Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg takes on women and power in new book

Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, has a book coming out. And no, it’s not a tell-all about the company’s botched IPO.

It may actually be more interesting than that. The book, titled “Lean In,� examines why there is a dearth of women in leadership positions throughout the world, and what steps we as a society and individuals can take to balance out the numbers a bit.

Sandberg has spoken about the topic many times -- most notably in the 2010 TED Talk “Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders,� which has been viewed 1.7 million times.

The numbers she laid out in the talk are disheartening: Out of 190 heads of state in the world, only 9 are women. In the corporate world only 15% to 16% of the top jobs are held by women, and even in the nonprofit world, women have only 20% of the top jobs.

But Sandberg herself is inspiring. She ranked eighth on Fortune’s annual list of the most powerful women in business. (Meg Whitman ranked No. 3; Yahoo’s Marissa Meyer ranked No. 14.) Sandberg also released a video this year talking about how she leaves work every day at 5:30 p.m. so she can eat dinner with her two young children. (The flip side is that she is up before 6 a.m. sending emails and stays up late working.)

If you’re wondering how Sandberg had time to pen a book while she was helping Facebook navigate its high-profile IPO and pitching the company as the future of online advertising to Madison Avenue, the answer is she didn’t.

Sandberg told All Things D that she finished writing the book well before the IPO, and she worked with a full-time writer and a separate researcher.

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