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I 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 rath

I 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 6y 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 6y ago
  Technical 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 6y ago
    What'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 6y ago
      I'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.
      - Dracophoenix 6y ago
        A bit of both facetiousness and seriousness. I bring those questions up because your claim of there being a moral end to technical goals is vague and lacking in substance. Technology has no more of moral charge than atoms or stars do. In almost all cases, morality or lack thereof is incidental to the technology itself, not a direct consequence. If morality was the end of technological goal, then it could be measured. That morality predates measurement is irrelevant. Astronomy and agriculture predate human civilization by thousands of years and yet humanity today has been able to measure interstellar distances and complicated logistics of food production. If morality has yet to be discerned through an adequate metric, that is a failure of morality itself.
        shkkmo 6y ago
        I don't see how you can possibly justify that view. That atoms and stars are not human creations, technology is. Denying the existence of things because you can't measure them objectively is lunacy that if you follow to it's logical conclusion will take you to nihilism and epistemic surrender.
        albatruss 6y ago
        Astronomy and agriculture are celebrated because their advances make the world better in some broader sense. That broader sense, good as such, is the scope of morality.
spoonjim 6y ago
I mean if I'm hiring someone who has listed a book on their resume I'm not going to read the entire thing before hiring them.
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  Maybe you should. Autobiographies at least.
  - spoonjim 6y ago
    How long can a hiring manager at Apple give to evaluating a candidate? Reading a book will take 10+ hours. In this case it would obviously have been a good idea for everyone (although an emotionally well-adjusted hiring manager might read it and not realize that it would create such a shitstorm).
    - NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
      Let's be clear here, this isn't some minor technical book - his autobiography was on the New York Times best-seller list for business books and was reviewed in the paper.
- smoldesu 6y ago
  Apparently you won't even read the dust cover synopsis, either. That's the legendary "Apple pedigree" that you hear so much about.
  - adolph 6y ago
    Steve Jobs: "People Don't Read Anymore." https://www.wired.com/2008/01/steve-jobs-peop/ https://www.wired.com/2008/01/steve-jobs-peop/
    - smoldesu 6y ago
      Today, more than a decade after Steve's death, new Kindle models are still going into production.
Manuel_D 6y ago
His book was relatively well received. I think the key issue at play here is that he presents the book as a biography, but it's clear both reading the book (and from the author's own statements) that the literary persona and real person are different. I'm not sure if Apple understood that people would not make this distinction, and a massive group of people would take the writings as his own real opinions and start a massive petition calling for his firing.
- philosopher1234 6y ago
  You can never know whats in anothers heart. Yet you must try. This fella has given us ample reason, within and outside of the book, to think of him as a misogynist. His self-defenses are lacking wherever I've read them. I don't think this is a case of "the people are stupid". This is a case of justice.
  - Aeolun 6y ago
    And because he’s a misogynist he deserves any and all bad things that happen to him? There is a lot of people with stupid ideas in the world. You cannot punish them all just for their ideas.
    - philosopher1234 6y ago
      He doesn't deserve all bad things. But he specifically shouldn't be in a powerful position at Apple. Their firing of him was good (i agree with others that their hiring of him was bad). People's ideas do matter. Ideally misogynists should not be in charge of women.
      - collaborative 6y ago
        Seems the guy isn't really a misogynist and his account of a romance was taken out of context though. Not that I agree with what he says, but there seems to be malice in his portrayal by some journalists (https://taibbi.substack.com/p/on-the-hypocrites-at-apple-who-canceled https://taibbi.substack.com/p/on-the-hypocrites-at-apple-who...) Everyone has a right to work (irrespective of position), to live freely, own property, etc.. Justifying the opposite because of someone's ideas is a very slippery slope. And the fact that politics is a game of perception makes it all the more dangerous. If the mob rules, the true rulers are the people who control the mob (an even smaller amount of people)
smoldesu 6y ago
> Apple > Hoping the explanation becomes available eventually Choose one.
kemayo 6y ago
Accepting the hypothesis that he adopted an abrasive public persona in which he says crude things as a personal marketing technique, and doesn't actually believe the things he said about the value of women, the failure here is that neither he nor Apple predicted the fairly-obvious need for him to pivot away from that persona. A bit of public commentary along the lines of "I was trying to exaggerate what I saw as the flaws of this system, to draw attention to them; I know now that this approach didn't work for many people, and I'm sorry about that", and the upset of his imminent coworkers might have been diverted. But just being caught by surprise by it? Definitely someone screwed up. (The email to that journalist linked elsewhere is evidence that said hypothesis might be flawed. Certainly, the apparent unwillingness to make anodyne "I'm sorry for my past actions" comments is suggestive on that front.)
raydev 6y ago
This is my take as well. Apple messed up by recruiting him, and then severely messed up by ripping his job away at the last minute. That has a real human cost, and I think despite his obvious social toxicity in the workplace, Apple owes him something for jerking him around.
- unsignedchar 6y ago
  Going by his tweet it sounds like at this point he’s mainly riled up about how Apple is presenting the case in public, rather than whatever settlement they reached in private.
  - dehrmann 6y ago
    From the tweet, it's not clear if he reached a settlement. You're usually not allowed to talk about settlements, but it likely would have had a non-disparagement clause. His last statement, "Apple has issued a statement that clearly implies there was some negative behavior by me during my time at Apple. That is defamatory and categorically false" is the closest to disparaging, but it's limited claiming defamation. Maybe they reached a settlement, but Apple released a statement he disagrees with, and the settlement didn't cover future libel? Maybe they couldn't reach a settlement, so both he and Apple are trying to do damage control?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

