um which is uh
35:01because I was a cold war studies minor I
35:04knew that in the early 90s this is like
35:08right after the wall Falls
35:10academics went into Russia and started
35:12scanning the Soviet archives
35:14because it was like this moment of like
35:16openness
35:17and this moment of openness lasted for
35:20like four years five years and then I
35:23Russia started to get embarrassed by
35:25some of the stuff was getting published
35:26and they closed things back down and so
35:29the only record of this period of time
35:32like this incredibly important like why
35:34did the world shift in these ways is now
35:36found in microface in the United States
35:38or like digitized microfiche in the
35:40United States
35:41um and and I have this dream that one
35:43day we you know all of these things are
35:45cyclical like part of why I can work on
35:48things like social media reform is I
35:50don't think I'm months or years I think
35:52on decades and like one day Russia will
35:56open up again like it might take 50
35:58years but there'll be another moment and
36:00I told my manager when I did my first
36:02interview for Google books I was like
36:03one day
36:05we can go scan the rest of the archive
36:07right like that's why I want to work on
36:09Google Books and I think he didn't
36:11expect to hear that and so I got the job
36:14um but I the thing I worked on Google
36:15Books I worked on a bunch of different
36:16things um so I launched their first API
36:19yeah yeah which is the ability to have
36:22um outside applications from Google
36:23they'll use Google data
36:26um I launched the first mobile book
36:28reader so like we the New York Times
36:31like we beat uh the Kindle to the iPhone
36:35okay much things like that
36:37um but the main thing I worked on was
36:39something called uh search quality so we
36:43take for granted that you know we talk
36:44about algorithms before about you know
36:46what's the first post the second post
36:47the third post when it comes to search
36:49results it's very similar so we look
36:52across all the possible things we could
36:53show you and we say this is going to be
36:55the first this is gonna be the second
36:56it's gonna be the third thing we're
36:57going to show you and and that process
37:01was only just starting like that field
37:04right
37:05was very young right so uh even at
37:08Google so this is 2007. they had only
37:11really Gotten Good at formalizing it in
37:14less than the last 10 years right this
37:16is Google's form in 96 Ahmed Sim call
37:19Amit singhal came in from Amazon and
37:23like basically helped them rewrite
37:24search maybe in 2000 2001. wow or like
37:28even even Google which we think of like
37:30oh Google knows how to do everything
37:31right even Google struggled to be like
37:33how do you
37:35consistently over time make search
37:37results better like it's not obvious
37:39yeah
37:41um and uh so that that art
37:45you know there are very few places in
37:47the world that you could you could learn
37:48it and my engineering director could not
37:51get a product manager from the proper
37:53search quality team to work on Books
37:55Okay because the search team was like
37:57books only of old data like why would we
37:59care old information
38:02um uh and so he's like Francis you're
38:03smart I'm going to teach you how to do
38:05this
38:07um and the other part that I I'm so
38:09grateful for was he this was early
38:12enough in the the the the time of like
38:15we should use data to make decisions
38:17right it sounds like Bonkers in 2023
38:21sure but this is 2007. you know the
38:23first people in the world with the title
38:24data scientists are getting that title
38:26that right for a different time
38:29um you know he's he's invested in
38:31building out the first kind of database
38:33for behavior on Google Books he's like I
38:37can't get anyone to use it but I can
38:38order you to use them
38:41tell me interesting things yeah um or
38:43like my my actual boss like the product
38:46manager director he'd be like I have to
38:48speak at a conference
38:50tell me something interesting from our
38:52Vlogs like the the records of how people
38:53interact with things and so I'm getting
38:56this interesting on the ground
38:57experience in learning data science
38:59because these two people are like no one
39:02will tell us anything like you have to
39:04go find it and I and so I got this
39:06education that I would have gotten if
39:08I'd worked on just about anything else
39:10not taught in schools not in a book yeah
39:12it's on the ground yeah yeah
39:15um so at some point and actually to draw
39:17the circle back yeah yeah that's one of
39:19the fundamental problems that we as like
39:21a society have to talk about yes which
39:24is we have these opaque systems so these
39:26these these very complicated Technical
39:28Systems that are directing the
39:31information in our societies and the way
39:33you get to learn about them is you have
39:35to get a job at the company
39:37inside the walls yes and now you are you
39:39have to be bought in you have there's
39:42Stakes for like sharing that information
39:44and that is a societal problem that we
39:46have to talk about so I will certainly
39:49come back to your story um the that
39:52concern is
39:53I think really goes to the Crux I think
39:56what a lot of people certainly what I do
39:58have a concern about you know especially
39:59with publicly traded companies oh the
40:01fact that we have closed opaque
40:03companies have a black box you can't we
40:06can't tell you what's happening inside
40:07of and but just trust us and invest with
40:09us is a real problem right huge problem
40:11so so um
40:15be on the screen yeah and one of the
40:18stakeholder groups we want to work with
40:19is investors and usually when you form a
40:22non-profit you're like oh like we're
40:24gonna help the puppies we're going to
40:25help the children we're going to help
40:27you know Wonderful Elders in our
40:29community
40:30um not very many people are like we got
40:31to help the investors right but the
40:34reality is right now we have large
40:37powerful institutions that allocate huge
40:40amounts of Capital Money uh to influence
40:43like where the world is going to go and
40:45those large like these people who should
40:47be making important allocation decisions
40:49in terms of like we as a society are
40:52going to invest our our hard-earned
40:54gains in this way or that way they're
40:56saying to us things like we got
40:58blindsided by Facebook
41:00like we were told this is always going
41:02to go up
41:03we were never told any of the risks we
41:05didn't even know what questions to ask
41:07like if we had been dealing with a car
41:09company we could have said hey we've
41:11noticed a larger number of complaints
41:12are coming in or we could say hey we've
41:14noticed there are more lawsuits what's
41:16going on what's your plan to deal with
41:18that we could have played our
41:19accountability role and because we have
41:22been denied the chance to even learn
41:24what questions to ask
41:26we can't play that accountability role
41:29in society
41:31that element of transparency and
41:33accountability are so important
41:36um
41:37not just from an Institutional Investor
41:39standpoint but for Mom and Pop shops
41:42that are trying to invest they're
41:43totally hard-earned money right
41:44retirement accounts very important
41:46um I I love that you have the business
41:49background too yeah if we can talk about
41:51Harvard Business School for a second so
41:53we came there you had some uh work
41:56experience your Google you had your uh
41:59studying Cold War uh
42:03how did Harvard Business School change
42:06your thinking about the way the world
42:08operates so I came into to Harvard
42:12um really caring about organizational
42:14health so have you seen the TV show
42:16Silicon Valley yes so I have only seen
42:20maybe two or three episodes of the show
42:22because uh for for your listeners or
42:24your viewers
42:26um it's supposed to be a comedy yeah
42:27right the TV TV comedy
42:30um I think of it as a documentary
42:31because most of the they they did a
42:34really really good job of of talking to
42:36actual people in Silicon Valley to get
42:38the jokes and the circumstances and all
42:40those things and things they play for
42:42Laughs I've seen happen to real people
42:44and they're it's not funny it's not
42:46funny what happens to a real person and
42:48um none of it happened to me but um like
42:51I watch things like I had a co-worker
42:53who
42:55um uh was was underperforming and uh
42:58instead of just like firing them they
43:01moved everyone else off the team but
43:04left him and then left him in a room by
43:06himself yeah so every other engineer
43:08sits in a room with like four or six
43:09people and he's down this little
43:11twisting hallway and the only person who
43:13talks to him is me because I I'm still
43:15his product manager I would like him to
43:17work you know
43:19um but think about that's the rest
43:21invest story from Silicon Valley and and
43:24so you know I go into HBS being like I
43:26really care about how organizations can
43:28be healthy
43:29how you know we spend a third of Our
43:31Lives on work like how can we make
43:33certain places where people thrive where
43:35people can be most fully impactful in
43:38the world
43:39um we can get along with each other and
43:41uh so I came out that goal but then I
43:43got this much much broader education so
43:46they make a State political economy
43:48classes and ethics classes and uh I took
43:52a class on green business that was super
43:54fascinating because a lot of those
43:56consequences you know
43:5813 years down the road they're playing
44:00out now right
44:02um uh the
44:04I I think the most important thing I
44:07learned at HBS though was that the world
44:09changes incredibly slowly
44:11right so in Silicon Valley you know all
44:14of the funding Cycles are on two-year
44:16time Horizons it's like you tell us how
44:18You're Gonna Change the World in two
44:19years and now it's shifting a little bit
44:21because companies generally IPO in like
44:23seven to ten years yeah so people say I
44:25want to know a longer Arc but in 2006
44:282007 like we were still in the wake of
44:32the 90s
44:33where like you know Netscape uh an ipo'd
44:3718 months after was founded for billions
44:39of dollars yeah right and so you listen
44:42to people talking it's very much like if
44:44I don't do X by the time I'm 30 I failed
44:46yes
44:47so I go to HBS and I learn basically
44:50every name brand company you've heard of
44:52or like people or or like things that
44:54were interesting that companies have
44:55done they take like 10 years
44:58and and I think the secondary thing I
45:00learned there was you know they may I I
45:03I took a class inadvertently like I took
45:06a class because I wanted a specific
45:08class schedule like I only want to go to
45:10school like two and a half days a week
45:12um I want to go build a code at Google I
45:14want to go travel my other time
45:16um
45:17the this class was about the idea that
45:20every executive
45:22like we can look at their lives and say
45:24oh they got an escalator of success and
45:26it was just like straight up to the top
45:27but the reality is that when you sit
45:29down with CEOs and ask them about their
45:31lives every single one of them has a
45:34story about a crucible they face like a
45:36moment where you know they got sick
