2021 Year In Review

Top lists of my life events, music, television, podcasts, cooking and books

Last New Years’ Eve I wrote my present self a letter about how I hoped 2021 would go. At this point, I still wasn’t sure if I was going to make the decision to leave Facebook or not.

Katie,

Feels just like yesterday, doesn’t it? Last New Year’s Eve. One before that too come to think of it. We waited so patiently all throughout 2020 for our next chapter to start - and while the days were long the months were very short. But we’re here to talk about 2021, not 2020.

I so hope you feel valued again in whatever path you ended up taking. You deserve that and I am confident you didn’t settle. I am sure some of it was/is still scary to make such a decision when you’ve waited so long for it but the rewarding things are never easy.

I’d be remiss to not ask you to make sure you are making time for family and friends - oh I do hope Turks happened and was fabulous. But if it was postponed again - oh well - it will happen.

All I ask as we embark on another new year as you settle into your 40s is that you are not settling for anything less than you deserve and continue to have the bravery to make changes when you aren’t.

Love,

Katie

PS: Did Eric Church release his project?

I got the idea about doing letters like this from Carolyn Everson who would post hers each year for everyone to see on Facebook Workplace. At first, I thought it was really cheesy, but I’m into it now. It’s nice to put into the universe the things you hope to see for yourself in the coming year.

I feel pretty good about where I hoped this year would go and where it landed. January 6th was the final nudge I needed to realize that I wasn’t going to be able to do the things I wanted to at Facebook anymore and that I needed a change. For a woman who spent most of her life working either for the Republican Party or Facebook - both had changed a lot and I just didn’t fit in the same way anymore.

So, in March I started my company Anchor Change - which was basically a holding LLC for the various projects I took on during the year including:

• Telling everyone I could about how 2024 is going to be an election tsunami with not only a US presidential election that year but elections in India, Indonesia, Ukraine, Taiwan, Mexico, UK and the European Union. Not to mention all the elections coming up in 2022.

• Giving a speech about democracy and technology to my alma mater - UW Madison

• Becoming a fellow with the Bipartisan Policy Center’s election team

• Joining the Atlantic Council as a non-resident fellow

• Collaborating with the Carter Center on a paper about how to handle repeat offenders

• Helped launch the Integrity Institute.

• Started this newsletter in September

• Finished my book proposal which included an intro, first chapter and chapter outline to start shopping around

• Talked to numerous journalists about various Facebook stories including Trump being depatformed, the Taliban’s use of social media, and, of course, the Facebook Files.

• Obsessing over how even though he’s been deplatformed how big a presence Steve Bannon still has and the power of radio and podcasts on political discourse.

Personally, my trip to Turks and Caicos did happen for my 40 + 1 birthday and it was indeed fabulous. In fact, on my birthday (November 12) Taylor Swift’s Red album came out, Steve Bannon was indicted and Britney was freed. A girl couldn’t ask for anything more.

I also said goodbye to my cat Frankie who I had for 13 years. She was a diva cat through and through and I miss her.

Last year on Facebook I posted my top lists of the television, music, podcasts, cooking, and books so I’m doing it again below. These aren’t necessarily in ranked order and happy to discuss any and all of these.

I hope everyone has a lovely new year and thank you again for being readers and supporters of this newsletter.

TV Shows

1. Yellowstone

2. 1883

3. Succession

4. Grace and Frankie

5. Virgin River

6. Manifest

7. Ted Lasso

8. Morning Show

9. Handmaids Tale

10. Selling Sunset

11. Only Murders in the Building

Music

1. Heart & Soul - Eric Church

2. Fearless (Taylor’s Version) - Taylor Swift

3. Red (Taylor’s Version) - Taylor Swift

4. Reba and Dolly Parton duet: Does He Love You?

Podcasts

1. Lawfare

2. The Sunday Show: Tech Policy Press

3. Armchair Expert

4. Smartless

5. Ruthless

6. Sway

7. WSJ - FB Files

8. Bad Blood: The Final Chapter

9. Regulate.tech

10. Yellowstone

Newsletters

1. Real Best Life - Kelly Maher

2. Platformer - Casey Newton

3. Stratechery - Ben Thompson

4. Digital Bridge - Mark Scott

5. Big Technology - Alex Kantrowitz

6. Slow Build - Nancy Scola

7. The Connector - Micah Sifry

8. Confessions of a Political Junkie - Erick Erickson

9. Perspectives - Deb Liu

10. 7 Bridges - Michael Slaby

Cooking

These are some of my favorite chefs, cookbooks, and recipes from this year.

1. Half Baked Harvest Cookbooks by Tieghan Gerard

   • Creamy White Chicken Chili

   • 30 Minute Butter Chicken 

   • Sesame Crusted Tilapia on a bed of Asparagus and Soba Noodles with an Asian Sauce (In the Half Baked Harvest Cookbook)

   • Sweet Corn Chimichurri Butter Shrimp with Polenta

   • Sesame Dumplings in Spicy Broth with Garlic Crisps

   • Healthier Homemade Crunchwrap Supreme

   • Naan

   • Ramen broth substituting Chashu Pork from Serious Eats

2. Cook This Book by Molly Baz

   • Slow Roasted Cod with a Juicy Cucumber Salad (In cook book)

   • Cae Sal (Caesar Salad)

   • French Omelet - Finally learned how to do this thanks to her Instagram video.

3. Tortilla Elotes Risotto with Flank Steak

4. Birthday Cake 1 - Mia is my goddaughter and since she was two I’ve been making her birthday cake. This year I traveled to Austin to see her for the first time in two years and we did a theater-themed one.
   

   

5. Birthday Cake 2 - Annabelle is the daughter of a friend of mine and I offered to make her one-year-old cakes since her birthday landed on Thanksgiving. We ended up doing two mermaid-themed ones.
   

   

Books

I read 53 books this year according to Goodreads and there is no way I was going to narrow it down to just my top 10. Instead, I broke them out into categories.

Fiction

1. Virgin River Series by Robyn Carr

2. Bridgerton Series by Julia Quinn

3. The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman

4. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

5. The President’s Daughter by Bill Clinton and James Patterson

6. The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

Non-Fiction

1. Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey

2. All About the Story: News, Power, Politics and the Washington Post by Leonard Downie Jr.

3. Mistrust by Ethan Zuckerman

4. Think Again by Adam Grant

5. Liars: Falsehoods and Free Speech in an Age of Deception by Cass Sunstein

6. Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power by Susan Page

7. On The House: A Washington Memoir by John Boehner

8. Sustaining Democracy: What We Owe to the Other Side by Robert B. Talisse

9. The Culture Map by Erin Meyer

10. For All the People by Michael Slaby

Non-Fiction on Tech

1. An Ugly Truth by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang

2. Silicon Values by Jillian York

3. System Error: How Big Tech Disrupted Everything and Why We Must Reboot by Rob Reich, Mehran Sahami and Jeremy Weinstein

4. Outside the Bubble: Social Media and Political Participation in Western Democracies by Cristian Vaccari

5. Amazon Unbound by Brad Stone

6. Cult of We: Wework Adam Neumann and the Great Startup Delusion by Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell