Is Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg headed to Hillary Clinton’s cabinet as the next Secretary of the Treasury? Rumors abound about the Facebook COO, as criticism of the company mounted over the course of this very bitter Presidential campaign for what some have claimed was its veiled support for Hillary Clinton.
Not too long ago, reports surface that the news feeds we all get on our Facebook pages are not entirely the result of objective algorithms which decide what to upload based on our personal histories. Nor were they the result of paid advertising campaigns. It was revealed that some Facebook employees may have been deliberately manipulating the news on the website in favor of more liberal political causes.
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Now there is talk that Sheryl Sandberg has been under consideration for a top level post in a Hillary Clinton administration. Sandberg has herself been a vocal supporter of Clinton’s for some time and in leaked e mails revealed by Wikileaks she claims that Mark Zuckerberg also supports Hillary.
This at least according to a report in “The Daily Caller.” But it should be noted that The Daily Caller is a website with a pro-Republican bias.
The website cites an e mail sent by Sheryl Sandberg to top Clinton adviser John Podesta in which the Facebook COO said, “[Mark Zuckerberg] is particularly interested in meeting people who could help him understand how to move the needle on the specific public policy issues he cares most about. He wants to meet folks who can inform his understanding about effective political operations to advance public policy goals on social oriented objectives (like immigration, education or basic scientific research).”
And Politico is reporting on a negative backlash from liberals who support the policies of people like Senator Elizabeth Warren to the idea that Sandberg might become the next Treasury Secretary. She is very close to former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers who served under Hillary Clinton’s husband Bill Clinton. But people on the left are wary of seeing yet another corporate executive serve in that position which has seemed to be a revolving door for Wall Street veterans such as Robert Rubin, Henry Paulson and Timothy Geithner.
David Segal, executive director of advocacy group Demand Progress, told Politico, “She’s a proxy for this growing problem that is the hegemony of five to 10 major Silicon Valley platforms.”
And Jeff Hauser, an expert at the Center for Economic and Policy Research said, “There is a sense that Silicon Valley’s becoming the new revolving door for Democrats as Wall Street has become toxic in the wake of the Great Recession. There are real dangers in some of the practices in Silicon Valley.”
Sheryl Sandberg’s supporters, however, point out that she has not been working for Wall Street, but instead for the world’s most successful high tech startup which she helped to midwife — excuse the expression if it seems sexist here.
A Clinton adviser said, “She ticks an awful lot of boxes, and she would be great at the job even if she doesn’t have extensive markets experience. She also has a pretty compelling personal story.”
Women’s groups will obviously be thrilled to see a woman in that role, especially so soon after losing her husband who dies only last year. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg is definitely the whole package: a mother, a leader, a successful corporate executive and a self made woman.
