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"I’ve kept silent on the Apple situation; they broke silence, so will I"
- gberger 5y agoWhat's the context?
- mdeeks 5y agohttps://www.theverge.com/2021/5/12/22433437/apple-hire-antonio-garcia-martinez-out-petition-investigation https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/12/22433437/apple-hire-anton...
- infogulch 5y agoThis one has excerpts from the book: https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/12/22432909/apple-petition-hiring-antonio-garcia-martinez-chaos-monkeys-facebook https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/12/22432909/apple-petition-h...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- gamblor956 5y agoHe's made a number of inappropriate (including some incredibly misogynistic) comments in his writings and online. A lot of Apple employees complained, and so he was fired before he even started. Both sides are at fault here: AGM said some nasty things, and Apple failed to do its due diligence before recruiting him.
- gruez 5y ago>and Apple failed to do its due diligence before recruiting him. Seems to be contradicted by the tweet? >3. Apple was well aware of my writing before hiring me. My references were questioned extensively about my bestselling book and my real professional persona (rather than literary one).
- compscistd 5y agoBy "references" does he mean "cherry-picked people from my life who will say only good things about me"? No one I provide as a reference to a job at Apple is going to say something mean about me or a book they may or may not have even read. The only "due diligence" that seems to be demanded here is reading candidates' books (imagine a recruiter actually going through the effort of picking up a book and combing through all of it for just a single candidate) or looking through public social media posts (but the problematic ones may have likely only been shared in a private network). I do think AGM's comments should disqualify him as a candidate to work in a diverse work environment. But I don't want hiring to be more exhausting than it already is on either side, so aren't situations like this the reason we have work at-will arrangements anyway? What could Apple really have done here to prevent this? "Sign here attesting that you haven't ever said anything that could point to you being a prejudiced person in the work environment". If it turns out you did say something pretty bad, then too bad you had to relocate for this job because the offer is withdrawn. I'm sympathetic, I _know_ I've posted really stupid "edgy" things on social media some time between the ages of 12-15 that's likely buried in a set of redundant servers somewhere in the world. Stuff that would get me fired immediately if I said and believed them today. How do you convincingly demonstrate to an employer _and_ to your coworkers that the person from then isn't you anymore?
- st-august 5y agoThere's a difference between edgy social media comments from early adolescence -- which shouldn't be used to "cancel" anyone -- and passages from a book that this guy wrote and published when he was an adult (especially since he still hasn't retracted or apologized for anything that I'm aware of). You make a good point about hiring, though. They could probably read reviews of his book, but I don't know whether the reviews would mention its sexist elements -- probably depends on when it was written.
- Aeolun 5y ago> Both sides are at fault here: AGM said some nasty things, and Apple failed to do its due diligence before recruiting him. Since he wrote that ages before being hired, the only one at fault here is Apple. This is just a knee jerk reaction because of the backlash they got.
- baby 5y agoThere was a public outcry against Apple hiring him, as he wrote misogynistic things as part of some book. I only read the excerpt, which wasn’t great towards women. No idea if it was serious or what the whole book was about.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- echo419 5y agoFrom: https://www.axios.com/apple-severs-ties-with-antonio-garcia-martinez-c099fc67-de5d-4a2d-8b46-d29448dcab84.html https://www.axios.com/apple-severs-ties-with-antonio-garcia-... *Snip* Context: News broke earlier this week that Apple had hired García Martínez for an unspecified role. Apple did not say what exactly García Martínez' position was, but sources said he was hired for a lower-level engineering role and started last week. In the petition, first reported by the Verge, employees write: "We demand an investigation into how his published views on women and people of color were missed or ignored, along with a clear plan of action to prevent this from happening again." In one passage from "Chaos Monkeys," García Martínez describes women in the Bay Area as "soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit.” This passage was also cited online when García Martínez started writing for Wired magazine. *Snip*
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- barbazoo 5y ago> García Martínez describes women in the Bay Area as "soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit.” Why on earth would anyone put something like that in a book?!
- spoonjim 5y agoCause it makes the book sell.
- manicdee 5y agoBecause there is an audience who will buy that book.
- azinman2 5y agoBecause he was comparing the woman he was dating to his general experience. You can look at the larger passage as important context. It’s easy to dismiss him still as a jerk, but what bothers me is the idea that one cannot have an authentic experience that isn’t totally whitewashed and ready to be used for an ad for a multinational. Reading all of the selected quotes in that petition came off to me as thoughts he probably shouldn’t have published, but ones that many ordinary people have that aren’t total monsters. Yes he’s probably got a lot of toxic masculinity hold ups.. but so do millions and millions of people. If you read the minds of most employees at large companies and then put it into words, probably people would be fired left and right. At some point we need to acknowledge personal thoughts aren’t always the same thing as professional interactions, and that people can also grow, learn and change. He might not be the one for this, but I think the public response feels very snap for someone’s life. Probably almost no one signing that petition actually read his book or learned much about him in order to put things into context and perspective, yet they were easily wanting to ruin a man’s life. NB Perhaps he deserves it, I don’t know. But I’m wanting to withhold judgement, and I don’t have enough time or cares to actually investigate him.
- NovemberWhiskey 5y agoLatest storm in a teacup over a minor celebrity engineer getting let go from Apple after other employees discover his book has some misogynistic / ill-advised / heartfelt / probably-true (pick according to your convictions) opinions about SV women.
- slenk 5y agoSV sure sounds like a hell hole to work in
- bsder 5y agoPeople willing to work on ad-tech are skeevy creeps. Apple hired skeevy creep to work on ad-tech. People got upset that Apple hired skeevy creep. Apple fired/rescinded offer to skeevy creep. Apple is likely about to pay a bunch of money to skeevy creep.
- philosopher1234 5y agowhy would they pay a bunch of money?
- SpicyLemonZest 5y agoThere's a legal theory known as "promissory estoppel" or "detrimental reliance" that probably applies if Martinez's story is accurate. Apple promised him a job, he made some major life changes based on that promise, and now they've withdrawn their promise without any relevant new information or new bad conduct on Martinez's part.
- manicdee 5y agoApple can claim the information was new to them, such as for example believing the book was a work of satire only to find (based on post-hire discussion with AGM) it was actually a manifesto.
- SpicyLemonZest 5y agoThey can. I'm skeptical whether that'd be true - although I guess it's really academic, because high-profile employment disputes like this are almost always settled out of court.
- bsder 5y agoEmployment is a contract. Apple broke that contract without reason from the individual. If he resigned from another job and relocated, there are damages here that are quite easy to document. Yes, employees are nominally "at-will", but employers don't get to just do anything they want without consequence--especially in California. I'm surprised Apple did actually say anything beyond "We have terminated his employment. No further comment." as they're on terrible ground here. Finally, unlike most small fry, he's not going to have any trouble finding a lawyer for this. Lawyers will happily take this obvious a case on retainer. And, he's got lots of "wokeness crusade" lawyers who will be salivating over this case.
- Cyberdog 5y agoA take biased in favor of Garcia-Martinez which argues he's not the monster he's being made out to be: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/on-the-hypocrites-at-apple-who-canceled https://taibbi.substack.com/p/on-the-hypocrites-at-apple-who...
- mcguire 5y agoIf that's biased in his favor....
- alvah 5y agoThat read like a reasonable summary to me. What makes you say it’s biased towards AGM?
- bingbingbong 5y agoThe authour tends to write about this topic a lot. I found it more or less reasonable, but they no doubt have a bias.
- Cyberdog 5y ago> What makes you say it’s biased towards AGM? Well, partly because the author begins with: > I’m biased, because I know Antonio Garcia-Martinez and something like the same thing once happened to me…
- alvah 5y agoHe acknowledges this, but the article is hardly a hagiography.
- baby 5y agoI won’t comment on this specific incident but I think this is one among many such incidents that are part of a new trend: what you say publicly has much more chance to bite you in the ass later. No matter how much you changed. This is especially dangerous for kids IMO as r/kidsarefuckingstupid. I’ll add that I don’t necessarily think this trend will remain. I think there are two reasons that make the cancelling culture so powerful today: - Internet amplifies social issues. Without internet and social networks my theory is that many oppressed minorities would never have gotten justice. - On top of that America is realizing that most of the country is is still stuck in an embarrassingly dark past, and for many people a zero tolerance approach is the only way to fight this war. (Politics is war without blood.)
- tmpz22 5y agoForget politics, this man was a red pill ideologue who, among other things, would brag about the number of women he's impregnated [1]. If this is the hill anyone wants to die on - holy cow. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5b4tqe/i_am_antonio_garcia_martinez_a_tech_entrepreneur/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5b4tqe/i_am_antonio_g... Edit: * added citation * changed "the hill you want" to "the hill anyone wants"
- sonograph 5y ago> this man was a red pill ideologue What does a 'red pill ideologue' mean? Yes, I've seen the Matrix but I don't understand But wow, that Reddit post is shocking
- GuB-42 5y agoIt is a movement glorifying the "alpha male" idea. The strongest man rules and get all the women. It is called "red pill" because of the idea that it is the real truth of this world.