45:38someone close them got sick they really
45:41messed up at work they maybe got a drug
45:44habit like all all kinds of things can
45:46happen
45:47and the difference between a CEO and
45:49someone who ends up in the gutter is is
45:52they've corrected right they said I can
45:54stumble and I can get back persevere and
45:57I think probably the most important
45:59thing for me on that long timer like one
46:01was you have to think about your life as
46:03a journey you have to think about his
46:05chapters you you're going to live to be
46:07quite old what are you going to do at
46:09that time but the second thing was when
46:11I got so sick in my late 20s instead of
46:14saying oh I failed you know like I was I
46:17was such a a you know top performer my
46:20entire life that's why I got each of
46:21these opportunities yeah you know now I
46:23will never get back on that course I was
46:26able to say actually no I'm going
46:27through my Crucible
46:28right like yes I can't walk yes I I'm so
46:32weak I can't feed myself yes I'm like
46:34incontinent like that's how that's how
46:36falling apart I am but I can get back up
46:38and I did and one of the things that I
46:41wanted to go into more in this book but
46:43I didn't get a chance because the book
46:44is already kind of long right like I the
46:46book I wrote is the one that I think we
46:48as a society need right now
46:50but the book I I may one day write if I
46:52ever go over the PTSD of Ryan the first
46:55one is
46:56um you know
46:58we tell ourselves stories about why we
47:01are not powerful
47:02and the thing I learned from basically
47:04losing everything right so in that
47:07moment in my life like my husband left
47:09me I lost my job because my manager at
47:11Google thought I was lying about being
47:13so sick I I was on death's door right
47:16like things that happened to me in the
47:17hospital I have a 10 fatality rate right
47:20like it's not trivial
47:22um I'm alone I uh I I lost almost all my
47:27savings renovating a house and having my
47:30like Cohen or embezzle I mean just thing
47:31after thing you know I came back from
47:34people's worst fears and rebuilt a life
47:38that I really loved before like I joined
47:40Facebook
47:41um and uh that that knowledge
47:45that we can lose things and rebuild
47:48allowed me when I faced a situation
47:50where I choose to follow my heart or not
47:53it gave me the power to pursue like what
47:57what I thought was right
47:59do you know who David Goggins is so
48:02David Goggins uh he wrote a best-selling
48:05book called can't hurt me he was a
48:0720-year Navy SEAL who went through a
48:09horrific childhood yeah over became 300
48:12pounds lost the wave Community seal
48:15um remarkable story
48:18um and he talks about all the horrible
48:20things he went through this childhood
48:22with abuse from his father and all this
48:24stuff and he goes That's My Cookie Jar
48:26when I go through a rough time I think
48:28well this isn't as bad as this right
48:30um to me it sounds like you know you had
48:32your own like jobs I'm still alive I'm
48:36still pushing for it and that's just a
48:37Common Thread we talked earlier about
48:39some of our friends who are
48:40whistleblowers they all have that story
48:42The Crucible moment so there's a great
48:44quote in your book about how long change
48:47takes you said meaningful change real
48:50change happened slowly the thing that
48:53most of us most often because of real
48:55change is the fear that we're not being
48:58successful enough fast enough yeah to
49:01great quote
49:02um so you graduate Harvard Business
49:05School and then now you're back at
49:07Google what are you doing at Google at
49:08this point
49:09um so I came back in Google and got to
49:11work on Google Plus yes so Google Plus
49:13is is I think a fascinating tale of like
49:17uh
49:19what happens when you try to start a
49:20social network with too many resources
49:22right so Google looked at what was
49:25happening on Facebook and said we're
49:27facing kind of an existential threat
49:28which is Google thrives off of an open
49:32internet you know they want people to be
49:34interacting freely they want to have a
49:36diverse ecosystem because their
49:39businesses they go pull that information
49:40from these different places and they
49:43make it easy to access
49:45Facebook on the other hand they get
49:47their power their money by owning data
49:49by owning attention by owning that
49:52ecosystem and there's no incentive for
49:55them to share
49:56right and so Google looked at that and
49:58said oh like we need to make sure we are
50:00also facilitating this kind of
50:03um you know user produced content
50:05ecosystem yeah in a way that we can
50:07access it because there is a larger and
50:09larger part of the internet that is now
50:11closed off
50:12and so they decided to start Google Plus
50:15and uh and it was really fascinating for
50:18me because it's like my first experience
50:19getting to see kind of social software
50:21so you know by the time I joined
50:23Facebook I'd worked on Google Plus Yelp
50:25and Pinterest and so it's kind of like
50:26my first chapter into that space right
50:29so the the plus part of Google was that
50:32this social work okay so Google
50:41read my my Google doc my spreadsheet
50:44um they all used like different visual
50:46language they often use different
50:48systems for saying like who are you so
50:51you might have multiple accounts this
50:53was like this
50:55is one of these beautiful things about
50:56the internet like the internet did not
50:58grow in a coherent beautiful package it
51:00grew in like fits and starts in
51:02different spots and the reality was
51:04across Google you might actually have
51:06five or six different Google accounts
51:09prior to 2011. yeah right so part of
51:12Google Plus was just saying hey we have
51:15never actually acknowledged that people
51:17exist
51:18right like I always like to joke that
51:21that um the design methodology of Google
51:23for a long time was you know you know
51:25after looking at all the data we have a
51:28strong suspicion that human beings exist
51:32right but but so like the Google said
51:34hey like you know part of why Facebook
51:36has been so successful is they've done
51:38actually a really good job of hiring
51:39designers and product managers even
51:41Engineers that are social you know they
51:44are people on the internet
51:46we need to actually take a hard look at
51:48at how we as a company interact with our
51:50users and say hey identity matters like
51:54I do that you are a person and the same
51:56person is using all these things
51:58relationships and interactions between
52:00people matter like we need to have the
52:02same ways of describing those
52:03relationships so that you know if if you
52:06share a bunch of stuff with someone on
52:07this application when you start typing
52:10their name on this one we should know
52:11that
52:12like you shouldn't get a random person
52:14right you should get the person you
52:15actually wanted
52:17um and so as much as people like to say
52:19Google plus failed
52:22that kind of fixing of Google or like
52:25studying the groundwork for Google
52:26saying hey you actually need to be a
52:28company that is human-centric yes I
52:30think it's been incredibly successful
52:32and even things like saying people have
52:35characteristics like you you know I
52:38don't I identify as a woman right like
52:40even things like that Google didn't have
52:42that data
52:43and and one of the things that I think
52:45is often like um not thought about
52:47enough is is Google made enough more ad
52:49Revenue just being able to let people
52:51say hey this is who I am
52:54that even though Google blew half a
52:55billion dollars in Google Plus they've
52:57easily made it up over time
52:59okay so you got sick I did yeah you
53:01talked a little bit about that
53:03um
53:05uh you took 15 months off can you talk a
53:09little bit about what happened there if
53:10you don't mind yeah so I went through a
53:13phase that started maybe six months
53:15after I joined Google Plus so I've been
53:18in grad school for 22 months uh but I've
53:21been out of the Bay Area I come back I'm
53:23healthy for maybe six months and then I
53:25start to get really tired
53:28um I started to be in a lot of pain
53:30and uh I went to the doctor number of
53:33times and they're like oh you're in a
53:34lot of pain you're tired it sounds like
53:35you have depression
53:36and I did not have depression I had a
53:39very rare slow growing clot in my leg
53:41that by the time I I ended up with a
53:44blue leg and in the hospital it was a
53:46foot long and it was the size of a cigar
53:49like the size of a hot dog this is the
53:50point where you're talking to your
53:51parents he said I think I'm gonna go get
53:52a massage and they go to the doctors
53:54like so I wake up one morning and my leg
53:57is like they're not the same color and
53:59like my my um my eventual ex-husband and
54:03I are still like friends like we still
54:04like I was still uh hang out in each
54:07other's places and he was like your legs
54:09aren't the same color and I like looked
54:10down I was like they are not the same
54:12color
54:13um and but they didn't hurt it just was
54:15yeah it was just like a slightly blue
54:17right and and one of the things I
54:18learned once I got to the hospital
54:19hospital was that if you have a blocked
54:22or excuse me a partially blocked vein or
54:25artery yeah so the blood's slowing down
54:27your body is very smart it starts to
54:29grow these things called peripherals
54:31around it and because the the flow in my
54:34leg had so slowly stopped
54:38more and more peripherals had grown
54:40around it
54:41um and so uh the
54:45um so the day that my leg turned blue
54:46was just enough of the flow had cut off
54:48and now it was just done or all those
54:50like coping mechanisms were done and
54:52that's why I was probably in so much
54:53pain for so long was I didn't have
54:55adequate Flow To My Life like there were
54:57all these issues
54:59um my heart was probably working extra
55:00hard because it's having to still move
55:02the blood around my body but now it has
55:03to do this weird thing on my leg
55:05um so I I get this like slightly blue
55:07leg I'm really I'm really tired at this
55:10point I've gone to the point where I had
55:12been using a wheelchair regularly if I
55:15needed to leave the house so like if I
55:17if I was gonna drive somewhere I'd you
55:19know walked my car I'd get in the car
55:21um but like if I had to go to the
55:23grocery store I'd probably in a
55:24wheelchair or like if I needed to like
55:26be on about for a while I broke my
55:28wheelchair yeah
55:29um because I I no one had gave me the
55:31advice that actually a walker is the way
55:32to go you don't want to go straight to a
55:33wheelchair because you want to try to
55:35move as much as possible
55:37um and uh so I I you know I called my
55:41parents I'm like what I have to do about
55:43this and and I had a massage that I was
55:45really looking forward to later that day
55:46and in the way of an invincible 29 year
55:49old I was like can I go to my massage
55:52because you know I have you know it's
55:55hard to get an appointment yeah let's
55:57make an appointment and you know like
55:58you know we feel really good and like
56:00this sucks
56:01um but the uh it's also I was raised by
56:04a doctor and my mother likes to say that
56:07doctors often have therapeutic nihilism
