Sheryl Sandberg

On changing culture and lessons from loss.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:13):
So I a couple of years ago partnered with Mark
Burnett and MGM because I reached out to Mark Burnett,
just called him, cold called him with an idea, and
we talked about doing a bunch of different shows. At
the same time, a lot of my career grew in
ways I never knew that it would when I left
The Housewives. I mean, I knew I was going to
keep going, but my business has absolutely exploded. And when

(00:35):
I first left house Was I was a little bit worried,
not about me being successful or going broke, but just
that that was that was lucrative. And when you have
homes and a staff and office and you know, an infrastructure,
you have to keep the machine going. So at that
point I did a deal with Mark Burnett to do
many different shows, produce shows that I'm in, produced shows

(00:56):
that I'm not in, and I love that idea and
I still love that idea. And the first one we
did was The Big Shot. And the reason that we
did The Big Shot together was because it was a
business competition show and also because it was a natural
need that I had. So I'm big on stacking, so
I naturally needed to staff up because my business grew
so exponentially, so why not use a show to do that?

(01:17):
So you're double dipping. You're basically producing a show, but
you're also working on staffing. So in the meantime with
that deal, we talked about selling a bunch of other shows,
and that's really a whole business in to itself. And
while I want to produce other shows, I don't want
to personally feel the pressure to do that. And I

(01:38):
don't like to really be shackled to anybody else and
felt like I owe someone something or I don't like
to be exclusive that much either. So when I was
asked back to the Housewives, when Andy came and made
me the offer, I couldn't refuse. I had many strict terms,
and most of the terms where you can't shackle me.
Because everyone is shackled by being on these shows by

(01:58):
their networks. There's a re is and that you didn't
see the Kardashians and other networks as a reason why
you didn't see the Housewives and other networks. For the
most part, there are exceptions, single shows, single incidents. There
reasons why you don't see a lot of Housewives doing
certain ads. Because if it's a big, big company, that
might advertise on Bravo. It's being cannibalized because these people

(02:21):
are now doing ads on their own on their Instagram.
Those big brands may not have to go to Bravo.
So when I came back, I said, I am able
to do a business competition show. I will be able
to be on Shark Tank if I wanted to do this.
If I wanted to do that, I was. I carved
out a lot of things. I'm a big carbor outer
because it had to work for me. With the lucrative

(02:42):
deal that I was partnered with Mark Burnett in, I
would have to really kind of be shackled to them.
You know, they are a major, major, multibillion dollar company,
and um, if I would to do any other podcasts,
I would have to do it with them, and any
shows that have to do it with them. And I've
just to realize, and you have to realize in your
life what your business type is. While we know I'm

(03:05):
not corporate, even within this sort of Maverick entrepreneurial lifestyle,
I am also not someone who wants to just lock
in with one partner because there are different companies that
make different types of shows and different production companies that
make different types of podcasts, and so many times in
business you will learn as you go. Did I think

(03:26):
about that in the beginning. No, It's an honor to
be partnered with Mark Burnett. I like him immensely professionally
and personally. His wife is lovely. I go to their house.
He's invited me to stay there, to give me the
chance to want a partner with me later in life,
when he probably you know, at some point, still saw
me as that apprentice person. I always am loyal to

(03:46):
those who have given me the chances. So the press
will make it like either I don't like him or
something went wrong, and you know, the truth is, I'm
just the type of person who wants to have an
Ola Carte menu career. And it's extremely rare to have
a career like I do and to not have an agent.
It's almost unheard of. People don't all people have agents,

(04:09):
And I years ago I had an amazing agent and
an amazing agency in branding and talent in TV production, writing, etcetera.
Personal appearances, and then you're locked in with them. It's
the same exact thing. You're with them for all of
those different categories. When I thought that maybe the agency
might be good at one category but not the others,
and I don't want to be shackled. So as I've

(04:31):
gotten more successful, I've created my own menu of how
I operate and the projects that I do. And because
I can get pretty much anyone on the phone. If
I want to do a television show on Netflix, let's
just say and I had a good idea, I would
find out who would call it Netflix, and I would

(04:52):
call them or I would email them, and I bet
they'd call me back. Based on history, they call me back,
and then we figure out who we wanted to write
or produce it, and then I'd call it whoever that
person was. And the messages that most people are accessible,
so you can probably get to someone if you have
a great way to get to them. Meaning years ago,

(05:13):
I wanted to beyond the Food Network, and I would
look at the television and read who produced shows, and
then just call their offices and send cookies because I
baked healthy cookies Bethany bakes, and lo and behold, I
get a meeting, but a lot of Mark Burnet and um.
I love being a free agent. More so, are you
a person who really likes to follow guidelines? And have

(05:37):
the protection of the structure of not really just a
corporate infrastructure, but a business rule follower. You're sort of
going by principles that you've seen work and you've seen
other people practice. Or are you just making up the
rules as you go along? Because I am an absolute
makeup the rules as I go along in every contract

(05:57):
and every deal, and every product and every partnership, in everything.
But you know, all that stuff is important to me
to tell you. My guest today is Cheryl Samberg, chief
operating Officer at Facebook, where she oversees the firm's business operations.
She is Facebook's number two. She is one of the

(06:19):
most powerful, intelligent women of our time, in this country,
in the world. I kept looking on my weekly update
seeing her name that she was coming on, and I
still kept saying, to myself, is Cheryl Samberg really coming
on here? Just like I did when Hillary Clinton came on,
just like you know so many other people. So uh,

(06:41):
it's very humbling and I'm excited to talk to her.
She serves on Facebook's board of directors. Prior to Facebook,
Sheryl was a vice president of global online sales and
Operations at a small, cute, little company called Google and
chief of staff for the United States Treasury Department under
President Clinton. In today, we talk about the importance of

(07:02):
post traumatic growth, the struggles of being a woman in leadership,
why sometimes you need to let go of the reins
and let your team take the lead. That's what I
call getting out of the weeds, and the importance of gratitude.
I love talking with Cheryl. I learned so much. There
were so many amazing takeaways, and I think you are
going to love this interview. Hello, Hi, nice to meet you.

