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There is something fishy in this whole story. - You wouldn't risk your new position by not quitting your old one. - Apple would not want you to keep your old

There is something fishy in this whole story. - You wouldn't risk your new position by not quitting your old one. - Apple would not want you to keep your old job since they want your focus on your new position. - Getting double salaries is not worth the paperwork headache of tricking the system. The only reason I can think of is, he would get some sort of extra pay from his old job if he would fulfil a time written on his old contract.

excalibur 10y ago
Pure speculation, but it sounds to me like he may have been working on some kind of undercover exposé on Apple. While I don't see any evidence of this, his actions would make more sense in that light. But if so, it is unclear why nobody at the Verge seems to be in the loop.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Maybe he's been infiltrating the Verge secretly working for Apple, and now the mission's done and he's ready to transition to official employment with Apple, he doesn't care what happens to his career at the Verge? (conspiracy intensifies)
  - s_kilk 10y ago
    Or, he was instructed to infiltrate Apple by Verge, and was found out. The Verge burned him, he dropped out of Apple, hence why he's supposedly not on the payroll at Apple. I don't believe this of course, but hey, tinfoil.
    - pkaye 10y ago
      But if he was known publicly before this then Apple would have easily found out.
      - s_kilk 10y ago
        Maybe, but what if Apple believed he had left his job at Verge? There wouldn't be any real reason to not take that at face value. Anyway, this theory is getting too convoluted, hence almost certainly false :)
    - FireBeyond 10y ago
      Eh, in that case, I would assume/hope he had those instructions in writing, as The Verge's burn has surely put a huge dent in his employability, and very likely libelous.
    - dahauns 10y ago
      Now there's a nutjob theory. The Verge doing investigative journalism?
  - redial 10y ago
    Or maybe, he's been all along an agent of a third corporation that has yet to be revealed...
    - LanceH 10y ago
      Which is just what his true employer wants you to think.
pyrophane 10y ago
I know someone who did this. It was both so he could collect dual salaries for a while and because he wanted to try out his new job before quitting his old one. It turned out playing out much like what Patel describes with Ziegler. Manager at old job became suspicious when he became largely unresponsive and figured out what was going on, then fired him. I think he thought he could do both at once better than he was able to.
- coldcode 10y ago
  At one job we had the director of security take a lot of vacation, at his level he didn't have to report it. A couple months later someone discovered he was working full time at another company and also taking a lot of vacation there as well. Eventually the CIO fired him once the details were known. Plus he sucked at security so no idea why he even had the job in the first place.
  - r00fus 10y ago
    Man that's ballsy. Taking two jobs and vacations on both? Who the hell gets away with that? Was he trying to time slice multiple processes like an OS?
r00fus 10y ago
This exactly. I knew someone who jumped from TiVo to Google and part of the contention in the timing of the switch for him was options vesting. So Google (well his hiring mgr/HR) told him to keep working at TiVo and get his bonus from them and they'd have something lined up for him to jump immediately afterwards. They couldn't let him work on Google proprietary stuff, though.
mortenjorck 10y ago
Ziegler was, among other things, the automotive editor of The Verge, and is, by any measure, a car enthusiast. What follows is my wild speculation: Given his experience in both tech media and automotive media, perhaps he was hired at Apple as part of the team whose responsibility it will be to construct the messaging and narrative around the unveiling of Apple's car program. As part of the secrecy around the project, he might well have been hired by one of Apple's automotive shell companies [1], thus his name not appearing in the Apple intranet. As for his employment overlap, that sounds more like a mishandled quiet departure than anything else – Apple HR would certainly have instructed him to keep his transition low-profile, and maybe he simply screwed it up. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/alleged-apple-front-company-attends-car-industry-conference-sixty-eight-global-car-body-benchmarking-2015-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/alleged-apple-front-company-a...
- RickS 10y ago
  In the midst of a lot of speculation and a bizarre situation, this is the sanest explanation so far.

excalibur 10y ago

Pure speculation, but it sounds to me like he may have been working on some kind of undercover exposé on Apple. While I don't see any evidence of this, his actions would make more sense in that light. But if so, it is unclear why nobody at the Verge seems to be in the loop.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
Maybe he's been infiltrating the Verge secretly working for Apple, and now the mission's done and he's ready to transition to official employment with Apple, he doesn't care what happens to his career at the Verge? (conspiracy intensifies)
- s_kilk 10y ago
  Or, he was instructed to infiltrate Apple by Verge, and was found out. The Verge burned him, he dropped out of Apple, hence why he's supposedly not on the payroll at Apple. I don't believe this of course, but hey, tinfoil.
  - pkaye 10y ago
    But if he was known publicly before this then Apple would have easily found out.
    - s_kilk 10y ago
      Maybe, but what if Apple believed he had left his job at Verge? There wouldn't be any real reason to not take that at face value. Anyway, this theory is getting too convoluted, hence almost certainly false :)
  - FireBeyond 10y ago
    Eh, in that case, I would assume/hope he had those instructions in writing, as The Verge's burn has surely put a huge dent in his employability, and very likely libelous.
  - dahauns 10y ago
    Now there's a nutjob theory. The Verge doing investigative journalism?
- redial 10y ago
  Or maybe, he's been all along an agent of a third corporation that has yet to be revealed...
  - LanceH 10y ago
    Which is just what his true employer wants you to think.

pyrophane 10y ago

I know someone who did this. It was both so he could collect dual salaries for a while and because he wanted to try out his new job before quitting his old one. It turned out playing out much like what Patel describes with Ziegler. Manager at old job became suspicious when he became largely unresponsive and figured out what was going on, then fired him. I think he thought he could do both at once better than he was able to.

coldcode 10y ago
At one job we had the director of security take a lot of vacation, at his level he didn't have to report it. A couple months later someone discovered he was working full time at another company and also taking a lot of vacation there as well. Eventually the CIO fired him once the details were known. Plus he sucked at security so no idea why he even had the job in the first place.
- r00fus 10y ago
  Man that's ballsy. Taking two jobs and vacations on both? Who the hell gets away with that? Was he trying to time slice multiple processes like an OS?

r00fus 10y ago

This exactly. I knew someone who jumped from TiVo to Google and part of the contention in the timing of the switch for him was options vesting. So Google (well his hiring mgr/HR) told him to keep working at TiVo and get his bonus from them and they'd have something lined up for him to jump immediately afterwards. They couldn't let him work on Google proprietary stuff, though.

mortenjorck 10y ago

Ziegler was, among other things, the automotive editor of The Verge, and is, by any measure, a car enthusiast. What follows is my wild speculation: Given his experience in both tech media and automotive media, perhaps he was hired at Apple as part of the team whose responsibility it will be to construct the messaging and narrative around the unveiling of Apple's car program. As part of the secrecy around the project, he might well have been hired by one of Apple's automotive shell companies [1], thus his name not appearing in the Apple intranet. As for his employment overlap, that sounds more like a mishandled quiet departure than anything else – Apple HR would certainly have instructed him to keep his transition low-profile, and maybe he simply screwed it up. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/alleged-apple-front-company-attends-car-industry-conference-sixty-eight-global-car-body-benchmarking-2015-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/alleged-apple-front-company-a...

RickS 10y ago
In the midst of a lot of speculation and a bizarre situation, this is the sanest explanation so far.