56:09you know this idea of like oh whatever
56:11they're not going to do anything for me
56:13um but my parents were like no you need
56:14to go to the ER right now and so I I
56:18went into the ER and uh it turned out
56:21that I had this huge clot
56:23and part of it was uh kind of
56:26formational about that time period was
56:28it it wasn't simple like I came in and
56:31they said you'll go home in three days
56:33and they kept saying that for a month
56:35thanks yeah
56:37um and it uh it turned out that because
56:40it was so large and where it was they uh
56:43because it been in there for so long the
56:46first couple of things they tried um to
56:48get it out didn't work
56:49um they ended up having to do surgery
56:50three times I I the day I was supposed
56:54to go home like 11 days in I had been so
56:57bored at this point that I was like
57:00doing science on myself basically like I
57:03I had gotten them to give me a Sharpie
57:04so I could like very precisely measure
57:07the same place on my leg each time and
57:09say like this is how much small so I'll
57:11give you an example things were so out
57:13of whack that my left leg was 10
57:15centimeters bigger
57:16than my right leg wow just because it
57:18was so swollen yeah so I could tell them
57:20things like my leg is coming down that
57:22kind of thing
57:23um because I remember I'm really bored
57:25I've been stuck in the bed for 11 days
57:26and the daily are supposed to like let
57:29me out they came by for rounds and I was
57:31like I have to weird rash on my leg it's
57:33like nuisance yesterday and they they
57:35looked down and they got really quiet
57:37and they left
57:39never a good time and um maybe it was 14
57:41days and yeah it was like 14 days in
57:43because that day my or like and then the
57:44next day so the next day my parents
57:47arrived so my parents you know like I
57:49said it's a DVT it's not supposed to be
57:51a big deal yeah
57:53um like when I first call them in the
57:54hospital they didn't know it was as big
57:56as it was and my parents were like this
57:58is no big deal your mom's had one you'll
58:00be out in three days we'll come visit
58:02you in two weeks right because like
58:04plane tickets are cheaper if you buy
58:05them all together right Thrifty
58:07Norwegians and uh so my parents finally
58:11show up and they've been monitoring
58:12where I am from afar
58:15um like my dad is calling every day
58:16because he runs a clinical Lab at a
58:19hospital and so he's a great person to
58:21have in your back pocket if you're in
58:22the hospital because he knows all the
58:24tests that all the doctors CC's orders
58:27um so my dad knows exactly how bad the
58:29situation is
58:30um I they've discovered at this point
58:32that I am so malnourished from the
58:35celiacs that
58:36protein synthesis
58:38and stuff right like this is one of
58:39those things that has unfolded right
58:41um so my parents get there
58:43and at this point the nurses have begun
58:46to take pity on me
58:48so I I I went into the hospital with
58:50like one of the most important pieces of
58:52Life advice I can give people is when
58:54you are in the hospital be nice to
58:56everyone
58:58because my father used to come home from
58:59these things called morbidity and
59:01mortality reviews it's just like where
59:03when I'm an air happens in the hospital
59:06um how why did it happen like why did
59:09this person die and he would
59:11occasionally be like
59:13if you're ever in the hospital be nice
59:15to everyone you meet because the people
59:17who die of totally unavoidable things
59:19are usually very unpleasant people or
59:22their families are yeah right and so
59:24people just don't check in on them as
59:25often so I'm being like really nice to
59:27everyone trying really hard even though
59:29I'm like not very well and so they they
59:31have taken pity on me and now have given
59:34me a single which is the isolation room
59:37so like this is even as an airlock you
59:39know if I had some mysterious disease
59:41that would put you in this room right so
59:43it's very small and my parents have come
59:45to visit me and suddenly half an hour if
59:48they come in
59:49all of my doctors appear like all of the
59:52interns appear all the residents appear
59:54my attending appears and they're like
59:57you have heparin-induced
59:58thrombocytopenia which is acronym to hit
1:00:02you've got you've got hit yeah yeah and
1:00:04that means you're having an allergic
1:00:06reaction to the drug Heparin and it is
1:00:09killing all of your platelets oh okay I
1:00:11didn't get this okay they we had to take
1:00:14it out of the book okay the all the all
1:00:16the health like how do we how do we get
1:00:18up when we fall down it has to be taken
1:00:20out because the book's so my wife is a
1:00:22physician and she's asking me it's like
1:00:24what why would she said okay now it
1:00:26makes sense that wasn't in the book okay
1:00:27okay they're like so to finish the
1:00:30sentence yeah how we're going to use
1:00:32thrombocytopenia is where you have an
1:00:33allergic reaction to Heparin which is a
1:00:36blood thinner like if you got in a car
1:00:37accident they would give you Heparin and
1:00:40it's a miracle drug it would save your
1:00:42life it would keep you from getting like
1:00:43a stroke or like an embolism in your
1:00:45lungs for one to two percent of the
1:00:47population it kills all their playlists
1:00:50so you start to bleed to death so the
1:00:52reason I had that that rash on my leg
1:00:54was I was bleeding out of my capillaries
1:00:57wow crazy and the the thing that's super
1:01:00crazy to me is they almost sent me home
1:01:03right like if they had if I hadn't been
1:01:05like bored in my hospital bed I've got
1:01:07this weird rash I would have gone home
1:01:09alone
1:01:10and I would have if I'd Fallen I could
1:01:13have let it let out right yep
1:01:15um uh because I lived alone right and
1:01:19um the so suddenly like like my parents
1:01:23were very kind and they went home and
1:01:24did a lot of research and then they
1:01:26didn't tell me any of it
1:01:27right they're like she can find out
1:01:29after if she wants to ask
1:01:31um but it meant that I might that stay
1:01:33got extended and extended extended
1:01:35because they couldn't stabilize my
1:01:36clotting like they couldn't get me into
1:01:38a place where I was safe to go home
1:01:41and so I ended up going home after about
1:01:42four weeks and I was very stubborn and I
1:01:45didn't go to a nursing home and I should
1:01:47have
1:01:48um because I was actually too weak to
1:01:49take care of myself and I ended up back
1:01:51in the hospital uh maybe six weeks six
1:01:54weeks later because I fell and if you
1:01:56look very carefully I have a little scar
1:01:57yeah um and it's because I hit my head
1:02:00and I have no memory of it
1:02:02and so I ended up in the hospital uh
1:02:04with uh Aphasia yeah so I couldn't even
1:02:07explain to the doctors like why was I
1:02:09there
1:02:11um and that time I went to rehab
1:02:13so this is the cookie jar your cookie
1:02:17jar is pretty full yeah at this point
1:02:19were you still employed with Google yeah
1:02:21because I I I
1:02:25almost Improvement plan yeah but I had
1:02:27accepted basically like a severance yep
1:02:29and I had left right right I was dealing
1:02:32with like I can either leave and know I
1:02:34have a little bit of cash yes or I can
1:02:36wait for them to fire me yeah
1:02:38um and uh I didn't actually part of what
1:02:41was um Complicated by that time period
1:02:43was I didn't know that I still qualify
1:02:45for disability
1:02:46oh yeah because if you get sick within
1:02:49like a year or something when you leave
1:02:51you actually still qualify right and um
1:02:54when I was in the hospital no right
1:02:55after I got out of the hospital one of
1:02:57the nurse practitioners like we are
1:02:58going to help you file for disability
1:03:01um and that definitely made it possible
1:03:02for me to be able to spend 15 months
1:03:05rehabbing wow
1:03:07um what a story yeah
1:03:09so you have this experience you almost
1:03:12died yeah absolutely
1:03:15um
1:03:15you decide to go back to work at some
1:03:18point yeah I I felt like I had to go
1:03:20back to where when I did because I was
1:03:21out of savings you didn't want to tap
1:03:22your retirement funds yes I should have
1:03:24done that so that's an advice you give
1:03:26in the book I do in the book I say like
1:03:27we hear over and over and over again do
1:03:30not touch your retirement funds yeah and
1:03:32we don't give the right level of gray
1:03:35you know it's not actually a black and
1:03:36white issue it's a things may happen to
1:03:38you in your life where you can either
1:03:40make really forced short-sighted
1:03:43decisions and not tap that money or you
1:03:46can say hey I'm giving myself twenty
1:03:48thousand dollars ten thousand dollars
1:03:49like I know I'm supposed to put this
1:03:51from my retirement account but I'm I'm
1:03:53buying time
1:03:55so I can make higher quality decisions
1:03:57because for a very small fraction of my
1:04:00retirement funds I could have given
1:04:01myself three more months
1:04:03which you really could have used which I
1:04:04would have it would have changed how I
1:04:06thought about which jobs to take because
1:04:08I took I took the second job I got
1:04:10offered right because I was like oh like
1:04:12I had this experience at Google where
1:04:14you know I I my my self-esteem was
1:04:17really low
1:04:18and this was the job at Yelp at the job
1:04:20at Yelp okay so how was yup different
1:04:23than Google at this point yeah so so
1:04:26um I think I think that's not obvious
1:04:27people who are outside of Silicon Valley
1:04:29is that there are different
1:04:33uh different tech companies have
1:04:36different amounts of profitability
1:04:37price sounds really obvious when I say
1:04:39it out loud it's very easy when you're
1:04:41not in Silicon Valley to say like oh
1:04:43these are all brand name companies they
1:04:45must be all right like equally
1:04:46successful right and Yelp had a really
1:04:49hard challenge which is uh its business
1:04:51not model is not super uh profitable
1:04:54right so most still today even I think
1:04:57still today I haven't read the numbers
1:04:58recently okay but in 2016 when I was
1:05:01there which was seven years ago it was
1:05:03definitely not Gap Prof
1:05:06so like if you use standard accounting
1:05:07principles yeah once you account for all
1:05:09the stock options they would give you or
1:05:11stock they'd give people it wasn't
1:05:12profitable right
1:05:14um but the
1:05:16um so I come in so one of the the
1:05:19consequences of that fact so you know
1:05:21some are more profitable some are less
1:05:23profitable yeah is that in general you
1:05:25get higher quality Talent
1:05:29and I came into Yelp and I was very
1:05:31surprised because like they had
1:05:32remarkably good people yeah they just
1:05:34had very young people
1:05:35right so they had figured out a way to
1:05:37keep the lights on by getting really
1:05:40high quality people from like b-tier
1:05:43technical programs
1:05:45and then
1:05:46um you know keeping them by saying hey
1:05:48if you stay for this period of time
1:05:50we'll make you a people manager and very
1:05:52few places in Silicon Valley will make a
1:05:5425 year old a people manager or like a
1:05:57brand name place
1:05:59um and so the
1:06:02I I
1:06:06that was my first experience working