- tmpz22 5y agoPretty much end-game toxic masculinity - men blaming women for not wanting to sleep with them and promoting "pick-up artist" strategies like negging, gas-lighting, and other despicable behavior in an attempt to get laid. It grew into a fairly large subreddit.
- gojomo 5y agoApple 1997: “Think Different” Apple 2021: “Think Tame”
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- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- smoldesu 5y agoThinking different these days is punishable by joblessness.
- DoreenMichele 5y agoBeing different has long been punishable by joblessness. Women, people of color and the LGBTQ crowd all see their income suffer merely because they are different. The LGBTQ crowd experiences high rates of unemployment because of it and women seem to manage to stay off the street often be sleeping with some guy who can afford to pay the rent, basically. Edit: I blog about homelessness. The LGBTQ crowd sees high rates of homelessness. Homeless people die on average something like two decades younger than housed people. Do with that info what you want. I see it as not a good thing.
- smoldesu 5y agoI am part of the LGBTQ crowd, and I gotta say I haven't heard of anyone I know getting fired because of their sexuality before. On the contrary, (my N+1 anecdata) I actually was introduced to a former employer at a gay bar.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- filleduchaos 5y agoWhere do you live? Actually that's a rhetorical question, especially considering that > at a gay bar already says enough.
- LeoPanthera 5y agoI feel sorry for this guy, but not because he got fired. Anyone with such questionable morals is obviously not a good fit at Apple and ejecting him earlier rather than later is damage limitation. No, I feel sorry for him, because he should never have been hired in the first place, and I cannot even begin to imagine the sequence of events inside Apple that led to this. It's utterly baffling, and I hope the explanation becomes available eventually because I'd love to know.
- roenxi 5y ago> Anyone with such questionable morals is obviously... The entire corporate hierarchy is people of questionable morals. Companies go out of their way to hire lawyers too - while theoretically one can be a highly moral lawyer, in practice we can tell from the results that a very big chunk of the ones in corporations are moral-less negotiators. One of the biggest benefits of modern corporations is we can put aside fiery debates on politics, morals and religions and work together on highly specific technical goals.
- albatruss 5y agoTechnical goals are means to moral ends, so I think it's great that the stuff that matters, the big picture, the point of it all, is getting more discussion nowadays.
- Dracophoenix 5y agoWhat's the moral outcome of an iPhone? What makes it more moral to all the other phones out there? Is Swift more moral than Javascript? Is Objective-C more moral than plain old C? How do you measure morality?
- albatruss 5y agoI'm guessing your questions are facetious, but in case you seriously care, the nature of morality has been the subject of intensive research for thousands of years, including today. It predates even the concept of measurement, in fact.
- 1cvmask 5y agoInterestingly I have not seen any commentary on how few latinos are represented at Apple, and could that be the reason they summarily dismissed him even though they knew all his writings from before. Apple has many abusive (and perhaps some are misogynistic) white men starting with Steve Jobs.
- tkiolp4 5y agoI think he’s Spaniard, not latino.
- pochamago 5y agoHe's Cuban
- syspec 5y agoMany Cubans are Spaniards... there were hardly any indigenous people in Cuba it's all just Spaniards and Africans
- collaborative 5y agoCuban
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pessimizer 5y agoAre we saying that an unpleasant (sexist, bigoted) person can't be an engineer now? What can he be? Can he be a janitor? Management, PR, ethics oversight board - I can see the problem. This, I don't understand.
- bradleyjg 5y agoWhether the line should be drawn there or not, there is a distinction between someone that’s a bigot and someone that’s a published bigot.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Aeolun 5y agoIsn’t that on the publisher more than the person?
- SpicyLemonZest 5y agoI haven't seen any concrete information on what his role was going to be, but given that his references were "prominent valley VCs and execs", it's likely it was a pretty senior role and not just a random IC.
- mdeeks 5y agoApple is saying that he can not be an engineer at their company, yes. He would have been required to work in a large organization that is filled with people he considers "useless baggage" no matter what their accomplishments may be. He is free to be an engineer anywhere else if he manages to find a company that, for some inexplicable reason, doesn't care about that. I can't imagine any sane organization wanting to bring someone like that into their midst.
- NautilusWave 5y agoSounds like a good reason for UIB....
