If you read his post, said he was there 10 years ago in 2009. If you recall, this was during peak recession and at that time Apple was seemingly driven by a culture of ruthlessness that was probably a result of events earlier in the decade (before Steve Jobs came back, when the company was nearly insolvent). Apple was _cheap_ (and still is, in probably terribly shortsighted ways) and would take advantage of anyone and anything they could to save money. Depending on your department, this could mean low wages, no stock, no investment in tooling and equipment, whatever they could get away with.
I started working there in 2012 and worked with a good number of folks that had to put up with absolute hell before iPhone launch (which totally changed the company, for the better). I was really there to do was clean up tech debt bought on by poor planning and shoestring budgets. It seemed like most of the "old timers" were barely making livable silicon valley money and many had tails of Apple managers doing totally shady things like making promises of equity, only to have it denied later (and nothing was on paper). They still stuck around for god knows what reason. I stayed around until my initial equity grant ran out and moved on to greener pastures.
I think we should be fair and point out that unlike basically every other major tech company in the Bay Area, Apple didn't lay any one off in the 2008-2009 recession.
They were conservative, yes, and flush with cash they used to make a number of big strategy acquisitions in the period IIRC.
Please, please do not spread news like this. It can't be true at all. Do you think they had zero vested stock? I know a software engineer at Apple - he has made about 1 million dollars just from stocks - some were awarded and some were bought from his savings