A new book by an ex-Facebook employee is exposing some of the company’s deepest darkest secrets.
In her new book “The Boy Kings,” Katherine Losse sheds light on some of the company’s insider issues including sexism and a nepotistic culture surrounding CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Losse began her career at Facebook in 2006 working in customer service and later became a ghostwriter for Zuckerberg. She left the company in 2010.
The former employee claims that the company idolizes Zuckerberg so much that women employees were required to wear T-shirts with his face on it. Male employees were required to wear Adidas shoes in honor of the CEO’s favorite shoe line.
Losse described the company climate as cult-like and said Zuckerberg would end staff meetings by saying: ““Domination” or “Revolution.”
“The gender coding was clear,” she wrote. “Women were to declare allegiance to Mark, and men were to become Mark.”
Her book also exposes the controversial behavior of many Facebook’s male employees. Losse claims that some of the men made inappropriate passes and comments to their female cohorts. She wrote that one male employee who was married propositioned a female co-worker for threesomes. She also shared that another male employee told a woman “I want to put my teeth in you’re a**?”
When the incident was reported to Zuckerberg he responded by saying: “What does that even mean?”
Losse said that the chauvinistic culture improved after the company hired Sheryl Sandberg.
“The arrival of Sheryl Sandberg really helped because she was vocal and would say, ‘I really care about women in the workplace,’” Losse said. “It was a clear turning point for the company in terms of knowing that these things were serious and [that harassment] needed to stop happening.”
Losse also exposes the harassment that took place outside of the office. She described an incident at a Las Vegas strip club where her male co-workers would bark at the women they did not find attractive.
“’Leave! You’re not pretty enough!’ one of them seemed to say over the din of the club as he shooed the girls away in succession like so many servants,” Losse writes.
In the book, Losse shares that employees were often asked to access every Facebook user’s account including their private messages. Employees also used Judgebook to assess Facebook users by their looks.