(07:32):
Nice to meet you. So thank you for doing this.
I'm so excited to do this. You are I'm really humbled.
I mean I'm not. You know, the show has been
going incredibly well, and I've been sort of strict with
the filter about who I have on, not as it
pertains to sort of fame or pr but as it
pertains to someone's story or what they've built or where
they've come from. So you know, you're I was talking

(07:55):
to my fiance today and I was saying, uh, this
is like my you know, my biggest kit, and he
was like, you know it is No. I have so
much to say to you, ready one, Okay, I really
admire how you've led in terms of being a businesswoman,
like you went from a show that is I didn't
watch it much but not really about that into like
being like a serious businesswoman. And I a lot of

(08:17):
people admire you on one of them too, I like
worship Skinny Margarine isn't change. I really do so like
it's like a real thing. But three, I mean, you're
one of the only other people I know who experienced
lost the way I did. And it's funny. I usually
reach out to people I try. I don't believe I
did to you. I should have, you know, So I
just I feel like we have so much in common
and I'm like so happy to do this. But anyway,

(08:39):
I'm really excited to do this. And what you're trying
to talk about is all the stuff I care about, right,
I just want to talk about you. Having people women
like you and Hillary Clinton on the show has so
far surpassed what I imagined. But it's what I want
to discuss so well. So the show. I don't know
if you've listened, but the show is about, you know,
how someone achieved success through so many different journeys and

(09:01):
had there are so many roads to rome and people
listening are finding this to be a toolbox, so they
don't have to have a one size fits all success model.
But they're taking little pieces from individuals based on how
they operate in business and family and relationships. So I'm
interested in you, and I'm interested in so how did
you grow up? What were your parents like? And what
was your relationship to money, to success, to drive to perform?

(09:26):
Like what was instilled in you or not instilled in you?
So I grew up in North Waami Beach, Florida, you know,
a suburb. My father was a doctor. Um, my mother,
they had both moved from New York. You know my father.
I remember when I got into college. Um, I went
to a big public high school and I got accepted

(09:46):
to Harvard. And I went to a high school where
you know, a thousand kids in the class, eight hundred
and fifty graduated, four hundred went to college. So you
can understand, you know, this is not you know, this
is not New York City, this is not and over
an exeter um. And I got into Harvard, and you
know a whole bunch of people said to me, why
would you want to go there? You isn't everyone going

(10:07):
to be a geek. But then a bunch of people
said to me, can you afford to go? And my
parents were going to send me. And I went home
and said to my dad, you know, someone asked me
today if I could afford to go. And I was
really embarrassed. And my dad had tears in his eyes.
It was the first time I ever saw him cry.
And he said he got into My dad, he said,
I got into Princeton and I didn't get a scholarship

(10:28):
and I couldn't go. I am so proud that I
can send you to college. Oh that's such a nice story. Wow. Yeah.
And so I grew up with a father who really
you know, his father, you know, wanted to be a
teacher but couldn't pass the exam, worked in a post office,
then sold insurance. My dad did it all on his own,
you know, worked his way through college, was still paying
off his college and med school loans way into my childhood.

(10:51):
And so I grew up with a like, you work hard.
We are kind of a Jewish immigrant family. We just
came even though it had been to generations, but we
are going to have that, you know, you worked hard
for the next generation. I grew up with that I
also grew up with a family that was pretty anti money,
actually anti business, anti flash. There were people in my

(11:12):
neighborhood who would buy flashy clothes or flashy cars. My
parents did not approve of that. Academics, oh, big academics.
The academics learn for learning's sake, you know. I was
told someone who's that one of my very best friends
in the fourth grade told me I had fake jeans.
What does that mean? Because everyone had the George Ash
jeans and I didn't have the George Ash jeans. My

(11:33):
mom bought me, you know, the much lower end cheap
and then um, and my parents actually could have afforded
to buy me that stuff. They just didn't want to.
It was it was their values. You don't buy expensive
genes for a ten year old. Well also, but the
value of things like my daughter the clothes that she
has now a couple of nicer things because she's getting
into some of the brands, but we're from TJ. Max.

(11:56):
Because I was like, I'm going to buy a four
year old a hundred sweater, like it to make any sense,
and it's all by myself, something that's hundreds of dollars,
But I thought it was ridiculous. But also I'm a
person who cares very much about value and that may
sound crazy. Something could be thousands of dollars, but is
it doesn't hold its value? Is it actually worth that
as an experience I'll have forever or is it just
an obvious waste of money because's got some logo on it.

(12:17):
I studied that in business school. Really, Yeah, that there's
a neighbor. I think it's the value based consumer. Yeah,
there's like you are you are. There's like four types
and you're one of them, and that's a pretty cool
one to be. My husband was that interesting? Yes, I don't. Like,
I might spend thousands of dollars on a bag, but
I wouldn't. I wouldn't feel right paying for a sweetener
packet because they're just sitting there at Starbucks. They're free.

