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Chapter 6
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Careless People, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Carelessness, Wealth, and Greed
Idealism and the Failed Promises of Technology
Sexism in the Workplace
Bureaucracy and Obstacles to Change
Summary
Analysis
As April 2012 and Facebook’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) approaches, Elliot tells Wynn-Williams that she should take Javi out to show him a good time in Cartagena during the Summit of the Americas, a gathering of political leaders. Everyone at Facebook is preparing to be rich after the IPO. Javi is almost as influential internally at Facebook as Sandberg but has almost no public profile. As a Spanish man, he’s one of the few non-Americans in upper management and is in charge of overseeing Facebook’s global growth.
An IPO is an important moment in the life cycle of a tech company because it is when the people who own the company can make a lot of money, but it also brings new pressures and can doom a company if it goes poorly. The fact that Javi is such an influential person at Facebook despite having little public image shows how secretive the company remains even as its IPO approaches.
Active
Themes
Wynn-Williams witnesses how Facebook prioritizes growth above all else. Javi’s growth team will sometimes ask if it’s possible to “juice” the algorithm to promote politicians who play a role in regulating it, but Wynn-Williams usually tells them that neutrality is the best policy in the long run. Javi is more “street smart” than Zuckerberg, predicting right away, for example, that rival app Snapchat will face a major issue over sexting.
Wynn-Williams seems to both admire and fear the savvy of Javi and his growth team. Unlike Zuckerberg, Javi seems to understand the consequences of new technology, but he is perhaps careless in his own way as he directs his team to focus on growth at the expense of more important issues like morality.
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In Cartagena, a dinner for the Summit of the Americas is being held in a 16th-century fortress. Javi is excited, but he and Wynn-Williams are disappointed when they find out that Facebook hasn’t been given any seats. Wynn-Williams awkwardly spends the evening trying to find people for Javi to talk to.
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The next day, Wynn-Williams manages to get Javi what she thinks is a good timeslot for his keynote speech. But she watches as everyone rushes out from the auditorium to get a good seat at the speech directly after Javi’s. Wynn-Williams apologizes, but Javi takes it well and suggests they leave to go to a restaurant with some of his friends.
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At the dinner, Wynn-Williams notices that most of the other people there seem to be tech CEOs, except for Juan del Mar, who owns the restaurant and used to be a pornographic actor. Wynn-Williams realizes she’s the only woman there, except for one of the CEO’s wives. They make fun of how small her engagement ring is. Meanwhile, Wynn-Williams is more concerned about trying to make sure Javi stays with Facebook, since the upcoming IPO has him feeling uncertain about the company’s future. After the dinner, they go to a salsa club in a more run-down neighborhood. Wynn-Williams thinks Javi is joking at first when he says Hillary Clinton is in the club with them, but it turns out she is, dancing to the salsa music with a conspicuous security detail.
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After more drinks, Wynn-Williams asks Javi point-blank in salsa club if he plans on staying at Facebook. She gets him to promise to stay for the moment, and he’s still there now, over a decade later.
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