- mirthflat83 5y agoLooking at the replies, it seems that people's hatred for Apple as a company is benefitting him on Twitter court of justice
- smoldesu 5y agoIf there's anywhere on the internet practicing sympathy towards Mac users, it's Twitter alright.
- spoonjim 5y agoKind of stupid of him to sell his property in Washington before moving to Apple. You hear of so many stories of people quitting new jobs on their first day, first week, or first month... sometimes you just get to a place and realize you've made a big fuckup.
- insert_coin 5y agoSafe spaces have made their way into the corporate world, truly sad to see freedom of speech and diversity of thought getting destroyed being celebrated around here. But in a way is also refreshing, we are near the bottom (or nearer), corporations have real stakes, they need to generate real profits so unlike college campuses where the performance of a university doesn't really matter, a company like Apple has very little room for underperforming, and the minute revenue starts to drop they'll realize it's not healthy for a company to cater to the woke mob and hopefully begin reversing course. Let's just hope not much damage is done before that.
- detaro 5y agoSounds like longing to return to the safe space where you can say what you want about others without consequences?
- insert_coin 5y agoIt is very very sad that this has to even be said, but freedom means tolerating things you don't agree with, diversity means tolerating viewpoints different than yours. Is the US a nation of laws or a nation ruled by mob?
- Aeolun 5y agoIn my opinion, looking at the US anywhere in the previous 4 years, we already know the answer to that question.
- detaro 5y agoWay to many people loudly whining about "safe spaces" tend to have a problem with tolerance too as soon as it comes to groups they don't like. (E.g. to take the dude here, are the reports about him harassing women that argue for being childless an example of them not "tolerating things they don't agree with" (they could just tolerate the harassment I suppose), or of him not "tolerating things he doesn't agree with"?) Which is why I describe the "before" as also a kind of "safe spaces", change just shifts who gets pushed out of them. (Still sucks for the one that gets the short end of the stick of course, but that's also not a new thing)
- tpush 5y agoAs a German I think it's really interesting to see how America's comparatively weak labor laws, especially around firing workers, are used in this instance in a purportedly justified way. I wonder if there's any dissonance among those who argue for 'cancelling' someone's employment while also trying to advance workers rights in America. Maybe that intersection isn't very large?
- smoldesu 5y ago> I wonder if there's any dissonance among those who argue for 'cancelling' someone's employment while also trying to advance workers rights in America. This is basically the rhetoric of the current Democratic party in America. It's still a better dialogue than what the RNC is working with ("Keep giving celebrities money and we'll fix it eventually!"), but the amount of people who blindly lead where their peers follow is staggering. Is there any dissonance though? No, not really. Most people have been bullied into worrying about their image more than anything else, so speaking up is a particularly risky move. The intersection is significant, but most people just don't care enough to do their own research or have actual conversations about theory outside of Twitter.
- detaro 5y agoGerman equivalent: Being fired with two weeks notice during the trial period (or 4 in first 6 months), no reasons needed or given. Not that much different, unless you got the employer to agree to give you full protection from day 1? (which I guess might be possible in a "they headhunted that dude specifically" contract)
- ryanSrich 5y agoMy guess is there isn’t dissonance because people advocating for both don’t view their enemies as human. This is what politics and Twitter have done to the US. If you’re the enemy you don’t have rights.
- bingbingbong 5y agoForgetting the context surrounding this quote (which makes it no where near as bad IMO but I also acknowledge other readings are reasonable), I wonder if this hypothetical would be a proper analogue: > García Martínez describes [men] in the [Wall Street] area as "[douchey] and [egotistical], cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit.” That's the sort of sentiment I've heard over a drink about any number of places/topics, but I don't think it should be a fireable opinion to publish. Bonus points if you can explain how above example is different without using the word 'power'. Edit: I've also noticed others posting quotes from the book where he uses equivalently inflammatory language against men, himself, people he worked with at goldman sachs (aka: my toy example pretty much does also appear in his book), etc. My opinion is this paints the book as more of a gauche satire against everyone/everything in his life.
- dwaltrip 5y agoThe two quotes differ in the amount of “punching up” vs “punching down”. Punching up is generally viewed as more acceptable.
- drewcoo 5y agoThat implies "power."
- UncleMeat 5y agoI read it exactly the opposite. A few years ago my wife was recommended Chaos Monkeys by somebody. It was stunning what he had willingly written down to share with the world. Every few minutes she'd explode in horror at the next even more outrageous thing in the text. Instead of being the expected book on silicon valley, it was fascinating because this person was so proud of being a tremendous asshole to everybody. The book is not a satire. Not even a little. It is absolutely completely honest and the author is a complete jerk.
