A group of Apple employees has written a petition asking for an investigation into the hiring of Antonio García Martínez — a former Facebook product manager and author of the book Chaos Monkeys.
The petition begins, “We are deeply concerned about the recent hiring of Antonio García Martínez. His misogynistic statements in his autobiography — such as ‘Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit’ (further quoted below this letter) — directly oppose Apple’s commitment to Inclusion & Diversity.”
Zoe Schiffer, Casey Newton, and Elizabeth Lopatto for The Verge:
In the petition, the employees expressed concern about García Martínez’s views on women and people of color. His hiring “calls into question parts of our system of inclusion at Apple, including hiring panels, background checks, and our process to ensure our existing culture of inclusion is strong enough to withstand individuals who don’t share our inclusive values,” they write.
García Martínez, who has also written for Wired, was the product manager for Facebook’s ad targeting team from 2011 to 2013. Most of the things the Apple employees have expressed concern about come from Chaos Monkeys itself. (The book is dedicated to “all my enemies.”) The autobiography traces García Martínez going from Wall Street to Silicon Valley.
MacDailyNews Take: And, just like that, Antonio García Martínez became one of our favorite Apple employees (for as long as that lasts; given the aversion to even healthy conflict from Apple’s wet noodle “leadership,” the cancellation countdown begins now).
Real leadership would’ve already found out who instigated this “petition” and cleaned the house of them as their thought processes are warped and not conducive to greatness, just pettiness, jealousy, and spite. How did such “B” and “C” level thinkers ever get hired by Apple in the first place?
More than ever, the world – and Apple – needs contrarians.
Chaos Monkeys is a great read!
The most fun business book I have read this year? Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley, by a former Facebook executive, Antonio García Martinez. I was sent a galley copy several months ago and picked it up with no intention of reading more than the first couple of pages. I don’t think I looked up until about three hours later.
This is a tell-all of Mr. Martinez’s experience in venture capital and later at Facebook, filled with insights about Silicon Valley — what he calls “the tech whorehouse” — mixed with score-settling anecdotes that will occasionally make you laugh out loud. Clearly there will be people who hate this book — which is probably one of the things that makes it such a great read.
The dedication page includes this gem: “To all my enemies: I could not have done it without you.” Mr. Martinez is particularly incisive when it comes to illustrating how failed ideas that happen to work are often spun into great successes: “What was an improbable bonanza at the hands of the flailing half-blind becomes the inevitable coup of the assured visionary,” he writes. “The world crowns you a genius, and you start acting like one.” — Andrew Ross Sorkin, The New York Times, Independence Day, July 4, 2016
UPDATE: 8:48am EDT: Apple said Antonio García Martínez is no longer with the company. “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,” the company said in a statement.
So, now, as anticipated, the wet noodle’s cancellation countdown has concluded, and Apple loses the rare employee capable of writing a NY Times bestselling book, but retains a handful of yentas who think a book written half a decade ago about different companies is about them, alongside some 2,000 others who are dumb enough to sign it.
Here’s the funny thing, the book was about them.
Now Apple’s cloistered petitioners can continue to pump out mediocrity without their panties bunched.