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‘Misogynistic’ Apple hire is out hours after employees call for investigation

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Re: ‘Misogynistic’ Apple hire is out hours after employees call for investigation

#11

Post by ivraatiems »

I remember trying to read Chaos Monkeys because it sounded up my alley, and stopping a few chapters in because the author's tone, to be frank, made me think he was at least pretentious and at worst a psychopath.

I'm not sure that's worth a firing from Apple, but based on the book, Popehat's rule of assholes* might be in play here.

* Popehat's rule of assholes: From Popehat, https://twitter.com/popehat, roughly stating "Assuming equal guilt, the system treats people who are assholes worse than people who are not."

Edit to add: After reviewing his comments in parts of the book I didn't reach, and his apparent real-life behavior... yeah, no. Who would hire him?

Re: ‘Misogynistic’ Apple hire is out hours after employees call for investigation

#12

Post by jimmaswell »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #8

(1) It was interesting to see Apple employees organizing on Twitter. They don't really have any companywide chat or email lists, but some groups have a Slack (only for that group). (2) In the book he was comparing his pregnant British girlfriend to other women in the Bay Area, intended more to make her look good than others look bad. I don't think any malice was involved. (3) I hope he's getting some sort of severanc…

Seems like a bad path we're on where you can only have a job if you put forward exactly the right political or social views publically.

Re: ‘Misogynistic’ Apple hire is out hours after employees call for investigation

#13

Post by [deleted] »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #8

(1) It was interesting to see Apple employees organizing on Twitter. They don't really have any companywide chat or email lists, but some groups have a Slack (only for that group). (2) In the book he was comparing his pregnant British girlfriend to other women in the Bay Area, intended more to make her look good than others look bad. I don't think any malice was involved. (3) I hope he's getting some sort of severanc…

[deleted]

Re: ‘Misogynistic’ Apple hire is out hours after employees call for investigation

#14

Post by elliekelly »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #8

(1) It was interesting to see Apple employees organizing on Twitter. They don't really have any companywide chat or email lists, but some groups have a Slack (only for that group). (2) In the book he was comparing his pregnant British girlfriend to other women in the Bay Area, intended more to make her look good than others look bad. I don't think any malice was involved. (3) I hope he's getting some sort of severanc…

“She’s not like other girls” is a sexist thing to say and it isn’t a compliment. Even still, this:

> Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit

Is not really something that can be said “without malice” no matter the context.

Re: ‘Misogynistic’ Apple hire is out hours after employees call for investigation

#15

Post by BalinKing »

umvi wrote: post #5
hoka wrote: post #3

How many murals or paintings of Steve Jobs are still on the Apple campus?

Caltech cancelled Robert Millikan (the founder), so it wouldn't be unprecedented for Apple to cancel its founder(s) as well.

And Albert Ruddock (a donor and trustee, I think), to the point that they're renaming Ruddock House. Some of us are very unhappy about this decision, given that the name "Ruddock" has a much stronger association these days with the House than the person.

Re: ‘Misogynistic’ Apple hire is out hours after employees call for investigation

#16

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #8

(1) It was interesting to see Apple employees organizing on Twitter. They don't really have any companywide chat or email lists, but some groups have a Slack (only for that group). (2) In the book he was comparing his pregnant British girlfriend to other women in the Bay Area, intended more to make her look good than others look bad. I don't think any malice was involved. (3) I hope he's getting some sort of severanc…

If you want to favorably compare your girlfriend to the general populace, you can talk about her strength, the things she would do that others might not. You could praise her worldliness, her understandings of the ins and outs of business, politics, and high society. And you could honor how she's straightforward, to the point, and honest. You don't have to denigrate another group of women in order to make the point -- in fact doing so rather distracts from it.

I won't debate whether malice was intended because it's hard to know what the state of mind of a person is when they do a particular thing. I can definitely understand how a woman in the valley might suspect she would not get a fair shake from someone who would write these words.

Re: ‘Misogynistic’ Apple hire is out hours after employees call for investigation

#17

Post by zadokshi »

Back in my days, people were judged by the value their work could could bring to the company, rather than based subjective assessments of subjective moral standards. This makes me feel old.

Do you think we will ever return to a world where a builder (for example) would be chosen based on their competence in being able to build a house rather than based upon some potential social media controversy one builder might trigger compared to the other one. Some people just want a nice house.

Re: ‘Misogynistic’ Apple hire is out hours after employees call for investigation

#18

Post by hoka »

gnicholas wrote: post #10
prepend wrote: post #2

Is this the book? Chaos Monkeys, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28259132

Wow apparently a NYT bestseller and NPR book of the year.

Bestseller in the publishing world is practically 'natural' in the food world.

Re: ‘Misogynistic’ Apple hire is out hours after employees call for investigation

#19

Post by ryanwhitney »

Outside of the main quote that keeps showing up, he was also fairly creepy writing about women he worked with.

> Unlike most women at Facebook (or in the Bay Area, really) she knew how to dress; forties-style, form-fitting dresses from neck to knee were her mainstay.

> There were few women one would call conventionally attractive at Facebook. The few there were rarely if ever dressed for work with their femininity on display in the form of dresses and heels

> If her look was supposed to disarm me, she needed either more cleavage or more charm.

Sounds like not someone you'd want around if you're a company that wants to make people feel at all safe and comfortable in an office.

Re: ‘Misogynistic’ Apple hire is out hours after employees call for investigation

#20

Post by ARandomerDude »

> At Apple, we have always strived to create an inclusive, welcoming workplace where everyone is respected and accepted. Behavior that demeans or discriminates against people for who they are has no place here.

- Apple

Sounds amazingly like:

> This is an environment of welcoming, and you should just get the hell out of here.

- Michael Scott

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