(12:39):
Like I wouldn't want to buy the box and it
just would bother me. And it's three dollars. But anyway,
you know, are you a corporate person, You've worked within
some framework of a structure, it seems through your career,
which is so well actually before that, actually before that.
So we're talking about values and we're talking about don't
waste money, don't be flashy, Hey what do they think
of your success? But then also your financial success, like,

(13:01):
what is that relationship within your the people you grew
up with and within your sort of inner circle, that
relationship to money that do you have money noise? Did
you always think, because if you're saying you have an
immigrant mentality, did you think it was going to be
taken away from you? Even no matter how much it
is people have that feeling? It was really never the goal.
And I grew up thinking I went to business school,
but I joined the nonprofit club. I was going to

(13:21):
work in government or nonprofits. I worked out of college.
I went to the World Bank, I went to the
Children's Defense Fund. Then I went to the U. S.
Treasury Department. I never really thought I'd work in business.
And then what happened is I was at the Treasury
so during the Clinton years, and this is when the
tech boom started and Yahoo was starting, and I couldn't
believe what was happening. You know, I was a kind

(13:42):
of geeky girl, and I used to go to the
library a lot. And then there was Google and you
could search and you didn't have to go to the library,
and you don't have to look at the book. It
was all there, and it was I thought, the most
incredible thing, and I, you know, really wanted to be
part of what I thought was, you know, a different
way of making the world better. I know our industry
is suffering reputationally, and I know, I know, I know

(14:05):
that people don't always believe this anymore, but I think
a lot of us who work in this industry deeply
believe it, and I do, and I did so when
I was at Google, I was in charge of a
bunch of operational stuff, but one of them was scanning
the books. And interestingly, professor I had had at Harvard
we were scanning Harvard's books said to me, but you
know what special about getting into Harvard is you go

(14:26):
you can read those books. Now anyone's going to have access.
What what does that mean scanning the books? Like what
do you mean? Google had a project to scan the
world's books so that way would be available. So like
the you know, the depths of Widener Library, the depths
of the you know, National Archives of France, Like you
can't go you can't read that stuff except you go
to those places and walk the stories down and you're

(14:47):
in a basement looking at old book Google for free
scan scanned everything, or tried to scan as much as possible.
And someone said to me, aren't you going to feel bad?
Like you worked so hard to get admitted here and
then anyone's going to have access? And I was like,
few bad. That's amazing. A child in India, a child
anywhere would have access to the books that I got

(15:08):
access to. I loved it. I just loved it, and
I believed and I still do. But you felt the
way of coming you were, You felt that you were
in a place that was mesmerizing. It sounds like like
you could feel. You know, you're a bit of a forecaster.
It seems like you could have sort of saw something
coming with a group of people before the world talk.
I mean, no, I wish I did. I really do.

(15:29):
I wish I saw that. I don't think I realized
Google would be a big business when I first took
my first tech job, and then I did want Facebook
to be a big business, but both times it was
it was very mission based. You know. Then, when you
think about the Internet in the early days, one of
my favorite cartoons was a dog sitting in front of
a computer and it said on the internet, no one
knows you're a dog. But I couldn't believe that people

(15:50):
were putting their real name and faces on the internet.
When I first saw Facebook, I was at Google. We
did information and it was all, you know, it was
just information, and people were putting their names and faces.
And I had a long lost friend that had moved
away when she was in sixth grade. And her name,
I don't want to say her name, but her name
was the most common name you could put. Her last
name was Smith. Could not find her, could not find her,

(16:14):
and I found her. She found me on Facebook. And
I had been looking for this woman for like five years.
That's unbelievable. I thought it was amazing, and so I
didn't chase financial success and I did have that along
the way. You asked how my family has dealt with
it and my friends. I mean, probably the most important
thing I've done is philanthropy. And I know you've done
amazing things. I thought what you did during COVID for

(16:36):
small businesses, what you did, you've done, You've done some
really really impressive stuff. You know, my family is involved,
and my friends, in my in my foundation. That's amazing.
So it's like a village mentality, which is that's amazing
that they can share in your success in giving back.

(17:00):
What do you find to be the hardest part about
running a business? I'm trying. I want to understand what
your day feels like, what the infrastructure is like, do
you crack, do you get super stressed and snappy? And
we'll get into the whole bitchiness of being a woman
in business, because that's the only aspect of that whole
thing that I ever really feel like. I want to
get into that the men and women thing, because I've

(17:22):
never thought about it at all except for that tough
bitch part. But what is it like running your business?
Or I mean, I have a hard time running my business,
which is small, but I feel that it's extremely overwhelming
and intense and the weeds are almost impossible to get
out of. So are you in the weeds at all? Well?
The most important thing I learned as I was scaling
things like Google and Facebook is to make sure I

(17:44):
don't think I'm that important. So when I was, like
when I first trained Google and a team of four people,
and we were running this thing called ad words, which
was the early part of their ads business, and we
were growing really quickly. We had to hire. We couldn't
keep up with the demand, which is a nice problem
to have. But the four people were a team for
a long time before at and I said to them,
don't worry, you're all going to get to interview everyone.
But then a week later we had twelve people. We

(18:05):
had twelve people interview you didn't work at all, But
I still interviewed. I still interviewed because I thought, you know,
how could someone join my team if I didn't meet them.
And so then fast forward, We're about a hundred people.
I have like a little structure, and I have direct supports,
and I'm still interviewing every single person. But my interviews
are now five minutes. And I realized my interviews are
slowing down our hiring because it takes like a week

(18:26):
to get on my schedule. So in a meeting of
my five direct reports, I say, maybe I should stop interviewing,
and Bethany, I fully expected them to jump in and say,
absolutely not. You're a fabulous interviewer. It's your team. Of
course you need to interview. Will make it work. Do
you know what they did? They applauded, They applauded, and

(18:46):
I said to myself, oh my god, I'm not interviewing.
And then I looked at them and I said, I
have failed you because I didn't set this up so
that you told me to stop interviewing. I was the
bottleneck to our progress. But it's my fault that I
had to suggest it and you had to applaud like.
And I want to make sure next time if I
have a blind spot, you don't wait for me to
see it. You all tell me, well, but do you

(19:09):
think they really They might not have realized it. It's
like sort of happening in real time, you know, like
no one around me realizes I'm in the full weeds
until I say to everyone, I'm cracked. I'm in all
the weeds. I'm answering questions on a macro level about
lawsuits and multibillion dollar partnerships, and then I'm talking about
you know, we'll have a moment right now where a
former assistant is holding pizzas for HSN hostage right now

