An Ugly Truth

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER // WINNER OF THE SABEW BEST IN BUSINESS AWARD A Book of the Year: Fortune, Foreign Affairs, The Times (London), Cosmopolitan, TechCrunch, WIRED “The ultimate takedown.” – New York Times Book Review Award-winning New York Times reporters Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang unveil the tech story of our times in a riveting, behind-the-scenes exposé that offers the definitive account of Facebook’s fall from grace. Once one of Silicon Valley’s greatest success stories, Facebook has been under constant fire for the past five years, roiled by controversies and crises. It turns out that while the tech giant was connecting the world, they were also mishandling users’ data, spreading fake news, and amplifying dangerous, polarizing hate speech. The company, many said, had simply lost its way. But the truth is far more complex. Leadership decisions enabled, and then attempted to deflect attention from, the crises. Time after time, Facebook’s engineers were instructed to create tools that encouraged people to spend as much time on the platform as possible, even as those same tools boosted inflammatory rhetoric, conspiracy theories, and partisan filter bubbles. And while consumers and lawmakers focused their outrage on privacy breaches and misinformation, Facebook solidified its role as the world’s most voracious data-mining machine, posting record profits, and shoring up its dominance via aggressive lobbying efforts. Drawing on their unrivaled sources, Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang take readers inside the complex court politics, alliances and rivalries within the company to shine a light on the fatal cracks in the architecture of the tech behemoth. Their explosive, exclusive reporting led them to a shocking conclusion: The missteps of the last five years were not an anomaly but an inevitability—this is how Facebook was built to perform. In a period of great upheaval, growth has remained the one constant under the leadership of Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. Both have been held up as archetypes of uniquely 21st century executives—he the tech “boy genius” turned billionaire, she the ultimate woman in business, an inspiration to millions through her books and speeches. But sealed off in tight circles of advisers and hobbled by their own ambition and hubris, each has stood by as their technology is coopted by hate-mongers, criminals and corrupt political regimes across the globe, with devastating consequences. In An Ugly Truth, they are at last held accountable.

Extracts from Erin Pizzey's Foreword: ‘Mike Buchanan is a very brave man. I've known other men who've tried to draw the public's attention to the damage done by the radical feminist movement. Many lost their jobs and none of them were able to find a publisher for their books. Men have been thrown out of their own houses and unjustly accused of domestic violence towards their partners, and some of sexually abusing their children. The legitimate interests of men in Western society are being systematically assaulted by radical feminists and this book goes a long way to providing the evidence. Men are starting to campaign more effectively for their interests, though they have a long way to go before they halt the tide of radical feminist influence, let alone start to reverse it. Feminists can also expect more challenging from another quarter. An increasing number of women are summoning up the courage to openly criticise them. This shouldn't surprise us, given that the vast majority of women don't share the radical feminists' political ideology. With every year that passes more women become aware of the damage man-hating and family-hating radical feminists wreak on society in general, and women's interests in particular. These women are becoming more vocal, and their number is on the rise... How much more damage will feminists be allowed to wreak before they're more widely recognised as the evil women they are?' This book provides long-awaited answers to over 50 of the most challenging questions in the modern era including: 1. Are you a misogynist if you only hate feminists? 2. What is feminism in the modern era? 3. How do radical feminists view the world? 4. Are feminists less intelligent than normal women? 5. Are feminists less attractive than normal women? 6. Do feminists suffer from PPS (Permanent Premenstrual Syndrome)? 7. Why do feminists deny the different natures of men and women? 8. Why must taxpayers stop financing Women's Studies and Gender Studies courses? 9. What are the big fat feminist fantasies, lies, delusions and myths? 10. Are feminists delusional? Is the pope a Catholic? Do bears crap in woods? 11. How are feminists killing men and women? 12. Are some feminists (e.g. Tracey Emin) a pain in the arts? The book contains an appendix of quotations and ends with a sample chapter titled ‘Would you like to have sex with my wife?' from Mike Buchanan's international bestseller ‘Two Men in a Car (a businessman, a chauffeur, and their holidays in France)'. It also contains the plate section from the book (16 photographs).

