Live data from Hacker News

The Verge editor secretly joins Apple, doesn't inform the Verge

daringfireball.net

11–20 of 50 posts

Re: The Verge editor secretly joins Apple, doesn't inform the Verge

#11
post #3

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 o…

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.

Re: The Verge editor secretly joins Apple, doesn't inform the Verge

#12
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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)

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.

Re: The Verge editor secretly joins Apple, doesn't inform the Verge

#13

How do we know he wasn't working at an Apple Store rather than Corporate? Apparently he wasn't in the corporate directory.

This was downvoted, but I recall it supposedly being an explicit condition of employment that you don't tell anyone that you are going to be an apple store employee?

Re: The Verge editor secretly joins Apple, doesn't inform the Verge

#15
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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)

Or maybe, he's been all along an agent of a third corporation that has yet to be revealed...

Re: The Verge editor secretly joins Apple, doesn't inform the Verge

#16
post #12
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

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.

But if he was known publicly before this then Apple would have easily found out.

Re: The Verge editor secretly joins Apple, doesn't inform the Verge

#17

The most hilarious aspect of this story is it took nearly two months before anyone noticed he was gone.

Sometimes when an employee stops showing up and cuts contact, they are dealing with mental health issues and good employers see what accommodations can be made.

In this case, it turned out to be something else, but that's why I wouldn't have rushed to fire if I were in HR at the Verge.

Re: The Verge editor secretly joins Apple, doesn't inform the Verge

#18
Its funny with the rise of more remote work with flexible hours I wonder if there's not more then one person who's double dipping.

I imagine a pretty good engineer could maybe work two full time jobs pretty easily remotely working 4-5 hours per day on each gig.

Re: The Verge editor secretly joins Apple, doesn't inform the Verge

#20
It's not uncommon for journalists to jump ship and work for the people they've covered. Numerous former newspaper colleagues of mine work as public information officers for the school districts and agencies they used to cover. This happens all the way up to the White House level. Questions of biased coverage in the months leading up to the switch are often justified and asked.

But I've never heard of this kind of double-dipping. Other than the brief extra paycheck, this is all massive downside, particularly in media becomes the grist for another news cycle. The fact that he's also just gone silent on Twitter makes me think there is some other problem here.

Post reply on HN