(19:30):
that I have to put on live television on frontay
have hostage. I have a hostage crisis of frozen pizzas.
But that's what that's so I'm in the hostage crisis.
Negotiating for these frozen pizzas that are five inches in diameter.
I'm like, and I said to have one. I don't
think I should be in the middle of the pizza
hostage crisis. I just don't think I think I should
have and peace negotiator working on the pizza hostage crisis.
We'll see, we don't know. But part of that's about

(19:52):
delegating and about hiring the people around you to delegate.
I think your new show is going to help you
find someone, right, Yes, well, the thing is. And that's
why I want to get into a a bit of
the corporate versus being um like a Maverick entrepreneur comparison,
because I am the talent in the face, the creator,
the marketer. But then also I wanted one to take
me more out of the business. I don't want to

(20:13):
be the president and the CEO and all of those things.
I want to be able to do this stuff. I
want to be able to be involved in that. But
it's hard to do personal and business at the same time.
Does that make any sense? Like, being the talent is
very hard in addition to be running the company. It's impossible. Yeah,
I mean, I'm not the talent. But but I do
understand what you're saying in the sense that you can't
do everything, and as your business skilled, and your business

(20:35):
has really skilled impressively, so what you need to figure
out is what you want to do and what you
don't want to do. When I took my job at Facebook,
you know, I went to work for twenty three year
old twenty three. The people who had come before me,
who were senior had not lasted, so I actually flew around.
I went to see um Tim Cook at Apple. He
had done that job for Steve Jobs. I went to

(20:57):
see Softracts at Oracle, she had done that. And I
went to see a man who had done it for
Bill Gates and a couple of other people who kind
of went in to these companies that were super successful,
and they were the number two and they were the
operations person. And I asked them all, like, you know what,
how did it go well? Because these were the ones
that went well, Like how did it go well? And

(21:17):
I listened to what they said, and I distilled it
down to one thing. And I went back and I said, Mark,
my job is to do whatever you don't want to do. Wow,
that's my job now with me and Mark. I think
we were very naturally. We fit together very naturally because
he's an engineer's engineer and a product person. I mean
he he really is, and I'm not. And so it
naturally falls that I lead the sales organization and he

(21:39):
does product. But I think that's what you need. You
need someone and a bunch of people who are going
to say to you, my job is to do what
what you don't want to do today. Well, by the way,
it's a great point you're making, Cheryl, because often I
find from people it's about communication, where for example, I
was working with a house designer and these women said,
I don't like to decide, I don't want to pick
up fern or even though the designers they wanted to

(22:01):
do renovation, interior renovation. And then the other designer they're
working with said, I hate that stuff. I like this
where I'm surprised I would have thought nobody wanted to
do the interior renovation. To your point, you probably have thrived,
obviously have thrived and wanted to do coincidentally, the things
that Mark didn't want to do well that made us
a good fit. Literally, he interviewed me for months and

(22:22):
I was so impressed with him, I wanted the job.
And it was literally months of long dinners. We talked
about everything under the sun. We talked about how we
felt about things, what our values were, what we wanted
to do in the world, how we worked, our personalities.
We spent five minutes on who does what, because it
was so obvious for us. He has products and engineering,

(22:44):
iron sales like it just iron hr iron policy. It
wasn't it wasn't even complicated. Now, everything I do he
does too, right because I report to him. But part
of the scaling is finding people. And then I'll tell
you one of my other just favorite hiring stories of
all time. A woman named Lorie Gohlder was not a
good friend, a distant friend, and she was in marketing

(23:05):
an eBay and then I went to Facebook and she
called me and she said this, She said, I think
I want to come work with you at Facebook. So
I thought I'd call you and tell you all the
things I like to do and all the things I'm
good at. But I figure everyone's doing that, so instead,
I want to know what's your biggest problem and how
can I solve it? Wow, And I said to her,
my biggest problem is recruiting because we needed to grow

(23:27):
and I didn't have a recruiting team. And you can
solve it. You're in marketing, you know, operations come and recruiting.
She jumped over. She ran recruiting. She's now been in
charge of all of our HR for a decade and
she's magnificent. Well, what you're telling people is so helpful
for them on any scale, because even if you're baking
cookies at home and have one employee, these things are

(23:48):
really important. The things that you're you can feel. It's
like in your body, if you feel a body pain
or something, you gotta go look at that. If you're
feeling a struggle within your business, you have to look
at exactly where that's coming from. And do you feel
like you've been a corporate person though? I mean, I
know you work in text so it's way more free
and way more sweatshirty, But do you feel like you've
always wanted to have that structure, the safety of the group,

(24:11):
or the collaboration, the hierarchy. Do you like that? I mean,
I don't think I'm a corporate person at all, but
I think I seem from the outside like very corporate.
I think I would see, I don't think you seem
like that, but I think it would have to be
to work within the parameters of a big come of
a public company like that running the world. I mean,
I just think you have to have some decorum. Well,

(24:31):
I mean, look, we have to have structure, we have
to have rules, we have to make sure there are
things we can't mess up. One of the things that
I think about as companies get bigger is you need
to separate out the places you can take risk from
the places you can't. I was I went to a
dinner once and I was seated on the boss going
to the dinner with the CEO of a major airline,

(24:53):
and I had just like been on like three flights
that were delayed for catering and luggage. And I said
to him, can I show a question running out the airline?
Seems like such a big deal. There's so much they
can get wrong. How come all the delays are catering
in luggage, you know, like it seems so small. And
he looked at me and he said, well, I have
a business, and in a huge part of my business,

(25:14):
there is no room for error, none, zero zip. Those
planes have to take off. Those planes Okay, we cannot
have a mechanical problem. We cannot have a maintenance problem.
No room for error. All of our errors are catering
in luggage. All of the delays should be catering in luggage.
And I was like, one, that's not so smart on
my part, and two, feel free mess up on the catering.
But I went back to Facebook and I said, Okay,