roenxi 6y 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 6y ago
Technical 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 6y ago
  What'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 6y ago
    I'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.
    - Dracophoenix 6y ago
      A bit of both facetiousness and seriousness. I bring those questions up because your claim of there being a moral end to technical goals is vague and lacking in substance. Technology has no more of moral charge than atoms or stars do. In almost all cases, morality or lack thereof is incidental to the technology itself, not a direct consequence. If morality was the end of technological goal, then it could be measured. That morality predates measurement is irrelevant. Astronomy and agriculture predate human civilization by thousands of years and yet humanity today has been able to measure interstellar distances and complicated logistics of food production. If morality has yet to be discerned through an adequate metric, that is a failure of morality itself.
      - shkkmo 6y ago
        I don't see how you can possibly justify that view. That atoms and stars are not human creations, technology is. Denying the existence of things because you can't measure them objectively is lunacy that if you follow to it's logical conclusion will take you to nihilism and epistemic surrender.
      - albatruss 6y ago
        Astronomy and agriculture are celebrated because their advances make the world better in some broader sense. That broader sense, good as such, is the scope of morality.

spoonjim 6y ago

I mean if I'm hiring someone who has listed a book on their resume I'm not going to read the entire thing before hiring them.

pseudalopex 6y ago
Maybe you should. Autobiographies at least.
- spoonjim 6y ago
  How long can a hiring manager at Apple give to evaluating a candidate? Reading a book will take 10+ hours. In this case it would obviously have been a good idea for everyone (although an emotionally well-adjusted hiring manager might read it and not realize that it would create such a shitstorm).
  - NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
    Let's be clear here, this isn't some minor technical book - his autobiography was on the New York Times best-seller list for business books and was reviewed in the paper.
smoldesu 6y ago
Apparently you won't even read the dust cover synopsis, either. That's the legendary "Apple pedigree" that you hear so much about.
- adolph 6y ago
  Steve Jobs: "People Don't Read Anymore." https://www.wired.com/2008/01/steve-jobs-peop/ https://www.wired.com/2008/01/steve-jobs-peop/
  - smoldesu 6y ago
    Today, more than a decade after Steve's death, new Kindle models are still going into production.

Manuel_D 6y ago

His book was relatively well received. I think the key issue at play here is that he presents the book as a biography, but it's clear both reading the book (and from the author's own statements) that the literary persona and real person are different. I'm not sure if Apple understood that people would not make this distinction, and a massive group of people would take the writings as his own real opinions and start a massive petition calling for his firing.

philosopher1234 6y ago
You can never know whats in anothers heart. Yet you must try. This fella has given us ample reason, within and outside of the book, to think of him as a misogynist. His self-defenses are lacking wherever I've read them. I don't think this is a case of "the people are stupid". This is a case of justice.
- Aeolun 6y ago
  And because he’s a misogynist he deserves any and all bad things that happen to him? There is a lot of people with stupid ideas in the world. You cannot punish them all just for their ideas.
  - philosopher1234 6y ago
    He doesn't deserve all bad things. But he specifically shouldn't be in a powerful position at Apple. Their firing of him was good (i agree with others that their hiring of him was bad). People's ideas do matter. Ideally misogynists should not be in charge of women.
    - collaborative 6y ago
      Seems the guy isn't really a misogynist and his account of a romance was taken out of context though. Not that I agree with what he says, but there seems to be malice in his portrayal by some journalists (https://taibbi.substack.com/p/on-the-hypocrites-at-apple-who-canceled https://taibbi.substack.com/p/on-the-hypocrites-at-apple-who...) Everyone has a right to work (irrespective of position), to live freely, own property, etc.. Justifying the opposite because of someone's ideas is a very slippery slope. And the fact that politics is a game of perception makes it all the more dangerous. If the mob rules, the true rulers are the people who control the mob (an even smaller amount of people)

smoldesu 6y ago

> Apple > Hoping the explanation becomes available eventually Choose one.

kemayo 6y ago

Accepting the hypothesis that he adopted an abrasive public persona in which he says crude things as a personal marketing technique, and doesn't actually believe the things he said about the value of women, the failure here is that neither he nor Apple predicted the fairly-obvious need for him to pivot away from that persona. A bit of public commentary along the lines of "I was trying to exaggerate what I saw as the flaws of this system, to draw attention to them; I know now that this approach didn't work for many people, and I'm sorry about that", and the upset of his imminent coworkers might have been diverted. But just being caught by surprise by it? Definitely someone screwed up. (The email to that journalist linked elsewhere is evidence that said hypothesis might be flawed. Certainly, the apparent unwillingness to make anodyne "I'm sorry for my past actions" comments is suggestive on that front.)

raydev 6y ago

This is my take as well. Apple messed up by recruiting him, and then severely messed up by ripping his job away at the last minute. That has a real human cost, and I think despite his obvious social toxicity in the workplace, Apple owes him something for jerking him around.

unsignedchar 6y ago
Going by his tweet it sounds like at this point he’s mainly riled up about how Apple is presenting the case in public, rather than whatever settlement they reached in private.
- dehrmann 6y ago
  From the tweet, it's not clear if he reached a settlement. You're usually not allowed to talk about settlements, but it likely would have had a non-disparagement clause. His last statement, "Apple has issued a statement that clearly implies there was some negative behavior by me during my time at Apple. That is defamatory and categorically false" is the closest to disparaging, but it's limited claiming defamation. Maybe they reached a settlement, but Apple released a statement he disagrees with, and the settlement didn't cover future libel? Maybe they couldn't reach a settlement, so both he and Apple are trying to do damage control?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]