During my tenure at Facebook, now Meta, from 2014 to 2017, posters were plastered all over the grounds. The job is only 1% done. Move fast and break things. I was struck by one in particular on my first day of orientation: Nothing at Facebook is someone elses problem. No matter my department or title, I had permission to take ownership of a problem and fix it. Its the corporate version of If you see something, say something, or, in this case, do something. The irony is that Im saying something because I see what Meta is now doing. It is actively making their problem with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) everyone elses problem. To me its clear the company’s ethos has changed from those days of open innovation.
DEI helped Facebook grow, make better products and be more profitable
During my time at Facebook, I was an attorney who primarily served supply chain and procurement. One thing that was not in my purview was diversity. However, I couldnt help but notice that I was the only Black attorney in the Legal department, and I was well aware of the infrequency with which I saw Black colleagues walking around campus. Within our supply chain, I saw an opportunity to save the company money, create goodwill in the communities where Facebook had offices, and build better products by working with suppliers as diverse as the companys users. So, I started the supplier diversity program.
It was strategic to take the heat off of the company for the low employee diversity numbers that were the focal point of each annual report by providing another mechanism to demonstrate our partnership with marginalized communities while opening bids for business that would save the company money. In addition to the cost savings and the goodwill the program could provide, it was also a mechanism to build better products by partnering with diverse-owned businesses that reflected our user base. There is no better collaborator than people representing those you want to use your products, and with over a billion users at the time and growing, that needs to reflect the world.
While no DEI program is perfect, improvements are part of playing a long game, and gains wont be made overnight but incrementally. The supplier diversity program was an answer to several problemscollaboration for better products and new use cases, harm mitigation, economic opportunity for marginalized communities, and to slow the creep of gentrification of Facebook headquarters into the Black and brown community of East Palo Alto.
I was incredibly devoted to this cause. I gave up weekends, late nights, and early mornings. I even spent part of my maternity leave to get the program off the ground. Both Facebooks General Counsel and Chief Financial Officer reviewed and approved the program at various stagesthe company was fully onboard with the aims when the program launched in October 2016. Confident I had built something that would last, I moved on to other opportunities.
From a billion-dollar commitment to shifting blame and denouncing DEI
In June 2020, Facebook pledged a $1.1 billion investment in Black and diverse suppliers and communities in the U.S. In 2022, the company reported: In 2021, we exceeded our diverse supplier commitment, spending $1.26 billion with US certified diverse suppliers and more than $306 million with Black-owned businesses in the US. As recently as October 2024, Meta hosted the Billion Dollar Roundtable conference celebrating corporations that spend $1 billion with minority and women-owned suppliers.
Now, over the course of just six weeks, Meta has dismantled diversity programs, including supplier diversity, that took years to build, and Mark Zuckerberg has attributed them to former COO Sheryl Sandberg as he distances himself from all DEI.
While no DEI program is perfect, these programs are part of a long game, with incremental progress built on top of hard work and trust. Companies and their leaders are free to change their minds and priorities due to politics, economics, or anything else. But if the pendulum swings in the other direction in the future, companies like Meta that scrap DEI programs will now have an infinitely harder time rebuilding them. The trust of users, employees, and suppliers has been destroyed.
Users cant trust Meta, so disengagement is the only answer
From my experience at Facebook, what happens on the inside is what is mirrored externally in the products. When you eliminate DEI initiatives, you lose people from around your table. When you lose those voices at the table, you lose product insight. And for those still at Meta, their voices will carry less weight as soon as they advocate for those viewpoints, use cases, and outcomes. I imagine that the environment inside Meta is very different from when I worked there. Some employees and suppliers are likely nervous about what this new landscape will mean for their jobs. Users can expect a different product experience as a result, and they will judge whether it is for the better.
I believe the only path forward for users is to show Meta the true cost of abandoning diversity. If we arent welcome within these companies, and we arent welcome to service them, then we shouldnt reward them with our engagement, our data, or their ability to earn ad revenue from us. For marginalized communities, boycotts worked once before and also spurred entrepreneurship and safe spaces a generation ago during the Civil Rights Movement.
In my view, disengagement is the only answer. Meta is no longer following its own adages. This is the opposite of Shipping Love, but it shows us what Zuckerberg and Meta do when they arent afraid. Sometimes, people dont realize that there are consequences until they are faced with them. Users control the end of this story. This can be the opportunity to see how Zuckerberg and Meta rise to the occasion (or not). Regardless of their response, we must remember, “When people show you who they are, believe them. We need to believe this is the world Meta wants to create, and if we dont want to be part of it, we need to leave.