(25:36):
we gotta figure out what's plane maintenance and what's catering
in luggage. Plane maintenance is your privacy. Plane maintenance is
making sure when you post, if you post something just
to your your best friends, it doesn't get shared to
the world. It just gets posted to your best friends.
Making sure the services up. That's our maintenance. But when
we roll out a new product, we roll out a
new shopping product, it doesn't have all the features. We

(25:57):
can take risks there. We roll out reels and we
haven't built the filters in yet. You know where whatever
it is, those are the places the catering and luggage
doesn't have to be perfect. We can put out products
and then iterate and learned. We don't have to build
a seven forty seven. But there are areas of the business,
and every business has this, and so if I'm a
corporate I hope not to be a corporate person. I

(26:18):
don't feel like a corporate person. But yes, the law,
the rules, the regulations, people's privacy, the decisions we make
that are so important. That stuff is the maintenance. You're
going out and speaking to these leaders of industry and
totally different industries and bringing it back and compiling that
to run your business. It seems like that's been your model.
That would be and I'm not going to tell you
a books to write, but that would be a great

(26:39):
but the crystallization of what you've learned from all of
these other game changers, like you've described five of them already,
and we've been on for you know, twenty minutes. You
you've given me a toolbox from your toolbox. I mean
when I went to Facebook, I knew we I had
never done this before, and Mark had certainly never done
this before. Again twenty three years old, right. So we
went around, We visited different companies. We went to Marine

(27:01):
Basic Training at Quantico, We went to Procter and Gamble,
We went to Samsung, we went to Walmart. We visited
other companies to learn what we could learn from them. Well,
and it's interesting that they were all open to sharing,
because what you've described a couple of times here is
people being open to sharing. You talked about the Google
information is about sharing, and you're saying that all these
other big competitors and ways are sharing. Yeah, and I'd

(27:25):
like to think we'd pay that forward to nice. I'll
give you an example managing bias. Diversity is so important,
and bias against women, which I know we're going to
get into, is so important. But I looked at most
of the biased trainings out there, and all they said
is everyone has bias, but they were afraid to say
what the bias is because it's hard to say it
even in your training because when you say it, it
sounds like maybe you believe it, but of course you don't.

(27:46):
You're trying to point it out so people see it.
So here's the bias. People think men are smarter than women.
People think race. They judge performance differently based on race.
You put out the exact same resume with a black
name and a white name, exact same and that white
white name gets fifty more callbacks. That white name is
worth eight years of experience in the workplace. That's the bias.

(28:09):
So I actually worked with the same woman, Laurie and
some other people, and I wrote the first version of
our Managing Bias training and it was for Facebook, and
then we put it out web because we realized small
companies aren't gonna be able to do this. And now
that training has gone through iteration after iteration after itteration.
I think those are some of the ways we try
to pay it forward to other companies as well. Well.
I could be mistaken, and I think it was warm

(28:30):
Buffett saying we're leaving half of the good players on
the bench as it pertains to women, which were you
know we were talking about. And and then if we
take it to race, you're leaving you know, your good
players on the bench, so you're not working with the
best potential. I mean, it's actually really, aside from being
you know, cruel, criminal and unjust, it's also just not
good smart business. You're leaving the best players on the

(28:53):
damn bench. So that's you know, it would be great
if everyone wanted to treat women, treat people of all backgrounds,
all race is equally, because it's the right thing to do.
That would be awesome and it is the right thing
to do but it's also as you're saying, it's the
smart thing to do. You know, you are the male CEO,
or you are the most junior level entry, you're fresh
fresh out of college, fresh out of school. You take

(29:14):
a job, and you can work better with as you're
pointing out, more than half the population, the women, people
of different backgrounds. You're going to outperform your peers and
your companies cannot perform. There's so much, so much research
that shows that teams and companies that are more diverse
to better. We use the diverse slate rule, so we
don't hire for jobs senior jobs, and we're senior jobs,
board jobs, but also increasingly throughout the whole country, we're

(29:35):
working on scaling it without interviewing candidates who are diverse
for that job, and you have to find them exactly.
You have to sometimes take a pause, go out and
find them. My foundation, lean In, we did the diverse
late rule and guess what, we hired a man. Interesting
it's the lean In Foundation. Who do you think supplying women?
And we looked around a couple of years ago we're like,

(29:55):
oh my god, we have no men. That's funny. And
by the if we're gonna get to equality. If you know,
Leanan's mission is get to equality. Having men along along
for the ride is going to be super important. We
still have a lot of men, but we have a few,
and I think those voices have been really important in
our work well for perspective appolutely yeah, And I also

(30:17):
read something that seems obvious, but I agree with it.
We get in the weeds with lawyers and business people
and when you've had a big problem negotiating something or
working through a problem that you're a big fan just
getting on the phone yourself. And this has been so
critical to me in business in ways where I'm talking
to you know, like having big girl conversations with people

(30:37):
running multibillion dollar conversations. And I can't believe are calling
me back. You know, I called called Jeffrey Katzenberg last
week about something and I just got on the phone
because I wanted to crystallize it. And I agree with you.
I've made deals go through by just getting on the phone,
breaking it down and coming to terms. So women underestimate themselves, Bethany,
if you were a man, you would not say, I

(30:59):
can't believe Jeffrey Patsonburg is calling me back your think
I have this. I promise, let's have the moment we
should have. First of all, I know Jeffrey and he's
lovely and he calls everyone back. But second of all,
of course he's calling you back, your major force in business.
But I can't believe Cheryl Samberg. I can't believe Cheryl
Sandberg is on my podcast. So I live in my
own little world. But but let's take a minute. You

(31:20):
said you can't believe these people are calling you about No. No.
This is such an interesting moment. I think because people
are listening to this podcast, not for the guests who
bring but for you. This is a moment for you
to say I think if it's okay. Of course, of
course they're calling you back. Of course I'm on your podcast.
Your voice is really important and your example is really important.

