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Tim Cook Speaks Up

businessweek.com

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Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#201

Post by rsynnott »

wozniacki wrote: post #153
rsynnott wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It got a reasonable amount of attention, but I think a lot of journalists (correctly, IMO) felt that speculating on someone's sexuality where they hadn't talked about it publicly was a bit inappropriate.

True. However there is the Nick Denton school of thought. Denton ( of Gawker Media ) routinely shames public personalities for being clandestine about their sexuality. The rationale for doing so is such that if no one calls them out, that the worldviews these public personalities profess never get the perspective, those views deserve. The backdrop of the person's sexuality and the influence it had on the shaping of t…

My impression was that Denton mostly does that with people who essentially work to oppress gay people (right-wing politicians, Fox journalists, and so on and so forth), and, yeah, I'm fine with that.

For people who aren't doing anything particularly wrong, though, especially those in positions where being openly gay is severely against the norm (as with Cook, who is, I believe, the first openly gay Fortune 500 CEO _ever_), it seems inappropriate. Say Cook had been outed back when he was COO; would he have become CEO? I'd like to say yes, but it would have been a brave move for the board.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#202

Post by oneplusone »

computerjunkie wrote: post #189
efaref wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they won't buy Apple products because the CEO is gay, they probably shouldn't buy any computers at all, seeing as the entire field is built on the work of a gay man.

>>> seeing as the entire field is built on the work of a gay man. That's a rather inaccurate, cringe worthy and generic statement. If your saying only one person contributed to the field of computers in 2014, that's sad. We tend to glorify individuals in the eyes of media and forget [1]others who contributed to where we are today in technology. [1] http://www.computerhope.com/people/ - list of people who have contrib…

He is referring to Alan Turing I believe.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#203

Post by learnstats2 »

Mahn wrote: post #8

I wish we lived in a society where people weren't pressured into "publically acknowledge" their sexual orientation just because it's different than the norm. You don't see heterosexual CEOs publically acknowledging they are banging their wife, why should it be different for other sexual orientations? Just let everyone be.

What? I hear about straight male CEO's relationships all the freaking time, probably more than I hear anything else about them.

Here's just one example: http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/16/business/la-fi-0416-...

Do you really need a list?

This is important because gay people have not been allowed representation or public acknowledgement. Until this month there were 0 openly gay CEOs but hundreds of openly straight CEOs in the public eye.

Well done Tim Cook, and my personal thanks.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#204

Post by Cthulhu_ »

chrisBob wrote: post #159
GI_Josh wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no expert, but I suspect this is just referring to work "at will" states, where you can be fired without being given a reason. Thus, it could actually be for anything: Your orientation, your work performance, that ugly shirt you wore yesterday. Doesn't matter.

The issue is that there are specific protections for things like age, race and religion, but not sexual orientation. I consider orientation, like race, to be something that you are born with that deserves the same protections.

Even if it's not, everyone should be free to do and be who they are - it should only influence one's employment if it actually affects said employment, like (for example) alcoholism or explosive flatulism (fire hazard)

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#205

Post by [deleted] »

lmedinas wrote: post #188
general_failure wrote: post #171

While this is already known, this does show us the world is not black and white. Tricky the whole thing. Mozilla as a company fights for privacy and creates a lot of free software for the general good. But people couldn't stand it's CEO being anti-gay. Now we have the most dangerous (imo) company of all time whose CEO is gay. Ah, good times.

Actually the problem is even worse because Brendan never expressed that he is anti-gay, he just sent a donation to activists "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." [1] And to me this does not represent that he is anti-gay. 1- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich

[deleted]

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#206

Post by aragot »

kshatrea wrote: post #53

This made me well up inside. Being from a country that considers homosexuality to be illegal (India) and having a close friend who left that country as well as his religion (Islam) solely due to being gay, I applaud this man's spirit. It is not only the government that must accept equality of different ways, but so must society. Religion, culture and political climates are no reason to deny fundamental human freedoms…

Tim Cook faces 2 years in jail in Singapore if he has activity even in a private room.

Three days ago, the Court of Appeal has just judged the law was conform to the constitution, because everyone is guaranteed equal rights no matter their sex, race or religion, and this doesn't include sexuality.

The Straits Times: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/courts-crime/stor...

The original judgement: https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1348...

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#207

Post by goatforce5 »

efaref wrote: post #61
broodbucket wrote: post #4

Being in such a progressive community (i.e. young nerdy people), it's easy to forget that this is an enormous deal for some people. A friend of mine recently came out as transgender and the general response was "oh, cool, good for you". It's hard to fathom what it's like for people who aren't in such a supportive environment. There are undoubtedly many people who will no longer purchase Apple products because of this…

If they won't buy Apple products because the CEO is gay, they probably shouldn't buy any computers at all, seeing as the entire field is built on the work of a gay man.

I saw a bunch of these Android pride shirts around Toronto Pride a few months back:

https://www.googlestore.com/Google+Redesign/Brands/Android/A...

Quick, homophobes! Burn your Android phones!

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#208

Post by logfromblammo »

chrisBob wrote: post #159
GI_Josh wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no expert, but I suspect this is just referring to work "at will" states, where you can be fired without being given a reason. Thus, it could actually be for anything: Your orientation, your work performance, that ugly shirt you wore yesterday. Doesn't matter.

The issue is that there are specific protections for things like age, race and religion, but not sexual orientation. I consider orientation, like race, to be something that you are born with that deserves the same protections.

In an "at will" arrangement, you will never be fired for "protected" traits. With "at will" employment, you can be fired for no reason at all, so no reason will ever be given that could possibly trigger legal liability.

It makes all those "protections" completely toothless.

In order to win a case, you would need to provide extensive documentation, probably collected via clandestine recordings, that would be able to convince a jury by preponderance of the evidence that you were fired for a protected reason, and not simply because the company no longer wanted to pay you for your work.

Besides that, one of the selling points of "at will" was that making it easier to fire people would make it easier to hire people. Anecdotally, I have not found this to be the case. Companies simply find it easier to discriminate based on things like race, gender, perceived sexual orientation, weight, religion (or lack thereof), disabilities, appearance, or age, because it is easier for them to deny that those are the factors that they consider in hiring and firing.

As Apple execs engaged in collusion with other companies to weaken workers as a class via an anti-poaching cartel, Tim Cook is hardly able to take a non-hypocritical position about sexuality discrimination in the workplace. When all workers are weakened, the ones that are most often discriminated against often suffer the most, because they are the marginal hires in more places.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#210

Post by Cthulhu_ »

rsynnott wrote: post #144
super_mario wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are certainly converging ever closer to the truth. They should just come out and say Jesus never existed as well, and they are not sure there is a god and apologize for being the biggest trolls in the history of humanity. Then they would gain some respect. This is the organization that to this day stays opposed to reason, advancement of science that meddles into research and politics and tells other people what…

> They should just come out and say Jesus never existed as well Most historians are of the opinion that Jesus DID exist (though, obviously not that he was the son of God).

Which ones? There was a meta-research done the other day, where the works of 130+ historians from that era was analyzed; only one made note of even the existence of Jesus, and it's pretty certain that that section wasn't put there by the original author (different writing style, sudden change of topic, etc).
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