- ibarea23 5y agoIt's not satire, but it is a schtick. If you listen to an interview w/ the guy, he's not at all what I expected from the book (and I had the same response as your wife, though I've heard worse in SV many many times and sort of just appreciated the honesty even if it doesn't reflect my worldview). So does it still reflect a culture that's been problematic in SV that we want to get rid of? For sure, yes. But also, maybe people should be allowed to make mistakes - this kind of sexism was widely tolerated in SV even five years ago. That doesn't excuse it, but I sort of think we have to allow people to grow and change.
- sumthinprofound 5y agoThis is not someone I would hire for a leadership position. Chaos Monkeys, autobiographical in nature, is by his own admission enough insight into his character and integrity to show he is unfit to lead a diverse group of employees. If the position he was hired for was in fact that of a low level engineer conceivably who ever hired him did not think it would present too much of an issue? Just doesn't sound like a good cultural fit and I can understand the pushback from folks who would have to work with him as part of a team. I have always considered my professional reputation to be something that took my entire career to cultivate, but can be tarnished inadvertently with one misstep. Probably why I haven't published a book of my personal escapades, and definitely why I don't tweet every thought that pops into my mind.
- cryptonector 5y ago> Probably why I haven't published a book of my personal escapades, and definitely why I don't tweet every thought that pops into my mind. Congratulations! You have confessed to being as awful a person as AGM! Enjoy your cancellation! Yeah, that's hyperbole. Apple shouldn't have hired AGM. But soon things that are acceptable today, like admitting as you did that you have a filter, may not be.
- sumthinprofound 5y agoCounterpoint: Having a filter and not oversharing every fleeting thought with the entire world decreases the likelihood of getting cancelled (which is really nothing but good old fashioned ostracism, though I believe the way it's currently being weaponized will diminish over time, lose it's effectiveness and again be reserved for the truly repugnant).
- cryptonector 5y agoHmm? I didn't say having a filter is bad. No, having a filter is good. You missed the joke. > which is really nothing but good old fashioned ostracism Indeed. We have a mega ostrakon nowadays, and the penalty is worse than ten years' exile.
- DLay 5y agoHmm, say he doubles down on his last tweet and sues Apple for defamation. Would Apple’s plans for its ad network expansion be made publicly available through discovery? Facebook has every incentive now to highlight anti-competitive behavior. Maybe it would it be worth helping an old pal out with the his lawyer fees?
- adolph 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollea_v._Gawker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollea_v._Gawker
- diebeforei485 5y agoPerhaps Apple engineers should form a labor union to avoid being cancelled.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- adolph 5y agoTo me, it appeared a blatant conflict of interest for the Times to let its contract negotiators also discipline the union’s negotiators. It felt like an attempt to intimidate the union. https://donaldgmcneiljr1954.medium.com/nytimes-peru-n-word-part-three-what-happened-in-the-2019-investigation-6f8e9939a385 https://donaldgmcneiljr1954.medium.com/nytimes-peru-n-word-p...
- aphelion 5y agoiPhones are being built with slave labor. Some guy wrote a satire of Silicon Valley in an exaggerated tech bro literary persona. Guess which one triggered the strenuous denunciations of woke tech activists?
- Volundr 5y agoBoth? I've seen plenty of outrage over Apple's labor practices. The difference isn't that one produced outrage and one didn't. The difference is Apple was willing to change course on hiring this guy. The cheap labor is too valuable and they are keeping it no matter how upset it makes people.
- readonthegoapp 5y agoThing that trips me out is that I've always thought of that book as being just a book about Silicon Valley Which means everything I ever heard about it from this site, HN, or The Internet, generally, or Wired, or wherever -- never mentioned that it had this crazy anti-woman stuff in it. which makes it seem like, anyone who complains about rampant systemic all-encompassing misogyny in The Valley or Tech or the workplace, is probably onto something.
- meowfly 5y agoA bit tangential, but I've wondered about how courts feel about "leaks" from corporations that ultimately violate the terms of a separation agreement. Hypothetical: Apple HR and Martínez agree to 1 years severance with a confidentiality cause. Word around the org spreads he was let go after employees complained. Business Insider reports the story after speaking confidentially to Apple employees. Has Apple broken the terms of their agreement? If Martínez starts a media campaign against Apple to defend his reputation, will they have a good case to claw back the cash?