Forgetting 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:<p>> 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.”<p>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'.<p>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.
I 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.<p>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:<p>- Internet amplifies social issues. Without internet and social networks my theory is that many oppressed minorities would never have gotten justice.<p>- 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.)
I feel sorry for this guy, but not because he got fired. Anyone with such questionable morals is <i>obviously</i> not a good fit at Apple and ejecting him earlier rather than later is damage limitation.<p>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.
This 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.<p>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.<p>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.
As 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.<p>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?
Are we saying that an unpleasant (sexist, bigoted) person can't be an engineer now? What can he be? Can he be a janitor?<p>Management, PR, ethics oversight board - I can see the problem. This, I don't understand.
iPhones are being built with slave labor.<p>Some guy wrote a satire of Silicon Valley in an exaggerated tech bro literary persona.<p>Guess which one triggered the strenuous denunciations of woke tech activists?
Hmm, 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?<p>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?
A bit tangential, but I've wondered about how courts feel about "leaks" from corporations that ultimately violate the terms of a separation agreement.<p>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.<p>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?
Kind 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.
Safe 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.<p>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.
Thing that trips me out is that I've always thought of that book as being just a book about Silicon Valley<p>Which means everything I ever heard about it<p>from this site, HN, or The Internet, generally, or Wired, or wherever -- never mentioned that it had this crazy anti-woman stuff in it.<p>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.
Interestingly 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.