B (31:58)
You know, I wish that it had been like a epic moment of screw you, I'm out. But it wasn't. It was a gradual process. I basically experienced a catastrophic medical event in that I pretty, almost overnight lost my ability to form words, to move my arms and legs, to get out of bed. Thought I was experiencing the worst anxiety and depression of my life. And now I've understand and have learned a lot about what happens, especially for neurodivergent folks. I'm autistic and adhd, and it's. This autistic burnout is a complete collapse of capacity to function that often comes either in response to a moral injury or when demand exceeds capacity. And I think that the coming to terms and being confronted with this experience, that there were people at this company that I helped build and all of the lawyers and leaders and folks around them that weren't on the same page as me about how urgent and problematic this was. It wasn't just, you know, difficult in that context. But then, you know, I mentioned to you, like, how I'd kind of tuned out a lot of the other external criticism, and so you start kind of rerunning the tapes and it's like, oh, my God, is this. Have I built. Have I helped to build this company in this industry that is that I believe is, like, potentially evil? And even when I. So I took this medical leave, there had been in product marketing, which is really, we say, the voice of the product in the market and the voice of the market and the product, what do we build? And then strategically, how do we take that to market in a way that's going to make sense for people and meet regulations and all that of the 20 of us across reality labs. So this includes the, you know, meta glasses and the actual Oculus hardware and the games and Horizon. Out of the 20 of us that were VPs or directors in that function, there were, I think, like four or five women. And by the time I left on my medical leave, all but one were out on leave either due to. There was one, the one on maternity leave, and then the others had left on medical leaves also. And the team was really worried about it. Like, the other women on the team were like, really what? All the folks that are potentially looking out for me are dwindling away, like, what does this mean for me? And so I, you know, interestingly enough, and like, I kind of attribute this in hindsight to kind of just another way that, that, like, deep loyalty and almost Cult like environment was still impacting me. Like, I thought, I'm going to take a medical leave, I'm going to get better, I'm going to show people that these aren't quiet exits. I'm going to come back and, and keep fixing this. Because at the time that I left, I had successfully influenced a, a pause in the rollout. So the plan to roll out in December of 2022 was no longer happening. Although the VP responsible for the product, his, you know, his public expression of that was like, oh, this is a product quality pause. No mention, of course, of, of kids or safety, right? But I had thought, okay, you know, you know, what's right is going to prevail here and I'm going to come back and fix this. And you know, I was in really bad shape. Like the experience, experiencing what I experienced led pretty quickly to, you know, severe suicidal ideation. And I was in like full time treatment for that. And it had been, it had been eight months when I, and I'd been kind of in contact a little bit here and there with my boss, who's a guy who had both apologized for not doing more to get me in the room, but then also told me that I wouldn't be recognized for the work I did, pausing the product rollout because of the way it would reveal the shortcomings of this senior man I worked with when I, he and I had been in contact a little bit about what role I might return to in my recovery. But eight months into the leave, I was laid off. You know, I was told, hey, we've got to find another person. We got to keep the business moving. And from a business standpoint, I understood that like I, I wished I could have been in a place to go back. I had at that point. It had been, you know, nearly 15 years. This is, this is a company full of people I love deeply. And the thought of not being working there was still really hard for me to even wrap my head around. But I understood and I was in no place to go back. Like, just, you know, not able to work. And it was, it was when I got the package offer, the kind of separation agreement at that point that it just did not sit right with me. It required that I, you know, the last line of the documents that I hold meta harmless. And I was thinking about the children that were in the product exposed to harm. I was thinking about the, you know, the women and other folks on the margins working at the company that, you know, I couldn't protect anymore and knew that they had the potential to experience, like, what I had. And I just thought, you know, I can't sign this. Even though, of course, signing it would have meant a huge check. It just. It wasn't. It wasn't possible. And I did briefly engage with, you know, trying to kind of negotiate with them a little bit. And, you know, I can't talk about the details of that, but some things that I had asked for that I thought might reflect their. The level of accountability that they were taking for the way I had been treated and the implication on the safety of the kids using the product. And their response just made it so clear that there wasn't accountability and there wasn't even regard for the way that their operating was impacting folks inside and outside of the company. And so, you know, that, you know, that conversation ended and it wasn't until, I think, several months later. So now, you know, it was, I think, in the spring of 2024 that I went to lunch with my friend Brian Boland, who he testified in the case in LA and in New Mexico, and he was the person of the company before he left on principle that called me up and said, hey, you should consider these product marketing leadership roles. And I went to lunch with him and, you know, I had not been doing a lot of anything like that, so it had been a while, and I talked to him a little bit about what I'd experienced and just asked him, like, what do you suggest I do to actually make a difference here? Like, I just feel so heavy about the environment for women and the Inside the company and how vulnerable people are being affected outside the company. And, you know, his response was immediate. He said, discovery. Discovery is how you're going to make a difference if you, you know, if you're serious about it. And so that's. It wasn't until then that I thought, oh, man, I should file a lawsuit. Like, I have the power to do that. And so, you know, got that process going. And then it wasn't until after the lawsuit was filed that I heard pretty quickly from Fairplay, which is a child safety nonprofit, and they said, hey, you know, we've been doing research in Horizon for months documenting the harms to kids and the exposure to predators and the lack of action. We're preparing a request for investigation to the ftc. Would you be open to writing us. Writing a statement to go with that? And I was very happy, too, you know, and it's just kind of. It's been like that, you know, after working with Fair Play, I met, you know, Nikki Petrosi I know, has been on your show and you know, Sarah Gardner at Heat Initiative and Laura Marquez Garrett and, you know, through them have gotten involved in advocacy efforts and it all is just kind of snowballed. But it is really interesting that it has. It was a step by step process to get to this point.