(31:41):
So to anyone listening whatever that thing is, you're like,
I can't believe they're doing it. Yeah they are, Yeah
they are, and they will and they should. That's very
thank you, that's very moving. Honestly, I'm like, I did
not think you'd be the one the CEO of Facebook
and be making me cry. Wow. Well, thank you. I
appreciate that. So you never think the emperor has no clue,

(32:10):
the empress has no clothes. Oh no, let's be clear.
I have that moment all the time. When do you
have that moment? Like about what you wake up? You're like,
did I do this? Is this really needs that? It?
Did you overshoot the mark? I mean, look, I remember
um a bunch of years ago at Facebook, there was
this really big project. This guy j Perry and I
both were arguing for for years, years and like no

(32:30):
one listened to us. And then two years later we
launched and everyone was like, this is really important. And
I looked at everyone tears in my eyes, like, thank
you so much for believing in me and trusting me
on this. And Jay looked up and said, we've been
telling you to do this for years. You guys are late.
I felt insecure for all those years, like I must
be wrong. I know I want to do this, I

(32:52):
know we should do this, but I must be wrong.
He didn't think that for a minute, and I was
already the CEO of Facebook. That moment where we don't
trust ourselves, where we feel bad, where we think about
something we could have done better, Like, let's be clear,
looking at every situation, for what you can do better
is important. It's been really important to me at Facebook.
We've been through a rough time and there are mistakes
we made and we need to earn those and I

(33:12):
need to look at those. That's really important. But as women,
you know, I've got four teenagers, four and an eight
year old, and when the teenagers roll their eyes at
me and my fiance, I sometimes walk into bedroom, closed
the door and cry and my fiance is, like, they're teenagers.
Doesn't hurt his feelings at all. Well, because you sometimes

(33:33):
swept the small stuff. I only swept the small stuff.
I almost set the small stuff. Okay, so you always
slept the small stuff. So when the ship hits the fan,
right whatever it is, it feels like it's an emergency.
It might be an emergency. It might be a five
alarm fire if you could slide by the next day.
So I use the noun of the metaphor like I
hold the wheel tight but like within control and decide

(33:54):
like the moves I'm going to make. But you kind
of like got to step back, take a breath, crowd
source information, and then then sort of sorted like you're
cleaning out of your garage. What do you do. You
have such high stakes. The world is watching because you've
been so successful, but because you're at such a high
level playing it's such a high you know, playing the
super Bowl all the time. What do you do when
the ship hits the fan? Like? What's your process? I mean,

(34:16):
my real answer? And I think you're someone I can
talk to about this because you've lived it too. It
really really changed when Dave died my answer of six
and a half years ago. If I, you know, if
I were being totally frank, would it be? I put
my hands on the wheel and I clenched so tight
my fingers hurt, and I stress about it every second
till I figure out what to do, and then I,
you know, can't sleep till it's resolved, right, Like, that's

(34:37):
my real that's that's the fact. That's just what I did.
And now I have more perspective because I've just been
through something so tragic and so awful that no matter
how bad it gets, it doesn't come close to losing
Dave and losing Dave Sun and Lee. So now I
guess the wheel doesn't feel as tight, And it doesn't
mean I don't stress, and it doesn't mean I don't

(34:57):
get tense, and it doesn't mean I don't you know,
get a group on the phone and make a list
of what to do, and then I'll say, you know,
you have a day. Everyone, let's get back together tomorrow morning.
But like I can't help myself. At four that afternoon,
I called three of them and I'm like, just checking in,
how's it going? And then we have until tomorrow morning.
I'm like, I know, just checking in anything I can

(35:18):
do to help, Like I will follow up too much,
for sure, but not the way I did. But that's
the back of the house and the front of the house.
Your grace under pressure, that's what's going on the kitchen,
I hope. So I don't know. I was not grace
under pressure when Dave died. I was not you know
Cittain meetings at work and you know, burst into chears
and have to leave the room. And now I mean,
I just I just have perspective. I've really had to

(35:40):
learn to judge myself. You know. I know that I
wake up every day again, I want to be clear.
I get things wrong and make mistakes. I miss stuff.
We missed stuff at Facebook. But I know I get
up every single day and work as hard as I can,
you know, to do the very best job I can.
You know, I know how my I care about the

(36:01):
people around me and about the service we provide, and
about the impact we have on the billions of people
who use it. And I wake up every day and
sometimes people see that and sometimes they don't. But I
have to judge my own actions, and when I get
things wrong, I have to admit it and acknowledge it
and do better. And I and I try to do that.
And then you just have to when the world is screaming,
you've got to find the way place to be your

(36:22):
own judge. You find that quiet, you know. And also
I've lived through the bus crashing. Dave's death was the
bus crashing. It crashed. It just you know, you know,
because you lived through the bus crashing, I didn't know.
My bus did not crash like your bus crashed. That
this isn't I mean, I don't want to go further
than you want to go. So I know that you
experienced a tremendous loss with your husband. He was forty

(36:43):
seven at the time, and you have children, and I
can't even compare, but I know that it's absolutely it's
gutting and you're not thinking straight and you're waking up
in the middle of the night saying is this true?
To this happened? It was? I mean the trauma that
you've experienced would be like, I mean, I can't imagine
the trauma you've experienced. I really really can't. So I

(37:04):
want to understand what meaning you've made of that. If
any have you said it's religion. It's brought me to this.
He was in pain in other ways, like what even
if it's not true, we you know what what you know?
What you're talking is called post traumatic growth. And if
you ask people whose turn of PTSD post traumatic stress story,
everyone's heard of it. But if you ask people who's
heard of post traumatic growth, no one's heard of it

(37:26):
unless they happen to have read my book. But more
people experience post traumatic growth. And on the other side,
on the other side of Dave's staff, my life is
better now. That does not mean I would choose it.
I'm fifty one. I would have turned fifty being one
of those women who was like, oh my god, I'm
greg I'm getting old, I have wrinkles. I I can't

