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I can come up with plausible reasons for why intelligence leakers do what they do (sense of duty, serving public interest, etc). I can't come up with any for an
by IBM 8y ago
I can come up with plausible reasons for why intelligence leakers do what they do (sense of duty, serving public interest, etc). I can't come up with any for an Apple employee.
The leaks an Apple employee makes is about inconsequential stuff like what features the next iPhone will have. It's not even in the same ballpark as someone who is leaking something illegal going on at the company or someone at Facebook leaking the Boz memo, for example.
- wellboy 8y agoWhat if the leaker is offered $100,000?
- IBM 8y agoI addressed that in a comment below. It makes sense for an employee of a supplier in Asia to leak for money, it makes less sense for an employee in Cupertino. Also somehow I doubt that newsrooms are making enough money to pay $100,000 (or any money for that matter) for random tidbits about products that don't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
- walshemj 8y agoIts Money one of the classic reasons to leak
- jlgaddis 8y agoAre media organizations like 9to5mac (mentioned in Apple's memo) paying Apple insiders for the information they provide? Personally, I wouldn't think that the leakers were getting paid. Even if they were, I imagine the amount that these particular online web sites are able to pay is very much -- especially when compared to the average Apple employee's salary. This makes me think that money isn't the primary motivating factor, if it is a factor at all.
- ebullientocelot 8y agoI agree that money probably isn't the thing. I would imagine the average Apple engineer would realize that the payment for leaking would have to be massive to offset the damage to career / loss of earnings from the damned good job they already have. Maybe it's the sense of getting away with something? Like a super lame, mundane version of Thomas Crown--life is going well in pretty much every category so raise a little hell just to see if you can?
- mombul 8y agoOne can be smart enough to work at Apple and also be dumb in a lot of ways. It's easy being manipulated ("nobody will know it was from you! you're a confidential source"), and it's definitely easy to think of yourself above all laws, or at least too smart to ever get caught.
- ebullientocelot 8y agoThat's completely fair.
- mombul 8y agoI find the show "Silicon Valley" to be very accurate! Take a look at the bro developers for example!
- walshemj 8y agoBut being cynical the journalist would want to give the source some money as it locks them in
- mygo 8y agoseeing something that you said show up on the front page of a popular website... and knowing that it was you and only you, with your underutilized expertise in your under appreciated role, that made that possible... you can’t really buy that
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- baud147258 8y agoPerhaps an ego thing? Like "I know something, I'll show you what I know and how important I am to know this"
- chongli 8y agoPerhaps Apple employees get tired of not being able to talk about what they do at work in social settings. Leaking provides an outlet so that their friends and family might have an idea of what they're up to. It's still sort of an ego thing, but having to hold your tongue at parties can get really exhausting.
- mygo 8y agoSo what do you do? option A: “I’m working on really cool / inconsequential shit. But I can’t tell you about it. Maybe we can catch up next year and I can tell you what I did” option B: “I work at Apple” option C: just stay home.