1:06:08with things like artificial intelligence
1:06:10because
1:06:11um I got to launch the first computer
1:06:13vision feature at Yelp so what does that
1:06:15mean
1:06:16so uh we take for granted today that
1:06:19when we open say Google photos they'll
1:06:21have characterized our photos into
1:06:23different things so for example
1:06:26um there's like a memories feature where
1:06:28they'll pop up a thing say this dinner
1:06:30you went to like I never said that these
1:06:32photos taken over two hours for dinner
1:06:36the geolocation though is at a
1:06:37restaurant you know there's pictures of
1:06:39food there's pictures of wine like if
1:06:42you were able to have a computer and say
1:06:44what what is this about the computer
1:06:46would say oh you had a dinner
1:06:48so that process was relatively young in
1:06:52in 2016. okay the research had been
1:06:54around for a lot longer but in terms of
1:06:56having features where you say hey
1:06:59let's look at just the menu photos from
1:07:02this restaurant you know two percent of
1:07:04all the photos from the restaurant are
1:07:06menu photos but people really want them
1:07:08yeah uh like can we
1:07:12have that process of sorting through all
1:07:14the photos and finding the menus is
1:07:15called a computer version okay great so
1:07:19um Yelp which I used last night by the
1:07:21way
1:07:21um yeah very helpful
1:07:24um but at this time it was really
1:07:26focused on restaurants right everything
1:07:28else was not too much it most people
1:07:30think of it as for restaurants yeah they
1:07:32make most of their money off of you
1:07:33search for a plumber
1:07:36the challenge is that for for most
1:07:39people in most places they are not
1:07:42um they're not enough say Thai
1:07:44restaurants or any individual Thai
1:07:46restaurant to be like I want to do an ad
1:07:48right um and so the places where there's
1:07:51actually competition are like you want a
1:07:53lawyer you want a plumber you need your
1:07:55carpets cleaned and so they make almost
1:07:58all their revenue from those service
1:07:59things
1:08:00but most of the searches are for food so
1:08:04the plumber is paying to be listed on
1:08:06Yelp okay yeah what did you like about
1:08:10working there what I like about right
1:08:11there um so I had just come out of this
1:08:14like traumatic experience where like I
1:08:16thought I had not been eating gluten and
1:08:18I had been exposed to gluten and I was
1:08:21in the process of like working with a
1:08:23doctor to like actually eat correctly
1:08:25right like to figure out like what would
1:08:28make me healthy and um it meant that
1:08:31ever and this is still true today like
1:08:32every time I leave my home I have to
1:08:34have a plan on how I'm going to eat yeah
1:08:36and my top tool like the thing that
1:08:40wasn't going to keep me from ever having
1:08:41that experience again was y'all
1:08:43it's like that's what Yelp was to me
1:08:46why did you leave me up when I leave
1:08:48that um so I had a a very close friend
1:08:52um uh who is like a big brother figure
1:08:54to me yeah
1:08:56um like his kids are my godsons he
1:08:58reached out and said hey like you have a
1:09:00very specific skill set like you worked
1:09:02on search quality for years you can do
1:09:05algorithms uh we need a product manager
1:09:08for the home feed at Pinterest
1:09:11um and Pinterest was like this very
1:09:13sparkling relatively new tech company
1:09:16and
1:09:18um uh compared to Yelp which you know
1:09:20Yelp is always a little struggling
1:09:23um uh and the fact that it was just a
1:09:25newer Tech stack you know like there was
1:09:26an opportunity to make something out of
1:09:28Pinterest
1:09:30um I ended up taking that offer
1:09:32so then you were at Pinterest
1:09:34um but you were there for a relatively
1:09:35short period of time if I remember like
1:09:37two years two years okay which is long
1:09:39in Silicon Valley as long as silica it's
1:09:41all relative okay
1:09:43to your like the the general rule is
1:09:45like if you stay longer than two to
1:09:46three years you end up making less over
1:09:49the course of your career because every
1:09:51time you change you get a salary bill
1:09:53got it so zigzagging across the Silicon
1:09:55Valley you work your way up okay off so
1:09:58Facebook but but the thing that I
1:10:00learned at Pinterest yes so I worked on
1:10:03search quality primarily at Yelp right
1:10:05so I did do some computer vision I did
1:10:07do some stuff around
1:10:09um can we productize our data right so
1:10:12that's things like you go to a
1:10:13restaurant uh we tell you
1:10:15um like what do people usually search
1:10:17for about this restaurant yeah what are
1:10:18the facets
1:10:20um uh that that are interesting about
1:10:22entire restaurant versus a Greek
1:10:24restaurant versus your your dry cleaners
1:10:27yeah um what do other people usually
1:10:28care about
1:10:30um I but I primarily worked on search
1:10:32quality which is similar to what I did
1:10:34at Google
1:10:35Pinterest was the first time I worked on
1:10:37what's known as a recommender system
1:10:38okay so recommender system is
1:10:42um and this is important for people to
1:10:44understand because recommender systems
1:10:46now drive a huge amount of the
1:10:49information we consume so the search
1:10:51system right remember we talked at the
1:10:53beginning we all see the same thing it's
1:10:56also driven by what you ask for like if
1:10:58you show up to Google without asking for
1:11:00something you see a white a white screen
1:11:02with a box with a recommender system we
1:11:05say hey we've watched what you've
1:11:07engaged with in the past you've seen
1:11:09with your interests in the case of
1:11:10Pinterest we know what the boards you
1:11:13made yeah what your friends have done
1:11:15we're going to show you a bunch of other
1:11:16stuff you might like
1:11:18or like on Facebook like you don't show
1:11:19up to Facebook and say tell me what
1:11:21Alice is doing tell me what Bob's doing
1:11:23tell me thrill is doing they show you
1:11:25stuff
1:11:26um and that's a very different kind of
1:11:29of technical system because you have to
1:11:32manage it in a very different way and
1:11:34that was the first time I worked with
1:11:35those kinds of systems so my first
1:11:36experience with this was with Amazon so
1:11:38you we recommend the following books
1:11:40right right that was the first
1:11:42commercial recommender system okay so
1:11:45for contacts this is like one things I
1:11:46talk about in the book yeah the laws
1:11:48that govern the internet today were
1:11:51written in 1996
1:11:52the uh
1:11:56to we call it section 230 usually
1:11:58casually
1:12:00um in 1996 there were no commercially
1:12:04available recommender systems in that
1:12:06future you're talking about it came out
1:12:08in 1999 amazing amazing right and the
1:12:11first feed happened in 2008 with
1:12:14Facebook the first algorithmic feed
1:12:17happened in 2011. yes so like 15 years
1:12:21went by before the first algorithmic
1:12:23feed happened
1:12:24so this is putting on my lawyer hat um
1:12:27so the section 230 of the communications
1:12:29decency Act of 1996.
1:12:33um I was a freshman at College that's
1:12:35the first time I learned about the
1:12:36electronic mail come over and get your
1:12:39electronic mail
1:12:40um so that law that came in online
1:12:43bulletin boards correct
1:12:46um is now supposedly driving the boat
1:12:49for modern day so a lot of people you
1:12:53know look at scans at uh Facebook
1:12:54pointing to section 230 for protection
1:12:57and saying come on guys like this had
1:13:00nothing to do with what you guys are
1:13:01doing today Salesforce recently had a
1:13:03case I believe or just by the Supreme
1:13:05Court pointed to section 230 and the
1:13:07court said no this doesn't give you
1:13:09protection there you actually have to
1:13:10have some uh liability when people
1:13:14misuse your platform yeah you can't just
1:13:17say I'm just providing a platform for
1:13:19participation you actually have to
1:13:20monitor what's happening there so as a
1:13:23lawyer on our side to hear section 230
1:13:25immediately you're going 1996. but
1:13:28that's the law right so and people don't
1:13:31realize that like correct I think I
1:13:33think if people were like hey like you
1:13:35know we could have to give like a
1:13:37similar scale of magnitude you know if
1:13:39it's like imagine we were still our
1:13:41roads were still governed by laws from
1:13:43the 70s right in the 70s you know you
1:13:45could drink quite a lot and still drive
1:13:47true right right right
1:13:49um yeah it's kind of like that where
1:13:50like the technology has changed the
1:13:52circumstances have changed in the United
1:13:54States we haven't passed a law in almost
1:13:5630 years now unbelievable yeah uh Europe
1:13:59has we'll talk about about that in a
1:14:01second
1:14:01um so Facebook so this is the part where
1:14:04it you always try to think about follow
1:14:07the lines here so
1:14:09um you interview for this job with the
1:14:11Civil Integrity Department
1:14:14um doesn't exactly match up what you've
1:14:16done before it was a job that
1:14:18right right since safety and
1:14:21you talked later about looking back like
1:14:23oh there's some red flags here they
1:14:25weren't hiring internally this job sat
1:14:27vacant for a long time maybe there were
1:14:30some signals here that this wasn't going
1:14:32to be the best spot for you can you talk
1:14:34about that context yeah yeah why were
1:14:37you interested in that job why do you
1:14:39ultimately decide to interview for that
1:14:40job yeah so
1:14:42um I when I was reading learning to walk
1:14:44right like it's a very vulnerable time
1:14:46in my life it's very hard right like you
1:14:49know you don't you don't get sat down in
1:14:51college and say like hey one day you
1:14:52might need to learn we learn to walk
1:14:53this is how you're going to do it yeah
1:14:54and the way our medical system is set up
1:14:57is we don't really do wraparound care
1:14:58right like I would have really benefited
1:15:00from like a coach that said hey like
1:15:03you're going through this experience
1:15:05like like if you were if you were if you
1:15:07were you know God forbid you got
1:15:09diagnosed with cancer we now know like
1:15:12you need to have like basically a sherpa
1:15:13who's gonna lead you on your your quest
1:15:16there's not a lot of 29 year olds that
1:15:18learn to relearn to walk so I'm I'm kind
1:15:20of piecing it together the best I can
1:15:22you know as a blind personally in the
1:15:24Blind and um this person comes into my
1:15:27life who is a friend of my younger
1:15:29brother so they've been living together
1:15:31at this Hacker House so it's called hack
1:15:34Lantus it's like very silicon oh yeah
1:15:37it's it's in like a very rough
1:15:40neighborhood in San Francisco it's
1:15:41literally a warehouse that someone like
1:15:43put up a bunch of um bunk beds in right
1:15:47it's like maybe three rooms there's like
1:15:49a bathroom a big room with a bunch of
1:15:50bunk beds and like maybe a little
1:15:52smaller room yeah
1:15:54um and uh he I he he was like a a kind
1:15:59of lost maybe 23 year old who would come
1:16:01to San Francisco to make his way in the
1:16:02world
1:16:03and uh I hired him to be an assistant
1:16:06when I needed to clean out a storage
1:16:08unit so I had a storage closet in my
1:16:10building I was weak enough that I could
1:16:12either haul the boxes into my apartment