(37:46):
believe I turned fifty. I am so lucky and so happy.
It turns out you either grow older or you don't.
That's it. There is no staying at sixteen option or
maybe not sixteen thirty six option. I am so grateful
my relation and ship with Tom my fiance. I just
I love him so much and I have this sense
of gratitude and I Dave and I were very happily married,

(38:09):
but when he went to bed and he put his
arms around me, I didn't have a feeling of oh
my god, this could go away so now and Tom
and he does it every night, puts his arms around me.
We sleep like this every single night. In my head
and sometimes out loud, I say thank you because I
appreciate that thing in a way that I didn't know.
And honestly, I wish Bethany. I think I was a

(38:31):
good wife. Dave and I were really happy. But did
I thank him every day for being alive? No? I
didn't thank him every time he gave me a hug.
And I wish I could go back and do that.
I can't because he's gone, But I can do that
with Tom, and I can teach my kids that. And
out of the worst things in our lives, we get
better and we get stronger, and as women, we have
to face a lot of things men don't face, especially

(38:53):
if you run a business, if you have some success,
like there are costs that men don't bear well. Just
sticking with us for a one minute. First of all,
how to separate it in for your fiance if it's
difficult to sort of try to compare yourself, which I
know he probably doesn't, but you can't help. It's a
hard it's a hard act to follow a husband. And
you were happily married to who passed away. So I
asked that about your fiance, but I asked for you

(39:17):
with respect to your late husband. Is this relationship giving
you things that your other relationship didn't like? Are you
having a totally different journey and realizing different things about
yourself through this relationship and sort of make it in
your mind meaningful. My friend Jeff Huber lost his wife
and he said, it's like going through a portal. You're
just different. I mean, my relationship with Tom is so

(39:38):
different because I'm different. But it is gratitude for the basics.
It is gratitude. Like every day Tom is there to
say good morning to me, I am like, oh my god,
I'm so lucky, and it's been a couple of years.
When I hang onto this for the rest of our lives,
I hope. So I look at Tom and fifty one, like,
maybe we've got forty years, maybe we've got fifty. If

(40:00):
you've got five, I don't know. But I appreciate him
in a way. And I appreciate life every birthday my
kids have, even if they're iroly teenagers. You know, every
I just I have a deep sense of appreciation. So
it taught you appreciation and gratitude, which is so amazing.
That's the greatest gift that anyone could have. So now

(40:20):
I'm finding the meaning of what happened to you. I understand,
I like, I emotionally understand it. So I talked to
a lot of people on here that are individually successful
in relationships with other successful people, and so I call
this sort of part successful relationships. So you know, and
I've heard they give each other along leash each day
at some point they check in with one another. Someone said,

(40:41):
I don't fix you, I fix me, and you don't
fix me, you fix you. So what have been the tenants,
just like in business that contribute to now to successful
relationships that you've been in while being this successful, while
having all these children and the weight of the world
on your shoulders. What is your recipe? It's so cliche
but really good to me. Vacation. Tom and I try
to take a long walk every week or very um

(41:03):
deliberate about it. I keep a list of things I
want to tell him through my day, little things, big things.
I will share the moment I can think of the
two moments in this in this podcast, I'm going to
make sure and you know he'll listen to it, but
I know you won't put the whole thing up, so
I will. I wrote down like the two things I
want to share, and and just really holding up a mirror.

(41:25):
I mean, one of the amazing things about Tom is
he really does make me better. He really does. You know.
I take things super seriously. I want super strict rules.
He's like our kid's rooms were messy. It's okay, it's
not that serious. Let's make a joke. You know, he's
not sweating the small stuff. He's never sweating the small stuff.

(41:47):
And and to be fair, I do it a lot
less than Dave's life, but I still do well. So
we wanted to talk about the woman thing. I think
it's not just important, but it's something I'm so curious about.
So I entered up an industy street, which was cocktails,
and I didn't know what I didn't know. So I
didn't know that cocktails had always been marketed to men
and owned and marketed by men, and I just didn't

(42:08):
know that the world was peddling liquor and no one
was thinking about women wanted. So I just wanted to
make this product, but I didn't think about all the
meaning that it had, and that it was the first
product intentionally marketed to women. So I never thought about that.
I never thought about what women get or aren't getting,
what I'm getting, what I'm not getting. So some of
the things you've talked about in corporate America, I have

(42:29):
an experience and I didn't understand. But I also was
always sort of by myself in business, right, so I
wasn't within that framework. So it's just something that's never
I've never experienced. But what I do really relate to
and want to talk about is being quote unquote tough
or a bit because I really I'm tough. I am
absolutely tough. There is no you know, I'm not abusive

(42:50):
and I'm not, you know, unfair, and I'm generous, but
I'm tough admittedly, and it's been documented on television. I
wonder if a man being exactly like I am as
a man, and if it really if the lens really
is different. And you've spent a lot of time researching
this and experiencing so I want to hear what you
think about this full stop. The lens is different. It
just is. This is so important. This was my big

(43:12):
aha that led me to give my ted talk to
write my book. As a man gets more successful, he
is better liked, and as a woman gets more successful,
she is less liked. What I feel that? Wow. When
I was in business school, in between the summer first
and second year, I got a letter. I find it
in modest to tell this story, but I'm gonna tell
this story because it's so important. And I put this

(43:34):
in my book. And it was hard for me to
put this in my book, but I put it in
my book and I'm gonna tell the story. I got
a letter saying, congratulations, your first in your class, and
I gotta check and it was for like, you know,
five and six cents or something that was obviously a
split prize. So I was like, huh, there are a
couple of people who are first in the class, and
there was a prize and we split it because no

(43:54):
one puts a prize out with twenty cents. So I
got back to school. And the way grades work at
business school, where I in fifty percentage class participation, and
the way it works is, you know, if you say
something and then someone else says, oh, as Bethany said,
so if people think you're smart, you do better, so
there is a reason for people to think you're doing well.
So I got back to school and there were I
think it was four forgetting out. There were four men

(44:15):
who told everyone they were first in the class. There
was a prize with the name and I multiplied my
check times five and it was a nice round number.
And I never told anyone, and those four men did,
and it worked for them because all of the second
year they could basically not do that much work, and
they would say something and everyone's like, as Mark said,
because everyone thought they were the smartest. And I thought
that I was modest, like I didn't want to brag.