One of the Best Technology Books of 2020—Financial Times “Levy’s all-access Facebook reflects the reputational swan dive of its subject. . . . The result is evenhanded and devastating.”—San Francisco Chronicle “[Levy’s] evenhanded conclusions are still damning.”—Reason “[He] doesn’t shy from asking the tough questions.”—The Washington Post “Reminds you the HBO show Silicon Valley did not have to reach far for its satire.”—NPR.org The definitive history, packed with untold stories, of one of America’s most controversial and powerful companies: Facebook As a college sophomore, Mark Zuckerberg created a simple website to serve as a campus social network. Today, Facebook is nearly unrecognizable from its first, modest iteration. In light of recent controversies surrounding election-influencing “fake news” accounts, the handling of its users’ personal data, and growing discontent with the actions of its founder and CEO—who has enormous power over what the world sees and says—never has a company been more central to the national conversation. Millions of words have been written about Facebook, but no one has told the complete story, documenting its ascendancy and missteps. There is no denying the power and omnipresence of Facebook in American daily life, or the imperative of this book to document the unchecked power and shocking techniques of the company, from growing at all costs to outmaneuvering its biggest rivals to acquire WhatsApp and Instagram, to developing a platform so addictive even some of its own are now beginning to realize its dangers. Based on hundreds of interviews from inside and outside Facebook, Levy’s sweeping narrative of incredible entrepreneurial success and failure digs deep into the whole story of the company that has changed the world and reaped the consequences.

WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER • A FINANCIAL TIMES, FORTUNE, AND NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • “The riveting, definitive account of WeWork, one of the wildest business stories of our time.”—Matt Levine, Money Stuff columnist, Bloomberg Opinion The definitive story of the rise and fall of WeWork (also depicted in the upcoming Apple TV+ series WeCrashed, starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway), by the real-life journalists whose Wall Street Journal reporting rocked the company and exposed a financial system drunk on the elixir of Silicon Valley innovation. LONGLISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD WeWork would be worth $10 trillion, more than any other company in the world. It wasn’t just an office space provider. It was a tech company—an AI startup, even. Its WeGrow schools and WeLive residences would revolutionize education and housing. One day, mused founder Adam Neumann, a Middle East peace accord would be signed in a WeWork. The company might help colonize Mars. And Neumann would become the world’s first trillionaire. This was the vision of Neumann and his primary cheerleader, SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son. In hindsight, their ambition for the company, whose primary business was subletting desks in slickly designed offices, seems like madness. Why did so many intelligent people—from venture capitalists to Wall Street elite—fall for the hype? And how did WeWork go so wrong? In little more than a decade, Neumann transformed himself from a struggling baby clothes salesman into the charismatic, hard-partying CEO of a company worth $47 billion—on paper. With his long hair and feel-good mantras, the six-foot-five Israeli transplant looked the part of a messianic truth teller. Investors swooned, and billions poured in. Neumann dined with the CEOs of JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, entertaining a parade of power brokers desperate to get a slice of what he was selling: the country’s most valuable startup, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and a generation-defining moment. Soon, however, WeWork was burning through cash faster than Neumann could bring it in. From his private jet, sometimes clouded with marijuana smoke, he scoured the globe for more capital. Then, as WeWork readied a Hail Mary IPO, it all fell apart. Nearly $40 billion of value vaporized in one of corporate America’s most spectacular meltdowns. Peppered with eye-popping, never-before-reported details, The Cult of We is the gripping story of careless and often absurd people—and the financial system they have made.

The Good Guy, the Bad Guy, and the Ugly Truth, looks at the fact that when a man or woman is in more than one unhealthy relationship, be it physical, verbal or emotional abuse that comes to be seen as normal. While the person may state that they desire a healthy and loving relationship they tend to reject those potential partners where a healthy relationship is possible and tend to accept those partners who treat them poorly as that is what they understand. Two reasons exist for this 1. they have come to believe that the "good guy" (or girl) is an act and when the truly good person doesn't change into the "bad guy" or girl they feel they are still experiencing the act. 2. They have a damaged self esteem and self-worth and feel as thought they don't deserve better and this leads to them rejecting the person. Generally it is a combination of the two. The book examines this idea and explains it in an easy to read way without losing therapeutic value. After the subjects and ideas have been explained there are multiple self-designed exercises which are intended to help the person examine him or herself as well as their past relationships and what they truly want. They include things like the persons strengths, their weaknesses, guilt, and resentments, accountability of self and other and many more. The last section of the book talks about how a healthy relationship should exist as far as communication, sharing, time apart, respect, sexuality, and other aspects. The book is designed not only for those who have been through unhealthy relationship, but also those who have been effected by attempting to or being in a relationship with those who had unhealthy relationships. The exercises work for both men and women no matter which side they were on as well as individuals of any sexual orientation.

Through stories and lessons from managers, you'll discover how to handle a variety of situations--Cover p. [4].