Brian Amerige is the former Facebook engineer whose internal memo “We Have a Problem with Political Diversity” was leaked in August 2018 to the press. “The post went up quietly on Facebook’s internal message board last week,” reported the New York Times at that time, and “it quickly took off inside the social network.” The memo, and public reactions to it, became part of a wider debate about the intellectual climate in Silicon Valley.

In October 2018, Amerige announced his decision to leave the company over concerns about its content policy and its apparent acceptance of the inevitability of government regulation. “Our policy strategy is pragmatism — not clear, implementable long-term principles,” Amerige observed in his announcement, “and our PR strategy is appeasement — not morally earned pride and self-defense.”

Amerige is also an Objectivist, and in this exclusive interview with Ayn Rand Institute CEO Tal Tsfany, he discusses the events surrounding his leaked memo, the corporate culture at Facebook and the influence of Ayn Rand’s ideas on his life and career.