(44:36):
But what I learned later is I hope I was
still modest, but I was smart because it wasn't againna
work for me. By telling everyone, they were first in
the class, they were respected, better liked if I had
told everyone, or told you don't have to tell everyone.
You tell three people and they tell everyone. I was
gonna be aggressive, assertive, A shark they used to call it,
and I was called that. They used to call it

(44:58):
a shark at business school. If you were super aggressive
in your thing, I was called that. And I'm like
watching these men, I'm like, tape me, tape him. He's
much more assertive. Go to a playground, anyone listening, go
to a playground this weekend. There will be a little girl.
She will be called bossy by her parents. You walk
up to that family, you say, that little girl's not bossy,
That little girl has executive leadership skills. Wait, and that's funny.

(45:22):
You just laughed. I just laughed. Ready, let's try it
the other way. That little boy has executive leadership skills.
It's not funny. Why because humor goes against expectation. So
to this day, You've got you, You've got me. We're
on a podcast which is about success for women. It
is funny to say a little girl has executive leadership
skills and not funny at all for a boy. So

(45:43):
this is deep and women are judged in a way
men do not. If a woman is asked to do
a favorite at work and she doesn't do it, it
hurts her in terms of performance and rating. If a
man is asked to do a favorite at work and
he doesn't do it no cost, he's busy, But if
he does it, he is the greatest guy ever. Interesting
back and this is such an over and over and over.

(46:04):
So I haven't watched your whole show and I haven't
seen ever seen. But if you're asking, are you being
judged as tougher than a man saying the exact same thing,
the answers yes. That's why The Devil Wears Product is
an iconic movie and Wall Street is too, but not
for the same reasons. He's he's celebrated Gordon Get Go
and he was a criminal and Devil Wears Product. You know,

(46:25):
it's an a win tour running an empire. I just
want to say that last thing I want to say
to you is you're an incredible writer, and I love
that Facebook allows you to have that experience for yourself
and expressing yourself and writing these amazing books with such
an important conversation. But you're very passionate about writing, and
I am too, so I I see that in you
just so you love it and I'm just so happy
that you get that outlet to really express yourself. And

(46:48):
I'm so so grateful you took the time. I literally
could have talked to you for two hours, and you're
one of the busiest women I've ever met. I'm so
grateful for what you're doing, um for the people that
are listening. I've been saying for a long time men
run the world and it's not going that well. But
if you ever needed a proofpoint, the world just handed
us COVID, where countries run by women did have lower

(47:09):
death rates. But the thing is, it's gonna be every
little girl who thinks she can do math and science.
It's gonna be every woman who listens to your podcast
and realizes that, oh my god, Bethanie doesn't think people
should call her back. I feel that way too. Of
course they should call her back. That means they should
call me back. It's about looking at someone in the
face when they say you're aggressive, you're assertive, you're the

(47:29):
B word, bossy, or the other B word which men
don't get called and saying I'm powering through. And then
if we could get more women into leadership, you wouldn't
be called that anymore because it would be normal. It's
still just so exceptional that people still have a hard
time dealing with that. And when we're doing this, we
have to also get more women of color because all

(47:51):
the challenges that white women face, women of color have
all that gender bias and then all that race bias,
and we need we need that to change. Thank you
for having me. Thank you have a wonderful day and
loved your family, but thank you, well, that was exceptional, extraordinary,

(48:14):
just really amazing. That was cherylte Samberg. I mean she
is running arguably the most powerful, important, influential company in
the world in history. I mean that is moving just
in and of itself. And she's so passionate and cause
driven in an authentic, communicative way. Because some people come

(48:37):
on and you know, wax poetic and get up on
the soapbox. But she's sort of explaining things in a
different way that we know that we just talked about.
It's it's just in passing and you see it on
an Instagram post. But she's really getting granular about how
things are and how things feel and how things work,
and women are really important to her. Uh. It's inspiring.
And she's been through an ordeal, but her husband at

(49:00):
forty seven, they were on vacasion in Mexico. He died
instantly from a head injury from a treadmill. Like with children,
she was in love, she was happy. I mean, that's
a blow that is unbelievable and unimaginable. And I woke
up one Friday morning and um, someone who was in
my life for over thirty years, who I was engaged to, died.

(49:23):
I was found dead in his apartment. So I experienced horrible,
traumatic and tragic loss, but it cannot be compared to
what I believe that she endured and then going back
and running this major powerful force and learning from it
and meeting someone else like I did. And you know,
Paul saved me from Dennis. But I think what she

(49:44):
said about compassion and being grateful and appreciation, we know it,
we say it, but we don't really think it. And
I think that's what I took away the most from today,
just to really like, really, Paul's here and I'm going
to go on the other room and just freak him
out by telling him how much I love him and
how you should who I am, and how happy iam
he's on this earth, so he's gonna be a shock. Um.

(50:06):
So thank you, Cheryl Sandberg. That was exceptional, extraordinary, and
I hope all of you take from that, just you know,
take the wisdom, the learning tools molded into what you
need to do what you need to do, and remember
to rate, review and subscribe. I appreciate listening, Thank you,
and have a great day. Just Be is hosted and

(50:32):
executive produced by me, Bethany Frankel. Just Be as a
production of be Real Productions and I Heart Radio. Our
Managing Producer is Fiona Smith, and our producer is Stephanie Sender.
Our EP is Morgan Levoy. To catch more moments from
the show, follow us on Instagram at just Be with
Bethany