
Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism
by Sarah Wynn-Williams Power and corruption – the power system we live in – accountability. Think about the systems you are a part of. Being careless can have huge consequences. Working for Mark Zuckerberg may not be the best option and did Sheryl Sandberg “Lean In’ too far? An explosive […]

The EU will spend billions more on defence. It’s a powerful statement – but won’t do much for Ukraine
Jessica Genauer, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Flinders University. On March 3, US President Donald Trump paused all US military aid to Ukraine. This move was apparently triggered by a heated exchange a few days earlier between Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office. In response, […]

In siding with Russia over Ukraine, Trump is not putting America first – he is hastening its decline
Matthew Sussex, Associate Professor (Adj), Griffith Asia Institute; and Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University. Has any nation squandered its diplomatic capital, plundered its own political system, attacked its partners and supplicated itself before its far weaker enemies as rapidly and brazenly as Donald Trump’s America? The […]

Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life
by Agnes Callard An iconoclastic philosopher revives Socrates for our time, showing how we can answer―and, in the first place, ask―life’s most important questions. Socrates has been hiding in plain sight. We call him the father of Western philosophy, but what exactly are his philosophical views? He is famous for […]

With 14 community newspapers due to close, too many parts of NZ are becoming ‘news deserts’
Greg Treadwell, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, Auckland University of Technology When media company NZME proposed the closure of 14 community newspapers last week, the so-called “news desert” encroached a little further into the local information landscape. The term refers to those many regions in both town and country where newspapers […]

Orbital wins the Booker
Samantha Harvey’s Orbital has won the 2024 Booker prize. What it so skilfully and ambitiously exposes is the human cost of space flight set against the urgency of the climate crisis. While a typhoon of life-threatening proportions gathers across south-east Asia, six astronauts and cosmonauts hurtle around Earth on the […]

The Chairman’s Lounge: The inside story of how Qantas sold us out
How power, money and influence work in Australia Before Covid, both Qantas and its CEO Alan Joyce were flying high, the darlings of customers, staff and investors. After Covid hit, only money mattered – in particular, the company’s share price and extraordinary executive bonuses. Illegally redundant workers, unethical flight credits, […]

What is AI superintelligence? Could it destroy humanity? And is it really almost here?
Flora Salim, Professor, School of Computer Science and Engineering, inaugural Cisco Chair of Digital Transport & AI, UNSW Sydney. Maxim Berg / Unsplash In 2014, the British philosopher Nick Bostrom published a book about the future of artificial intelligence (AI) with the ominous title Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. It proved […]

The Hidden Globe: How Wealth Hacks the World
A globe shows the world we think we know: neatly delineated sovereign nations that grant or restrict their citizens’ rights. Beneath, above, and tucked inside their borders, however, another universe has been engineered into existence. It consists of thousands of extraterritorial zones that operate largely autonomously, and increasingly for the […]
Small is the next big thing
When working for a large organization, weeks can pass before leadership makes important decisions that affect you and your team. Meanwhile, you’re on the hook to deliver products that don’t actually serve the customer-products you know you could improve, if given the opportunity. After years of consulting for Fortune 1000 […]
Rachel Kushner’s revolutionary spy novel reflects on our hurtle towards extinction
-Alex Howard,Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English and Writing, University of Sydney Rachel Kushner ranks among the finest novelists working today. The recipient of several major literary awards and a former Guggenheim Fellow, Kushner, who has a background in political economy and United States foreign policy, uses her fiction to explore […]
Book Review: Range by David Epstein
What is the best way to pursue excellence? Should you focus all your time, energy, and attention on a single pursuit? Or would it be wiser to dabble in several before committing to one? In his book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World — an instant New York Times bestseller — David Epstein […]

Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism
by Sarah Wynn-Williams Power and corruption – the power system we live in – accountability. Think about the systems you are a part of. Being careless can have huge consequences. Working for Mark Zuckerberg may not be the best option and did Sheryl Sandberg “Lean In’ too far? An explosive memoir charting one woman’s career at the heart of one of the most influential companies on the planet, Careless People gives you a front-row seat to Facebook, the decisions that have shaped world events in recent decades, and the people who made them. From trips on private jets and encounters with world leaders to shocking accounts of misogyny and double standards behind the scenes, this searing memoir exposes both the personal and the political fallout when unfettered power and a rotten company culture take hold. In a gripping and often absurd narrative where a few people carelessly hold the world in their hands, this eye-opening memoir reveals what really goes on among the global elite. Sarah Wynn-Williams tells the wrenching but fun story of Facebook, mapping its rise from stumbling encounters with juntas to Mark Zuckerberg’s reaction when he learned of Facebook’s role in Trump’s election. She experiences the challenges and humiliations of working motherhood within a pressure cooker of a workplace, all while Sheryl Sandberg urges her and others to “lean in.” Careless People is a deeply personal account of why and how things have gone so horribly wrong in the past decade―told in a sharp, candid, and utterly disarming voice. A deep, unflinching look at the role that social media has assumed in our lives, Careless People reveals the truth about the leaders of Facebook: how the more power they grasp, the less responsible they become and the consequences this has for all of us.