April 17, 2012, 8:02 AM —
It's the video many Silicon Valley power brokers would love to purge from the Internet.
In an interview posted on Makers.com, Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg uttered the equivalent of modern-workplace heresy:
“I walk out of this office every day at 5:30 so I’m home for dinner with my kids at 6, and interestingly, I’ve been doing that since I had kids. I did that when I was at Google, I did that here, and I would say it’s not until the last year, two years, that I’m brave enough to talk about it publicly.”
Of course, it's easier to be brave when you're an all-but-certain billionaire, which we can assume Sandberg will be after Facebook's IPO next month.
But Sandberg, a Harvard graduate who worked briefly in the Clinton Administration before embarking on an executive career in technology, said she hopes her example will serve as an inspiration to other technology professionals still playing the phony and soul-destroying "I work harder than you" game:
"But now I’m much more confident in where I am and so I’m able to say, ‘Hey! I am leaving work at 5:30.’ And I say it very publicly, both internally and externally. And I hope that means other women and men -- importantly, and men -- feel comfortable going home to see their kids."
Sure, like that's going to happen. Even as you read this, thousands of tech workers at Facebook, Google, Zynga and elsewhere are playing the Sandberg card! And when I say "thousands," I mean none.
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