1:16:14and then haul whatever was left over to
1:16:16the trash
1:16:17or I could go through the boxes like I
1:16:20was not going to be able to do all of
1:16:22them and so he allowed me to be able to
1:16:24sit on the couch and go through boxes
1:16:26and triage all this stuff
1:16:28um and he would carry things for me
1:16:29right because that's kind of the level I
1:16:31was at
1:16:32and we became really good friends
1:16:35and I kept hiring for more odd jobs and
1:16:39at some point I like he needed an office
1:16:43right so he was living in like a a
1:16:48the reality of the Bay Area we have no
1:16:50housing so he was living in uh like a
1:16:53garage in Berkeley like like people
1:16:55literally build big plywood boxes and
1:16:57put them in their garages and then rent
1:16:59them because it's barbaric is this Jonah
1:17:02yeah and
1:17:04um the
1:17:06um this could be like an offside for the
1:17:09like not in thing so I intentionally
1:17:11changed the names and it's really hard
1:17:13for me sometimes yeah right tell the
1:17:15story maintain privacy yes
1:17:17um the yeah so so Jonah was living in
1:17:20one of these like horrible housing
1:17:21situations and I you know I'm a big
1:17:24sister right like I I look out for my
1:17:26younger brother
1:17:27he uh Jonah kind of took on the status
1:17:29of like our our third brother you know
1:17:31like the one that we we never got to
1:17:33have
1:17:34um uh and I I was like I'm not home like
1:17:3810 or 12 hours a day you know like I
1:17:40have to commute into San Francisco from
1:17:42the East Bay I have to commute back my
1:17:44apartment is not being used please don't
1:17:47sit in a box in a garage all day like if
1:17:50you're if you can give me 20 hours of
1:17:51assistance work a month you can have
1:17:53this as like an office like No One's
1:17:55Gonna use it
1:17:57um and so he came into my life as like a
1:17:59uh like a really important part of my
1:18:02team in terms of getting better
1:18:04and
1:18:06um and I I by the time he left my life
1:18:10it was really hard for me because I felt
1:18:13like I owed the life I had and I still
1:18:15feel this way today
1:18:16the fact that he walked beside me while
1:18:19I was going through all this wow yeah
1:18:20right like literally part of relearning
1:18:22to walk is you have to go on long walks
1:18:25and instead of having to go for a long
1:18:27walk in the dark by myself every night
1:18:29like he would often go with me right
1:18:31which meant I walked more right all
1:18:33these things in my life happened faster
1:18:35because he could be like I went grocery
1:18:37shopping for you here's nutritious food
1:18:39or we're going to go for a walk and I
1:18:42know you're tired from work but it
1:18:43doesn't matter we're gonna go for a walk
1:18:45um and he left my life because after
1:18:49Bernie Sanders lost the primaries in
1:18:522016
1:18:53he felt really vested in that campaign
1:18:55he felt like it was speaking to people
1:18:58like him who you know were trying to
1:19:00figure out how to have a place in the
1:19:01world
1:19:02um but we're struggling in the modern
1:19:03economy and uh he turned to places on
1:19:07the internet to commiserate that also
1:19:09introduced him to a lot of
1:19:11conspiratorial thinking a lot of
1:19:15um kind of fatalism about the world and
1:19:18by the time the 2016 election rolled
1:19:20around like we were arguing over things
1:19:22like does George Soros Run the World
1:19:24economy
1:19:26which is like a very cliche conspiracy
1:19:29theory and it and the moment I realized
1:19:32I had lost him to you know these forces
1:19:36on the internet was I sent him like a
1:19:39long fact checked response to one of
1:19:41these things he had said to me and you
1:19:44know because he was talking about how
1:19:45like George Soros is dangerous he funds
1:19:47violent revolutionaries
1:19:49I was saying things like you know he
1:19:51helped support the rose revolution in
1:19:52Romania or uh or maybe it's Bulgaria I
1:19:55don't know which which one which is
1:19:57literally people were standing in public
1:19:58squares with roses like I don't think
1:20:00that's violent revolutions right
1:20:03um and he he said back to me he's like
1:20:05do you even check your own citations
1:20:07these are all from the mainstream media
1:20:09oh
1:20:11right and and the thing that was
1:20:13shocking for me about this was like if
1:20:15we can't agree on the facts to then
1:20:18build right consensus view of what is
1:20:21reality yes how do we even start that
1:20:23conversation
1:20:25um and that was the moment where I was
1:20:26like I don't have the tools to bring him
1:20:28back
1:20:29um
1:20:30uh you know I can listen but if we can't
1:20:33agree on like how to even begin talking
1:20:35like you know I'm not the right person
1:20:37anymore and so when Facebook reached out
1:20:40I was like hey do you want to work at
1:20:41Facebook
1:20:43um I was pretty flippant with them
1:20:45because like I didn't really care if
1:20:47they offered me a job this is like 20
1:20:49late 2018 early 2019.
1:20:52um I was like the only thing I would
1:20:53work on Facebook is misinformation
1:20:56um because during that time period where
1:20:58I was watching Jonah's struggle I was
1:21:00working on ranking like the algorithms
1:21:03behind Pinterest and all the problems
1:21:05that we were having with algorithms and
1:21:07then I look at the Facebook product and
1:21:08I'd be like what are you doing yeah like
1:21:11you clearly have this problem that we're
1:21:13experiencing at Pinterest but in a
1:21:14different context you're having it here
1:21:17with like how you recommend follow-up
1:21:19stories so you you know you put a like
1:21:22on this reasonable story we're going to
1:21:25show you something very very extreme
1:21:27that's related to it so for example you
1:21:29click on a story about the election and
1:21:31the box under it now has a story saying
1:21:33Pope endorses Donald Trump right like
1:21:36right they clearly have not thought
1:21:37about people abusing the system
1:21:41wow
1:21:43um you know as you're telling the story
1:21:44I can't help but think of people I know
1:21:46who have kind of fallen down that
1:21:48similar path of you know being in an
1:21:50echo chamber that then becomes a more
1:21:52toxic Echo chamber and then you lose
1:21:54them as friends
1:21:55right the
1:21:57um a
1:22:04rangement right that that like uh the
1:22:07thing we should strive for is connection
1:22:09and Oneness and unity you know the
1:22:12connection like that's what humans love
1:22:14is connection and uh we are facing
1:22:17forces that drive people into isolation
1:22:19and alienation and estrangement
1:22:22and so like uh it is it is easy to fight
1:22:26long-term fights when you're fighting
1:22:28out of care and love is very hard to do
1:22:31long-term fights when you're finding out
1:22:32anger in nature
1:22:35so this job hits you at a good time
1:22:38because of your experience with Jonah
1:22:42um
1:22:43can you talk about what your
1:22:44responsibilities were as you come into
1:22:46Facebook yeah um so I uh so this is this
1:22:50is another like I look at this and I was
1:22:51like God I did not I did not vet this
1:22:53enough yeah um uh so I came in and I had
1:22:56assumptions about what the job would be
1:22:59because things were chaotic enough I
1:23:02asked to meet with the engineering
1:23:04manager I would work with because I
1:23:05would usually be the person who would
1:23:07frame your job for you that person had
1:23:09not been hired yet and so I thought I
1:23:12was talking to I thought I was talking
1:23:14to the that person's manager I was
1:23:16actually talking to their managers
1:23:18manager
1:23:20um my manager the person who would
1:23:21manage me was too busy was not available
1:23:25um and so I came in with an assumption
1:23:27about what the job would be which was I
1:23:29thought I was going to work on the US
1:23:302020 election I show up and I find out
1:23:33actually no you're going to work on all
1:23:36misinformation that is beyond
1:23:39third-party fact checking
1:23:41can you talk about third party fact
1:23:43Checkers yeah um so if one of the the
1:23:45things that got hurled at me or like if
1:23:47you look online like what people accuse
1:23:49me of is she's the one that censored
1:23:51Hunter Biden's laptop like that's that's
1:23:54like one of the allegations and what I
1:23:56find so funny about this is I so the
1:23:59process that decided we're going to take
1:24:00this down is something called third
1:24:02party fact checking so they they hire
1:24:03journalists to um they give them access
1:24:07to a console they let them see the most
1:24:08popular stories or things that are like
1:24:11taking off
1:24:12and they let journalists decide which
1:24:15ones they're going to go research and
1:24:16then make a little correction and say
1:24:17hey this is you know this is partially
1:24:19true this is true this is false
1:24:21um uh things like the hunter by a laptop
1:24:24would have been under the purview of the
1:24:26original misinformation team like the
1:24:28core misinformation team my team so that
1:24:31team is like 40 people they run that
1:24:33whole system similar name all right you
1:24:37can see why people get confused yep my
1:24:39team has maybe four or five people
1:24:42Civic misinformation team and we've been
1:24:45tasked with misinformation everywhere in
1:24:47the world that is not touched by the
1:24:49third party fact checking system
1:24:51and the part that is is you know the
1:24:53first place is like oh whatever you're
1:24:54doing this little other thing no no
1:24:56third party fact checking basically only
1:24:58touched the United States and even then
1:25:00maybe a couple hundred stories um
1:25:03only touched the United States and even
1:25:05then only maybe a couple hundred stories
1:25:07a month
1:25:09um some in Europe a scattering elsewhere
1:25:13elsewhere in the world but but in
1:25:15reality maybe four billion of Facebook's
1:25:18users were not covered by third party
1:25:20fact checking
1:25:22so we're going to get a little bit in
1:25:23the weeds here on
1:25:25um so Facebook took off around the world
1:25:28for some places based on this free basic
1:25:31can you talk about how that rolled out
1:25:33and why that was important yeah so I
1:25:35think one of the most important things
1:25:37that I'm always trying to repeat yeah
1:25:39before because of issues around how
1:25:41Facebook operates in in in places that
1:25:44are not the United States yeah one thing
1:25:46that's hard for people who can speak
1:25:48English to understand is the English
1:25:50version of Facebook is this is the
1:25:52safest cleanest most groomed part of
1:25:55Facebook in the world
1:25:57the people who speak English only make
1:25:58up nine percent of the Facebook users
1:26:00nine percent yeah yeah and so when you
1:26:03look at other places like let's say we
1:26:05go to African countries let's say we go
1:26:07to Southeast Asia
1:26:09Facebook surveyed the world and said we
1:26:12became Facebook because we killed
1:26:14Myspace
1:26:15and Myspace became Myspace because they
1:26:17killed Friendster
1:26:19there are it's like even when Google
1:26:21Plus was being worked on they were still
1:26:23Pockets around the world little spots
1:26:24where the dominant social media platform
1:26:27in that country like Korea India uh
1:26:30Brazil was not Facebook
1:26:33right they looked around the world and
1:26:35said you know the place where the thing
1:26:38that kills us comes from could be one of
1:26:39these corners of the world
1:26:41so we're going to go in there and say
1:26:42hey we noticed data is extremely
1:26:45expensive for you you know it might be
1:26:47as high as like 65 or 100 a gigabyte
1:26:50back
1:26:512014. yeah right in countries that where
1:26:54you the average person makes 300 a year
1:26:56a month right
1:26:58um and they said hey
1:27:00if you want to use Facebook
1:27:02like a simplified version of Facebook
1:27:05um your or Whatsapp your data will be
1:27:07free if you want to use anything else on
1:27:09the open internet Beyond a couple other
1:27:11sites like Wikipedia you're gonna pay
1:27:13for it yourself
1:27:14now what ended up happening was uh
1:27:17Network effects be into a form so just
1:27:19like how um you know we don't have two
1:27:22telephone systems you don't have like a
1:27:24telephone number here and telephone
1:27:25number here we have one telephone system
1:27:27in all of these countries the the
1:27:29version of the internet that everyone
1:27:31could access was Facebook so if you made
1:27:34your own website now you were on the
1:27:36internet that not everyone can access
1:27:38but if you made a Facebook page everyone
1:27:41could access them
1:27:42and so Facebook became the internet for
1:27:45a couple billion people in the world at
1:27:47least
1:27:48and even as fewer fewer people use
1:27:50Facebook in the United States or in
1:27:51Europe
1:27:52those places still have lock-in because
1:27:55it is the internet in those places even
1:27:57today
1:27:58fascinating
1:28:01um so you're now looking at these other
1:28:04countries that have huge usage levels or
1:28:07languages that just aren't English like
1:28:09if you're in the United States the 81 or
1:28:1191 yeah that don't speak English
1:28:14um uh if you're in uh any but maybe
1:28:1910 or 15 languages at that point if you
1:28:22speak any other language in the world
1:28:23and remember there's four or five
1:28:24thousand languages in the world
1:28:26uh if you're even in the United States
1:28:28and you speak Urdu if you speak Farsi
1:28:31you're not getting any misinformation
1:28:33screening
1:28:35right right and so uh we're tasked with
1:28:38how do you actually uh begin addressing
1:28:41those issues and we only get to work on
1:28:43that problem for three months
1:28:45yeah because three months in uh they
1:28:48come and say we actually have a bigger
1:28:49problem
1:28:50so think about you you like remember
1:28:52misinformation outside of third-party
1:28:54fact checking has caused things like me
1:28:57and Marsh genocide yes so so think about
1:28:59the relevance these things we're like
1:29:00Hey we're we're hearing all these
1:29:01reports about ethnic violence about you
1:29:04know facilitating ethnic cleansing
1:29:06through Facebook
1:29:07but we have a bigger problem like think
1:29:09about that for a moment
1:29:11um and that problem was um so this is
1:29:14now September 2019. elections coming up
1:29:17elections coming up but the the even
1:29:19more pressing issue is they have just
1:29:21caught on Facebook
1:29:23a Russian influence operation that is
1:29:26targeting African-American activists uh
1:29:28gay activists environmentalists and
1:29:31police officers
1:29:33and I think the issue was you know like
1:29:35I said before they try to keep of the
1:29:38English language version of Facebook as
1:29:39clean as possible because we in America
1:29:41could vote to put up sensible guardrails
1:29:44right think about that for a moment
1:29:47um uh and now you have
1:29:51Russian influence operations targeting
1:29:53people with guns
1:29:55can you talk about this target marketing
1:29:57of a subcommute I forget the phrase that
1:29:59I think it's called narrowcast missing
1:30:02information why would they do that why
1:30:04are they targeting these specific
1:30:05subcommunitions so think about this like
1:30:07Facebook strategy up into that
1:30:10Point viral misinformation yeah so this
1:30:12is kind of part of I would call it the
1:30:14respectability culture of Facebook that
1:30:17Facebook cares more about
1:30:18um making sure it looks good enough in
1:30:20general right
1:30:22um the uh
1:30:26narrow cast misinformation though only
1:30:28goes to a small pocket of people so in
1:30:31the case of say African-American
1:30:32activists if you target misinformation
1:30:35to them either you like literally send
1:30:37it on messenger or you figure out how to
1:30:40Target their friends so their friends
1:30:42share it to them or you target ads of
1:30:44them there's a bunch of different ways
1:30:46you can do this you find a group of
1:30:48activists like a Facebook group of
1:30:50activists who send it to that group
1:30:51there's a lot of different techniques
1:30:53you can use if you can get an activist
1:30:55to then share out your misinformation
1:30:59people who trust them trust it even more
1:31:01because it came from them
1:31:03so in the case of police officers like
1:31:05police officers aren't just you know
1:31:07people who carry guns they're people who
1:31:09have a lot of respect in their
1:31:10communities as a general rule it's not
1:31:12going to be Universal
1:31:14um and if you go in there and say like
1:31:16hey you know Thin Blue Line right like
1:31:19during black lives matter you know if
1:31:21you put in these memes you can create
1:31:22division or you can you can just make um
1:31:26in more unstable right like if you start
1:31:29having like we we know there is a
1:31:31problem in the US armed services right
1:31:33now around conspiratorial thinking like
1:31:35Q Anon and things like that
1:31:37think about how dangerous it is to have
1:31:40people in your National Security sector
1:31:42begin to believe things that are not
1:31:44part of consensus reality
1:31:47this uh is a great feature of Facebook
1:31:49to be able to specifically Target from a
1:31:53marketer standpoint for businesses but
1:31:54Russia is using this for the purposes of
1:31:57tainting uh the population in the United
1:32:00States to drive certain agendas right
1:32:02well there's other countries too but
1:32:04yeah so they gave you two weeks to come
1:32:07up the plan to address this concern
1:32:08right is that is
1:32:10Arrow cast well I guess
1:32:14we did sorry so originally when I did
1:32:16Civic misinformation they gave me two
1:32:18weeks
1:32:19the second time they also gave me two
1:32:20weeks it's a staff of hundreds uh and
1:32:24and the thing that is uh
1:32:26we're frustrating about this is think
1:32:27about this this problem had been known
1:32:29for four years right they've known about
1:32:32this since 2016. they were like oh when
1:32:34we think about misinformation these are
1:32:35the different facets yeah there was a 40
1:32:38person engineering team
1:32:40that when this is too complicated we're
1:32:42not going to address it
1:32:43and they gave our little like five
1:32:45person team two weeks to figure out what
1:32:47are you gonna do about it
1:32:49so Facebook
1:32:51um not a bootstrap company that was hard
1:32:54no head cash available somewhere they
1:32:57had tens of billions of dollars of
1:32:59profit every year yeah they had 30
1:33:00profit margins there
1:33:02so 2019 140 billion dollars of Revenue
1:33:07and so and they couldn't find like
1:33:09another 5 million
1:33:11why do you think they didn't do that why
1:33:13didn't they put money at this issue I
1:33:15think so a huge part about this book is
1:33:17about so I said it for like there's the
1:33:19book that I wanted to write when I
1:33:20started out and the book that I was like
1:33:21this is the book we need now yes
1:33:24is that um and we talked about this when
1:33:26we talked about opaque companies
1:33:28trade-offs happen every day
1:33:31and the case of safety safety is a cost
1:33:33center at least in the system of
1:33:35incentives that we have today like the
1:33:37Digital Services uh act in Europe May
1:33:41slightly change those economics but at
1:33:43least as we think about it today
1:33:45safety is a cost center
1:33:47and counter factuals are very hard to
1:33:49prove right if you prevent a thing from
1:33:51happening that's actually worth a huge
1:33:54amount of money but it's very hard if
1:33:56you have a system that only cares about
1:33:58objective measurement to say Hey you
1:34:01know we Tamp down this fire before it
1:34:02started raging
1:34:04um and so under investment like that
1:34:06happens so in the case of what we are
1:34:08working on
1:34:09um uh there are ways to find people who
1:34:13are acting in that way it is much harder
1:34:15to say uh this impact on society was XYZ
1:34:19you know this is what we prevented and
1:34:22so it was just not prioritized as a as a
1:34:24a place that would be impactful
1:34:28at this point so we're approaching 2020
1:34:31uh the elections are coming Iowa's
1:34:33coming in February of 2020.
1:34:36the caucuses are you thinking about
1:34:38leaving at this point
1:34:41really I I felt very very conflicted so
1:34:44by the middle of December
1:34:482019. yeah like I remember having a
1:34:51conversation where I was like
1:34:53If I Stay am I culpable
1:34:57because we are not doing enough like we
1:35:00are we are am I window dressing for like
1:35:03we're doing something
1:35:05but if you know that you're not actually
1:35:06doing enough that is Meaningful like if
1:35:09you stay like are you lending to that
1:35:11lie right
1:35:13um and uh I was not really and I'm I'm
1:35:17also dealing with like a really really
1:35:19stressful environment which is the the
1:35:21engineering manager they put with me
1:35:24uh he had no background in data science
1:35:28or in data mining or in artificial
1:35:30intelligence
1:35:32um he had not accepted any of my offers
1:35:34to be like hey you're smart you can ramp
1:35:36up in this like let's work together
1:35:38right instead he would just like use
1:35:40random AI buzzwords
1:35:42and because his manager was also from
1:35:44not that branch of engineering it's like
1:35:46the metaphor I use in the book is
1:35:48Engineers are a lot like doctors like if
1:35:51you have a problem with your eye you
1:35:52don't go to a podiatrist if you have a
1:35:54problem with your foot you don't go to
1:35:56an ophthalmologist it doesn't mean an
1:35:58ophthalmologist or a podiatrist are
1:35:59better or worse there's a specialist
1:36:02and my engineering manager who was
1:36:05supposed to be my collaborator my
1:36:06teammate he was an expert at at scalable
1:36:09Data Systems you know like you know you
1:36:12have 300 million people around the world
1:36:13who need to access your app it needs to
1:36:16be up 99.99 of the year how do you do
1:36:19that that's a very hard sophisticated
1:36:21thing yeah it is not a thing where you
1:36:23say somewhere in the United States
1:36:2610 people are trying to influence a
1:36:28subpopulation we're not going to tell
1:36:30you which one
1:36:31go find them
1:36:32right
1:36:33um and uh and and it caused all sorts of
1:36:37conflict it was it was very bad
1:36:40um because like he wouldn't acknowledge
1:36:41that there was that difference and he
1:36:43resented the fact that I was like
1:36:45effectively leading the team so all
1:36:48these factors are like coming together
1:36:49and
1:36:51um I I'm not a person with panic attacks
1:36:53right right like a thing that I I often
1:36:56tell people is like uh so I have severe
1:36:59neuropathy yeah um which means like I I
1:37:02um you know I couldn't walk in 2014.
