The book talks about the conditions when she was fired. She was suffering from life threatening medical problems from complications from a pregnancy. Not hard to see these terms as coerced given the medical and financial problems she was facing at the time.
Can you elaborate on the financial problems she was facing? She seems to have been a highly paid Facebook exec who would have had great health insurance. And if her employment was in the US she could keep that insurance through COBRA for between 18 and 36 months.
Life threatening medical problems are obviously horrific and she has my full sympathies. But I'm having a tough time drawing a from that to "coercion" for someone who was a director at Facebook.
She reported not being particularly high paid compared to her peers. When she was hired Facebook didn't care at all about her area (government relations).
As that became more important her role grew but she was never really promoted.
She also was not well informed about how tech compensation works and negotiated poorly (no stock) she came from an NGO background in New Zealand.
Her salary was probably quite a bit more than the average American but she was living in expensive areas (DC and SV) and interacting with extremely wealthy people. At one point Sheryl Sandburg got annoyed that she was leaving work for childcare and told her to hire a live-in nanny. She was living paycheck-to-paycheck on a high income with no wealth accumulation (many such cases).
OK, then honestly it's hard for me to have any sympathy for the idea that she was "coerced". She was being paid lots... but wasn't getting paid even more?
If you're an executive at Facebook, you should know how to research negotiation and compensation, and figure out a living situation where you're saving money. You're in the big leagues. If Sheryl expected her to be able to hire a full time nanny, then that's an excellent time to renegotiate a salary than can afford that.
If you're an entry-level worker who can't make ends meet in San Fran then of course I sympathize greatly! But if you're an executive at Facebook making enough money that you can even consider a full time nanny... you're not facing any level of "hardship" by which an offer of even more money in exchange for non-disparagement could be considered "coercion". Nobody is in poverty here. Nobody is going to wind up hungry or on the street.
That's what I don't understand. How can a high-up executive at Facebook be living paycheck-to-paycheck?
If I made, say, $300K/yr and was living paycheck-to-paycheck with zero savings after many years with the company, I'd say I was making highly irresponsible spending choices.
And she had a husband too, who sounds like he was working.
So something's just not adding up. It doesn't make any sense that a director-level executive at Facebook is 1-3 months away from "poverty".
COBRA means you pay the full cost of the insurance. So suddenly instead of paying $150 you are now seeing a $500 or more bill, especially if your employer is a major company that pays for all sorts of benefits. COBRA is a joke when you consider you just lost all source of income.
> The point is, you're not suddenly facing ruinous bankrupting medical expenses.
This is a powerful assumption given how expensive medicine is in the US - even with insurance - and how often people in their adulthood need medical treatment.
> The point is, you're not suddenly facing ruinous bankrupting medical expenses.
COBRA is going to cost her in the range of $3k-6k/mo. Then on top of that she's still going to have to pay all the co-pays and other out of pocket expenses. So probably going to need to hit like $10k in out of pocket expenses before she starts to be fully covered, at least for the things that are covered and in network.
I'm not sure what issue she ha{s,d} but I'll say that when my mom had cancer my dad was a top salesman for a major insurance company, we had the best plan you could get, and despite that they paid well over a hundred grand in medical expenses. This was 2 decades ago, he was making over a quarter million a year, and we were living on a very tight budget. Even if we had a lot in the bank I'm certain my family would have been completely financially ruined had we added the expenses of COBRA and removed the loss of income.
I do not think you're looking at the reality of the situation clearly. Maybe you're right, but none of us know the full details. My point is that the explanation is far from an unreasonable one, so it cannot be dismissed so easily. We'll need to know more to determine if your intuition is correct. But as of now, it is certainly too hasty
IIRC, part of the reason that so many countries have specific "here's money specifically for retirement" things (pensions, 401k here in the US) is that many people just don't plan far ahead very well.
If entry-level and lower-paid workers aren't saving money then that's understandable. That's why these government programs exist.
If you're an executive at Facebook, I think you have the ability to plan things well. If you still can't save any money, at that point it's hard to see how it's not just your fault.
