TBT: My befuddling dinner with Facebook empress Sheryl Sandberg

PLUS: The best WIRED stories from this month a year ago. View this email in your browser  12.19.19 In 2012, writer Virginia Heffernan went to dinner with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. What was she like? "I idolized Sheryl Sandberg the woman," Heffernan recalls. "But from the first minute I saw her in person I was very, very concerned about Facebook." Read about her befuddling meal with the empress of Facebook, plus the best WIRED stories from this month a year ago below.   I Knew Facebook Was Doomed After a Dinner with Sheryl Sandberg A breathless meal of scallops and feminist bona fides exposed her vulnerability: No one, not even Sandberg, has what it takes to tame Facebook. The Best Stories From This Month, Last Year Pan Am Flight 103: Robert Mueller's 30-Year Search for Justice In 1988 a bomb downed a jet in Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 in the first major attack on Americans. Robert Mueller, then the head of the Justice Department's criminal division, oversaw the case. For him, it was personal. A New Type of DNA Testing Is Entering Crime Investigations Geneaology is about to send a lot more people to jail. Blu-rays Aren't Dead—Just Ask These Dedicated Collectors As the gaps in streaming libraries become greater, so does physical media's comeback story. How Russian Trolls Used Meme Warfare to Divide America A new report for the Senate exposes how the IRA used every major social media platform to target voters before and after the 2016 election. Embrace a Fake Meat Future for Its Lesser-Known Benefits Did you know that meat replacements could be better for your wallet? Or your schedule? Google's Algorithm Isn't Biased, It's Just Not Human Expanding the search algorithm beyond absolute areas like store hours, locations, and historical facts shifted a system designed to create order into chaos. GET WIRED Insider access to our Holiday Sale   For a limited time, get a full year of the print magazine + digital access to wired.com for just $5.   Subscribe Today     This e-mail was sent to you by WIRED. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our e-mail address, wired@newsletters.wired.com, to your address book.   View our Privacy Policy Unsubscribe or manage your newsletter subscriptions