1:37:04today I can hike for 12 hours because my
1:37:06nurse are regarding a lot my muscles are
1:37:08regrown good for you super cool except
1:37:10for my nerves are now noisy so because
1:37:13they're growing I I get a lot of phantom
1:37:15sensation I have like constant pain and
1:37:18so I am always on things called
1:37:20neuropathy and medication which slows
1:37:23your nerves down like it makes that
1:37:25noise less loud
1:37:27um and it means that I'm in general very
1:37:30calm because like my nerves just don't
1:37:32fire very much
1:37:34um even I
1:37:36well medicated with like things that
1:37:38make you calm yeah had a panic attack in
1:37:41December of 20 20 29. right like it's
1:37:43that stressful like I've come in and
1:37:45like learned how different reality is
1:37:48from like what I thought it had been
1:37:51um I've tried to talk to people
1:37:52internally I'm trying to like make my
1:37:55team work nothing nothing is aligning
1:37:57with anything I've done in the previous
1:37:5914 years of my career right right
1:38:02um I'm being made to feel like I'm the
1:38:04problem I'm the crazy one and I have
1:38:06this panic attack on New Year's Eve
1:38:08um and that was kind of the moment I
1:38:10realized like I am uh this is a lot
1:38:13harder on me than I thought it was
1:38:15and so I did have thoughts about
1:38:16quitting at that point
1:38:18um but I I kind of wanted to see
1:38:22it through to like let's try to like
1:38:24complete what we've said we were going
1:38:26to work on
1:38:27did you have hopes that you know if I
1:38:29stay in the system maybe I can have some
1:38:31positive effect so yeah so one things I
1:38:34talk about in the book is a thing that
1:38:35employees face in circumstances like
1:38:38this
1:38:39um and I think this is why a lot of
1:38:40really good people are on Facebook is
1:38:44you know there's at least one person
1:38:46trying right if you leave there's one
1:38:49less person who no even knows there's a
1:38:51problem who's working on in the world
1:38:54um uh that's a really hard trade-off and
1:38:56a lot of people at Facebook
1:38:58um particularly on the Civic Integrity
1:39:00team
1:39:01um fell into that Loop where they were
1:39:04like I have to keep trying even though
1:39:06there aren't enough people because I I I
1:39:09would feel guilty if I knew I wasn't
1:39:11trying and it would burn out a lot of
1:39:13people
1:39:15um I want people to buy your boat I uh
1:39:17so I'm going to leave out some really
1:39:19sure cool
1:39:20slash concerning things um the way I was
1:39:24framing to people is if you think you
1:39:26don't like policy books yes this is a
1:39:28policy book for you because I tell lots
1:39:30of fun stories and I try to be really
1:39:32accessible and I think this is such an
1:39:34important space of Concepts yes that as
1:39:38our economy gets more and more run by
1:39:40these automated systems we're going to
1:39:43need to have conversations about
1:39:44transparency
1:39:46absolutely and so that's my pitch on
1:39:48them people should read it uh they
1:39:51should buy it and they should pass out
1:39:52for friends
1:39:54um
1:39:54let's let's advance to
1:39:58December 20
1:40:0120. sure after the election yeah
1:40:05um the group that you're big with the
1:40:07bigger group
1:40:08the Civil Integrity Civic Integrity
1:40:11Civic Integrity is being dissolved yes
1:40:20I was in the corporate world before law
1:40:22school I've sat through a similar
1:40:24meeting
1:40:25um so I I it resonated with me can you
1:40:27talk about that meeting and what
1:40:29everybody was thinking as they're
1:40:30looking around the room weeks after
1:40:32perhaps the most contentious election
1:40:33we've ever written through so uh less
1:40:36than 30 days after the election happened
1:40:39is this early December 2020.
1:40:42we got all told very suddenly like hey
1:40:45there's gonna be a zoom call like
1:40:47everyone needs to be on the zoom call
1:40:48we've seen we know what this is going to
1:40:50be about because
1:40:51uh manager had posted on the internal
1:40:54version of Facebook which is called
1:40:56workplace
1:40:57um a post saying hey here's the deal we
1:41:01are being reorganized
1:41:02inside of Facebook reorganizations
1:41:04happen all the time so it's kind of like
1:41:06how I spent that first three months in
1:41:08Facebook working on one project and then
1:41:10suddenly I'm on another project at
1:41:12Facebook you might get thrown between
1:41:13projects every six months like it's very
1:41:15very chaotic and uh uh
1:41:19um
1:41:20my manager said we're being reorganized
1:41:22like the thing that was Civic Integrity
1:41:23is not going to be there and so we all
1:41:25joined the zoom and we get told uh your
1:41:29work has been so important we need to
1:41:31integrate you into other parts of the
1:41:33company
1:41:35and uh you know people are asking
1:41:38questions on this call and uh the you
1:41:42know it just it doesn't sound right
1:41:44right like within within six months of
1:41:46that call
1:41:48um a huge fraction of all the Civic
1:41:50Integrity had with the company
1:41:52because like when Facebook does
1:41:54reorganizations the way you tell like
1:41:56who won and who lost is who wants to
1:41:59spend control yeah and the people who
1:42:01had been the leaders of Civic Integrity
1:42:03were not taking on leadership of the
1:42:05teams we reintegrated into it was we
1:42:07were being kind of shuffled into them
1:42:10got it
1:42:12um so you go to LinkedIn I'm guessing a
1:42:14lot of people are going into their lives
1:42:15yeah dusting off the old resume I mean
1:42:18yeah maybe you can see what's out there
1:42:20and you come across a message can you
1:42:23talk about that so I'm I'm going down
1:42:25through my messages because like I don't
1:42:26log into LinkedIn very often even today
1:42:28so if you've if you message me out there
1:42:30I will get to you at some point but it
1:42:32may be a couple weeks
1:42:33um I I open up LinkedIn and there's this
1:42:35message from Jeff Horowitz
1:42:37and uh he says uh you know I the
1:42:40election was almost certainly hard for I
1:42:43know you're in Civic Integrity Wall
1:42:44Street Journal reporter he's a Wall
1:42:45Street Journal reporter he's not he had
1:42:47done up to that point I think some of
1:42:49the best reporting in the world
1:42:52um
1:42:53he says Hey like you know if you want to
1:42:55reach out and Yeah and talk about
1:42:57anything like you know
1:42:58hit me up on the signal number and I I
1:43:01message him like how would I how do I
1:43:03know you are who you say you are right
1:43:05because I've been working I've been
1:43:07working on counter Espionage at Facebook
1:43:08now for a couple of months
1:43:11um you know I assume all channels are
1:43:13compromised right
1:43:15um and he says uh if you go to my
1:43:17Twitter handle is my signal number is in
1:43:20my Twitter handle like in my bio
1:43:22um I'm about to publish this story in
1:43:24the Wall Street Journal you know then
1:43:26you'll know it's me
1:43:27and lo and behold a couple hours later
1:43:29the story appears in the Wall Street
1:43:30Journal
1:43:31and I'm like uh I would love to meet I'd
1:43:35love to talk to you I think there's a
1:43:36big opportunity here
1:43:37um I can meet in person somewhere
1:43:40um
1:43:40we meet in a state park in the Oakland
1:43:44Hills and I lay out a lot of what I've
1:43:47talked about today like the idea that
1:43:48Facebook is the internet and some of the
1:43:50most fragile places in the world they
1:43:52don't invest in Safety Systems because
1:43:54they've told the public we have to use
1:43:57these content moderation systems but
1:43:59they haven't told people we have to
1:44:02rewrite those Language by Language by
1:44:03language
1:44:04and in some of the most fragile places
1:44:06in the world they're also the most
1:44:07linguistically diverse so even when the
1:44:10violence was happening in Ethiopia which
1:44:12was like very similar to what happened
1:44:14in Myanmar you know Ethiopia has a
1:44:17hundred million people there's 95
1:44:19dialects there's six major language
1:44:21families and Facebook had any Safety
1:44:25Systems two of the six language families
1:44:28I want to say any I mean like two or
1:44:30three like they were taking out hate
1:44:31speech like they couldn't even take down
1:44:33this information because there was no
1:44:34third party fact checking it right
1:44:37um and uh you know I said like I'm
1:44:40worried that if we continue on the
1:44:43director direction we are going
1:44:45I Myanmar and Ethiopia are only the
1:44:48first two chapters of a book that is
1:44:50going to be horrific
1:44:51because we are destabilizing some of the
1:44:53most fragile places in the world in the
1:44:55world and no one knows yeah yeah and
1:44:57even today like when you look at
1:44:59Facebook's trying to do to make like say
1:45:01the 2024 election okay yeah they've been
1:45:04saying things like we're de-prioritizing
1:45:05news
1:45:07what does that mean like what is a news
1:45:08story what counts as a news story also
1:45:11it's a language by language thing now
1:45:14you have to actually have a thing in
1:45:17each language saying this is news
1:45:20right so these problems are that we
1:45:22might it might look cleaner it might
1:45:24look better in the United States right
1:45:25now than it did a year or two ago but
1:45:27that doesn't mean it's better in the
1:45:29most fragile places in the world
1:45:33so this part of the story is where I
1:45:36want people to go to the button yeah
1:45:37yeah
1:45:38um because what you do over the next
1:45:40nine-ish months of six months yeah
1:45:45bringing him you know oh yeah and then
1:45:48the stories come out yeah sure
1:45:51um is really a a testament to your
1:45:55tenacity to make sure the story gets out
1:45:57and that you have the evidence to back
1:45:59it up yes right because there is a lot
1:46:01of stuff out there
1:46:02um what a really good whistleblower does
1:46:04is says you know here's the evidence
1:46:07back I'm saying um and you seem to I
1:46:10love the points you give to future with
1:46:12celebrities about how to do it the right
1:46:14way to be clear as the disclaimer in the
1:46:17book says the
1:46:19schwizzle blowers yeah but I do discuss
1:46:21things that people who are considering
1:46:23whistleblowing might want to think about
1:46:25yeah and um a big part that I wanted to
1:46:31um document was just
1:46:34um I think part of why people don't blow
1:46:36the whistle sometimes when they think it
1:46:38really needs to be done and I I got put
1:46:40in this spot right so like Jeff can't
1:46:42help me figure out how to whistle up
1:46:44like that's not right correct yes right
1:46:46that's that's it unethical special evil
1:46:49issues with it
1:46:50um he he could ask me questions and he
1:46:53could hope I could answer them but he
1:46:54couldn't say could you get me a document
1:46:56on this okay
1:46:57right and so I had to Think Through
1:46:59really carefully like like I think one
1:47:02way to think about this is by this point
1:47:04in my career I'd had multiple situations
1:47:06that were really serious where people
1:47:08just didn't believe me right like I'd
1:47:10come out of you know we talked about
1:47:12those first six months at Facebook you
1:47:14know really crazy things happened
1:47:16between me and the engineering major and
1:47:18over and over again it didn't matter how
1:47:20much detail I explained it in I was not
1:47:22believed right or or even like that
1:47:25first time I met with Jeff and I laid
1:47:27out that scenario I said you know it
1:47:30sounds crazy
1:47:31right like like when you look at
1:47:33Facebook in the United States it's like
1:47:35your cousin's breakfast you know your
1:47:37your nephew's Bar Mitzvah you know it's
1:47:39not it's not um it's not a horror Escape
