LONG BEACH, California – The recent uprising in Egypt that toppled the country’s long-sitting president, had no leader and no single hero, according to Wael Ghonim, a Google marketing manager in Egypt and one of the revolution’s galvanizing forces. Instead, every Egyptian was a leader and every Egyptian a hero.

Ghonim launched an anonymous Facebook page that quickly became an organizing tool for protesters, and ultimately a symbol of the revolution. The page memorialized Khaled Said, an Egyptian businessman who had been beaten to death by authorities in June 2010. The page was titled, “We Are A...