The very first chapter was actually excellent in setting my relationship to the book going forward, because stuff like this twanged against my brain and made me think, "Oh, she just really wanted to be powerful and influential and chased whatever she thought would give her that"

> [after surviving a shark attack] why did this happen to me? If I survived against the odds, surely there had to be a reason? [...] After becoming an attorney, I ended up in the foreign service because it seemed like a way to change the world, and I wanted an adventure. I ended up at the UN because I genuinely believed it was the seat of global power. The place you go when you want to change the world.

> It seemed obvious that politics was going to happen on Facebook, and when it did, when it migrated to this enormous new gathering place, Facebook and the people who ran it would be at the center of everything. They’d be setting the rules for this global conversation. I was in awe of its ineffable potential.

> The vastness of the information Facebook would be collecting was unprecedented. Data about everything. Data that was previously entirely private. Data on the citizens of every country. A historic amount of data and so incredibly valuable. Information is power.

> After years of looking for things that would change the world, I thought I’d found the biggest one going. Like an evangelist, I saw Facebook’s power confirmed in every part of everyday life. Whatever Facebook decided to do—what it did with the voices that were gathering there—would change the course of human events. I was sure of it.

> This is a revolution.

> What do you do when you see a revolution is coming? I decide I will stop at nothing to be part of it. At the center of the action. Once you see it, you can’t sit on the sidelines. I’m desperate to be part of it. I can’t remember ever wanting anything more.

She sounds horrifying.