1:47:42horror you know landscape of horror yeah
1:47:45and um I
1:47:48I I I knew
1:47:51that if we had any chance of not having
1:47:53that future
1:47:54it had to be unquestionable
1:47:57yes and I think the secondary thing was
1:47:58I didn't want to be the story like I
1:48:00didn't I didn't I didn't want to be the
1:48:02person I am today and so I was like how
1:48:04do you get enough depth and enough rigor
1:48:07in a way that is unquestionable even if
1:48:11no one can explain it to you and so I
1:48:13did things like I took pictures not of
1:48:16just the documents I took them of the
1:48:18conversations around the documents yes
1:48:20so that no one could say like Facebook
1:48:21did later no one believed these
1:48:24documents like these are these are
1:48:25Cherry Picked these are outliers if you
1:48:27can see the conversation under each
1:48:29document you can see people believe this
1:48:31was true When It Was Written yeah
1:48:33uh very good point by the way so if
1:48:35people are looking for attorneys uh we'd
1:48:38advise them to reach out to our
1:48:39organization who are you know a group of
1:48:42whistleblower attorneys who can guide
1:48:43them uh through uh the process and I and
1:48:46I can't emphasize that point enough like
1:48:48organizations like yours can you say
1:48:50you're in the name of the organization
1:48:51the anti-fraud Coalition yeah the
1:48:52antenna fraud Coalition it's really
1:48:54important to reach out to groups like
1:48:55The signals Network which is a
1:48:56non-profit that helps match people or to
1:48:58organizations like yours because
1:49:00individual firms are not necessarily
1:49:03they might seem obvious like they might
1:49:05have a name like a whistleblower in the
1:49:06title but they may not actually be the
1:49:08best fit for you and when you reach out
1:49:10to an organization that can see the
1:49:13whole picture they can help guide you to
1:49:15people who have better track records and
1:49:17I think that's really important from a
1:49:18safety perspective very true very very
1:49:20true uh so I recognize the book it's not
1:49:23meant to be advice for future
1:49:24whistleblowers but but it can be useful
1:49:26for people who are thinking about
1:49:27whistling I think it's a great Point yes
1:49:29and we know that people watch and listen
1:49:31to this show who are in your spot where
1:49:33you were in 2020. um one of my
1:49:36intentions with this book was part of
1:49:37you know like we talked about before
1:49:38about how do you get a job right there's
1:49:41a bunch of other places in the book that
1:49:43are are things that may seem obvious to
1:49:45a 40 year old or a 50 year old that are
1:49:48not obvious to a 23 year old or even
1:49:50like you know the stuff I talk about
1:49:51around being sick you know uh we don't
1:49:54get manuals on how to struggle
1:49:56right
1:49:57um part of why I wrote the book the way
1:49:58I did was I wanted it to be a book that
1:50:00you could read you could read with
1:50:02college students right that you could
1:50:04use it in a lot of different places in
1:50:05the classroom to talk about different
1:50:06topics yeah yeah because it can't just
1:50:09be a book about whistleblowing if we
1:50:11want to inoculate
1:50:13lots and lots of different kinds of
1:50:15students to know that they have options
1:50:19absolutely absolutely that's why the
1:50:21book is written the way it's written so
1:50:23your story eventually LED uh to Jeff
1:50:26writing this fabulous Series in the Wall
1:50:28Street Journal
1:50:30um you testified in front of the Senate
1:50:34um and 10 other parliaments and uh you
1:50:37were interviewed by 60 minutes
1:50:40and you as you mentioned you testified
1:50:42over in Europe which led to the DSA
1:50:46um it was helpful to the people who were
1:50:48trying to pass the DSA yeah so that
1:50:50languished for a long time it's a model
1:50:52maybe that we may want to considered
1:50:53here in the United States some
1:50:56transparency right that we need here
1:50:58um I think one way you can think about
1:50:59it is like usually when people say what
1:51:01would a sensible guardrail look like in
1:51:03the United States yes because Facebook
1:51:05has spent hundreds and millions of
1:51:07dollars saying the only thing you can do
1:51:09for safety is take down bad things not
1:51:12like how we design the system matters
1:51:14what product features we have matters
1:51:16even even the research Recent research
1:51:19that came out in science like I'm
1:51:21thinking about doing my first YouTube
1:51:22video because like I want to do an
1:51:23explainer being like here's why these
1:51:25papers which people are saying are
1:51:27Facebook doesn't have an impact on
1:51:29ideology on polarization on these
1:51:32different things well-being this is why
1:51:34these papers are really badly designed
1:51:36yeah part of why the DSA is so important
1:51:39is the DSA gives researchers the right
1:51:42to Independent data
1:51:44all of that research all the things that
1:51:47we oh sorry there's two there's two ways
1:51:49to think about regulation
1:51:50Facebook has told us the only thing we
1:51:53can do is take down bad content so we
1:51:55think of sensible guardrails and be like
1:51:58oh what can you not say online
1:52:00there is a second world which I think is
1:52:03a much more promising World which says
1:52:05if you want to have free market
1:52:07Innovation if you want people to
1:52:09innovate and find healthier better ways
1:52:11to have social media
1:52:13you have to have someone who grades the
1:52:15homework who is not the company because
1:52:18then we're comparing this new Social
1:52:20Network that might make you happier you
1:52:22feel safer with your kids on the way we
1:52:24are assessing is just marketing messages
1:52:25yeah
1:52:27if we pass laws that say
1:52:29the public has the right to ask
1:52:31questions and get answers
1:52:32because unlike a car company where we
1:52:35can take the car apart ourselves we can
1:52:37crash test it ourselves unless we pass
1:52:39laws that say we have the right to ask
1:52:42questions and get answers
1:52:44we will not get to know what we're
1:52:46actually using we don't get to consent
1:52:48as consumers and we don't get to have
1:52:50free market Innovation so I found this
1:52:52gentleman online uh his name is Elon
1:52:54Musk so last yesterday he he tweeted
1:53:00Facebook is manipulating the public
1:53:02almost everywhere on earth that is why
1:53:04they won't open source their algorithm
1:53:06that was yesterday yeah so this is a
1:53:08concern that other people obviously
1:53:10still have about what's happening today
1:53:11yeah of the company you know I I want to
1:53:14acknowledge Elon has made a lot of
1:53:16choices I don't necessarily agree with
1:53:17that Twitter you know I think he's very
1:53:19divisive there's a lot of people who
1:53:21have very strong feelings about his
1:53:24actions but Elon did publish the
1:53:26algorithm and he did something more than
1:53:28just publish the algorithm which is he
1:53:30published the history of the algorithm
1:53:32and as as someone who writes code or if
1:53:35there's anyone else on your listening
1:53:37who writes code you will understand how
1:53:39Brave this is because earlier versions
1:53:41of product projects are bad right like
1:53:44he didn't just show you his homework and
1:53:45say you can grade it yourself he said
1:53:47look at how bad my homework was in the
1:53:49past yeah right and so I think Elon has
1:53:52a really important point which is that
1:53:53we should not have an information
1:53:55environment
1:53:57where computers are telling us what to
1:53:59focus on not humans not our friends not
1:54:01our neighbors but computers are telling
1:54:02us what matters where we don't get to
1:54:05look at what that process is
1:54:07but I think eagle and ghost needs to go
1:54:09one step further or Facebook needs to go
1:54:10one step further which is even the
1:54:12people who design the algorithms
1:54:14themselves don't necessarily know what
1:54:16the side effects are
1:54:17and so we also need to demand and
1:54:19require them to publish outcome data
1:54:23and so one of the projects that my
1:54:25non-profit is working on is something
1:54:26called minimum viable queries so when
1:54:29you have startups you have minimum
1:54:31viable products that's like the thing
1:54:33you shove out the door first
1:54:35minimum viable query says hey let's look
1:54:37at the harms of social media
1:54:39let's look at the levers so those are
1:54:41places we might push on to either
1:54:43prevent or mitigate harm
1:54:45and say what data do we need to request
1:54:47to get the magnitude of the harms or to
1:54:50get a sense of how hard is any given
1:54:52lever being used
1:54:54because that lets us see our problems
1:54:57getting worse or better on these
1:54:58platforms and are they trying to address
1:55:00them
1:55:01got it and so I think once we start
1:55:03having interfaces like that where we say
1:55:05hey let's agree on what the minimum
1:55:07viable queries are
1:55:09that allows us to say okay we can have
1:55:12privacy sensitive data feeds that's
1:55:14things like
1:55:15how many uh people under the age of 18
1:55:18or how many people under the age of 14
1:55:20yeah are online after midnight or
1:55:23midnight one to three a.m right because
1:55:26sleep deprivation is probably one of the
1:55:28single biggest harms of social media for
1:55:31sure and it lives with kids for the rest
1:55:32of their lives you know there's little
1:55:34things like that where we can come in
1:55:35and say no one's privacy is violated by
1:55:38you telling us how many kids are online
1:55:39after 2 A.M
1:55:41but it does matter from the perspective
1:55:42of our kids actually consenting to use
1:55:45these products or are you valuing their
1:55:47their well-being in the futures
1:55:50as a father of two children that
1:55:52resonates for sure
1:55:54here's a quote uh that came that I came
1:55:56across when we choose to live in the
1:55:59truth we make space
1:56:01for other people to step into the light
1:56:04as well it's your quick I love that
1:56:06quote and I I hope that today's episode
1:56:09inspires other people to step into the
1:56:12light as well and I really appreciate
1:56:14you taking time with us today I think
1:56:16this is the record for the longest
1:56:17episode we've ever had I think people
1:56:19are really going to enjoy it but I
1:56:21really appreciate you taking all my
1:56:22pleasure happy to be here so until the
1:56:24next episode of fraud in America if you
1:56:26see something say something and when
1:56:27that doesn't work make sure you do
1:56:29something
1:56:31if you believe you have witnessed fraud
1:56:33against the government or fraud on the
1:56:35financial markets we encourage you to
1:56:37visit our website at
1:56:40taf.org where you will find a directory
1:56:43of member attorneys who represent
1:56:45whistleblowers across the country on our
1:56:48website you will also find additional
1:56:50information about our nation's various
1:56:52whistleblower laws and programs and a
1:56:54way to donate to our organization as we
1:56:57step forward in spreading information
1:56:59about whistleblower programs this
1:57:01episode was edited and produced by
1:57:03Rachel Brooks and our theme song is by
1:57:06Connor chaos a big thank you to our Taft
1:57:09staff and researchers of James King Emma
1:57:13bass Jackie Demar Kate Scanlon Max
1:57:16Boldman fraud in America is a project of
1:57:19taxpayers against fraud education fund
1:57:21the opinions expressed on today's show
1:57:24belong solely to the guest and are not
1:57:27necessarily endorsed by the organization
1:57:29thank you for joining us on today
1:57:31today's episode of fraud in America

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