She wasn't an executive in the sense you're thinking and certainly wasn't hired as one. She was hired to work in an area Zuckerberg never cared about and never gave anywhere near sufficient resources to.
She's described as an executive and as a director in articles.
I don't know what other sense there is? And what possible relevance is there of the relationship between her role and what Zuck thought? I'm sure Zuck doesn't care much about accounting or HR either. Lots of well paid executives work in areas of corporations that aren't the founder's main focus. That's the kind of problem most people would love to have.
Directing an area is very different from the title (or compensation) of Director, and it's certainly not equivalent to Director in a tech organization. SWW was hired as "Manager of Global Public Policy" but the book never indicates that she ever has reports or is a manager in that sense, which is generally a requirement to be understood or perceived as a "Director".
If you're surprised media articles don't ask questions and get basic facts wrong, go read any article about a topic you have direct experience with.
The articles don't seem to have gotten any basic facts wrong.
She had director in her title and reported directly to a vice president, Joel Kaplan, who is now a C-level officer. She managed staff.
That's seriously high up in the corporate hierarchy at Facebook. Feel free to read more:
"She managed a growing staff and oversaw government relations for entire continents, including Asia and South America. She reported to corporate vice presidents and had direct contact with Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, then the chief operating officer."
So again, I don't what you mean by "wasn't an executive in the sense you're thinking". She's seems to be exactly an executive in the sense that everyone thinks.
> She's described as an executive and as a director in articles.
I once met with a person who used to be a vice president in a major US bank. I was impressed, until much later when I discovered that there were three thousand “vice presidents” in that bank.
VP is a low rank at a bank but a high rank at Meta. I would be very surprised if anyone at Meta with VP in their title made less than $1M total compensation. "Director" at Meta is also a high rank.
...while rejecting all meaningful suggestions and actions. It's very obvious throughout the story he doesn't care about the impact Facebook has on the world.
Zuck cares about growing into China. He cares about powerful people pretending they like him. He couldn't give less of a care about people dying, about his platforms being used to spread misinformation, about that misinformation corrupting elections and descending the world into authoritarianism, about the spread of hate speech, or anything else.
Ask your local nurse or schoolteacher how they feel about being "thanked" while everyone keeps voting against any meaningful change that would actually help them.
Not to mention that sometimes you'll need to be reimbursed rather than have them cover costs directly. They too are a profit maximization company, you can bet they want to pay out all little as possible and delay payments as long as possible.
Just a few months ago a close friend was denied her diabetes medication because her bloodwork showed her levels (of whatever they were testing) were nominal. The problem is, those tests showing normal is the exact thing you'd measure if the medication is working (if she was somehow no longer diabetic and taking medication then the levels also wouldn't her nominal). Her and her husband both have medical degrees too, and it took weeks to get the insurance to agree to cover the costs. All because someone only knew how to look at some spreadsheet but not how to interpret that data... (a common occurrence, even in our (HN's userbase) own field)
I'm not sure why this is shocking to anyone. Did we forget Luigi Mangione so quickly? His actions speak to the level of frustration Americans have with this system. You do not need to condone his actions (which I do not) to recognize the plight he represents.
$500? Ours was $2800/mo for a family of three and this was 2018 (Not FANG, big pharma)
Yes the original plan was great. No, we didn't need a plan that great. No we couldn't "downgrade". With the bigger income suddenly gone, coming up with $2800/mo in cash was a huge problem. COBRA is useless for many/most, unless your coverage is shite and the cost to the employer low.
when you are fired, you are free to disparage your former employer. she was not free to do that because she signed away that right, and you can only sign away something in exchange for something, which she obviously took.
when you don't mention or acknowledge this aspect, you are not making a convincing argument. perhaps they gave her a very attractive severance package, and you don't know that they didn't, so how can you draw a conclusion?
life threatening health problems is not a free pass to "i get whatever i want", not for me, not for you, and not for her, although we know that in the world of Karens it is an entitlement.
