> Anyone with such questionable morals is obviously...

The entire corporate hierarchy is people of questionable morals. Companies go out of their way to hire lawyers too - while theoretically one can be a highly moral lawyer, in practice we can tell from the results that a very big chunk of the ones in corporations are moral-less negotiators.

One of the biggest benefits of modern corporations is we can put aside fiery debates on politics, morals and religions and work together on highly specific technical goals.

Technical goals are means to moral ends, so I think it's great that the stuff that matters, the big picture, the point of it all, is getting more discussion nowadays.

What's the moral outcome of an iPhone? What makes it more moral to all the other phones out there? Is Swift more moral than Javascript? Is Objective-C more moral than plain old C? How do you measure morality?

I'm guessing your questions are facetious, but in case you seriously care, the nature of morality has been the subject of intensive research for thousands of years, including today. It predates even the concept of measurement, in fact.

A bit of both facetiousness and seriousness. I bring those questions up because your claim of there being a moral end to technical goals is vague and lacking in substance. Technology has no more of moral charge than atoms or stars do. In almost all cases, morality or lack thereof is incidental to the technology itself, not a direct consequence. If morality was the end of technological goal, then it could be measured. That morality predates measurement is irrelevant. Astronomy and agriculture predate human civilization by thousands of years and yet humanity today has been able to measure interstellar distances and complicated logistics of food production. If morality has yet to be discerned through an adequate metric, that is a failure of morality itself.

I don't see how you can possibly justify that view. That atoms and stars are not human creations, technology is.

Denying the existence of things because you can't measure them objectively is lunacy that if you follow to it's logical conclusion will take you to nihilism and epistemic surrender.

Astronomy and agriculture are celebrated because their advances make the world better in some broader sense. That broader sense, good as such, is the scope of morality.

Accepting the hypothesis that he adopted an abrasive public persona in which he says crude things as a personal marketing technique, and doesn't actually believe the things he said about the value of women, the failure here is that neither he nor Apple predicted the fairly-obvious need for him to pivot away from that persona.

A bit of public commentary along the lines of "I was trying to exaggerate what I saw as the flaws of this system, to draw attention to them; I know now that this approach didn't work for many people, and I'm sorry about that", and the upset of his imminent coworkers might have been diverted.

But just being caught by surprise by it? Definitely someone screwed up.

(The email to that journalist linked elsewhere is evidence that said hypothesis might be flawed. Certainly, the apparent unwillingness to make anodyne "I'm sorry for my past actions" comments is suggestive on that front.)

His book was relatively well received. I think the key issue at play here is that he presents the book as a biography, but it's clear both reading the book (and from the author's own statements) that the literary persona and real person are different. I'm not sure if Apple understood that people would not make this distinction, and a massive group of people would take the writings as his own real opinions and start a massive petition calling for his firing.

He claimed the real person is different. Where is the evidence?

Did his literary persona harass Heidi Moore?[1]

[1] https://twitter.com/moorehn/status/1392533753768128513

I'd certainly look at this situation differently if Apple based their firing on claims of harassment. Antonio's email is definitely strongly worded. Though I'd want to look at the series of "unhinged tweets" sent by Moore - my perspective on this is that a lot depends on what Moore sent before this. If it was civil, then Antonio's email goes beyond the pale. If it was comparable, then I see it in a different light if he was met with similar vitriol beforehand.

Contacting her after she blocked him was harassment irrespective of anything she said.

Strongly worded puts it mildly. It was strikingly nasty. Like his literary persona. Good luck convincing a jury they're 2 different people.

It likely won't even be charged, let alone go to a jury, since you have a vastly different understanding of what harassment is than exists in reality. Though if he actually does get convicted, feel free to message me and I'll admit I was wrong.

I didn't say criminal harassment. And the jury would be for the discrimination suit against Apple any woman he reviewed negatively might bring.

Your link doesn't work for most people. Moore's tweets are only visible to approved followers.

It was public then. The Internet Archive has a copy.

You can never know whats in anothers heart. Yet you must try. This fella has given us ample reason, within and outside of the book, to think of him as a misogynist. His self-defenses are lacking wherever I've read them. I don't think this is a case of "the people are stupid". This is a case of justice.

The claim that the book is part fiction part truth, and these statements are part of the former isn't justification?

Having read the book, it doesn't read out of place at all. He makes similar disparaging remarks to other groups. He even calls developers & hackers animals in the title. This is the overall tone the book is written in, he doesn't single out women for a particular rant. I'm sure it seems that way when all you read is a short quote. The notion that this except is a clear indicator that Antonio will inevitably harass, discriminate, or otherwise do something that gives good cause to avoid employing him is a long stretch.

The real answer, were I Antonio's boss, is that I'd talk to him and see what his views really are. I'd ask around and see if he's treated women poorly.

And because he’s a misogynist he deserves any and all bad things that happen to him?

There is a lot of people with stupid ideas in the world. You cannot punish them all just for their ideas.

People who make shitty public statements mocking large social groups (in this case women) probably shouldn't be surprised if (more than just) members of those social groups don't really want to work with them. Or that others who don't share those views don't want to be publicly associated with them.

In particular, he made a bunch of statements which would make me concerned about him being in any sort of managerial role over women. He doesn't seem to have tried to walk them back or show some sort of change of heart (or "c'mon guys, it was all just a bit"), so I think his almost-coworkers had a point when they started that petition against him.

He doesn't deserve all bad things. But he specifically shouldn't be in a powerful position at Apple. Their firing of him was good (i agree with others that their hiring of him was bad).

People's ideas do matter. Ideally misogynists should not be in charge of women.

Seems the guy isn't really a misogynist and his account of a romance was taken out of context though. Not that I agree with what he says, but there seems to be malice in his portrayal by some journalists (https://taibbi.substack.com/p/on-the-hypocrites-at-apple-who...)

Everyone has a right to work (irrespective of position), to live freely, own property, etc..

Justifying the opposite because of someone's ideas is a very slippery slope. And the fact that politics is a game of perception makes it all the more dangerous. If the mob rules, the true rulers are the people who control the mob (an even smaller amount of people)

The petition included a larger excerpt. I read it and did not think his words were taken out of context. I suggest you read the original work, as it contains other excerpts from other writings of his. Also, I don't believe the fact that he was using this sexist generalization to complement his love interest changes the sexism in the original quote.

Wait wat? You can't punish people people for their behavior? Day that aloud. You sure about this?

I mean, have they looked at the current social justice landscape before deciding that nobody would care?

They must have had a lot riding on just not understanding exactly what would happen.

This is my take as well.

Apple messed up by recruiting him, and then severely messed up by ripping his job away at the last minute. That has a real human cost, and I think despite his obvious social toxicity in the workplace, Apple owes him something for jerking him around.

Going by his tweet it sounds like at this point he’s mainly riled up about how Apple is presenting the case in public, rather than whatever settlement they reached in private.

From the tweet, it's not clear if he reached a settlement. You're usually not allowed to talk about settlements, but it likely would have had a non-disparagement clause. His last statement, "Apple has issued a statement that clearly implies there was some negative behavior by me during my time at Apple. That is defamatory and categorically false" is the closest to disparaging, but it's limited claiming defamation.

Maybe they reached a settlement, but Apple released a statement he disagrees with, and the settlement didn't cover future libel? Maybe they couldn't reach a settlement, so both he and Apple are trying to do damage control?

> Apple

> Hoping the explanation becomes available eventually

Choose one.

I mean if I'm hiring someone who has listed a book on their resume I'm not going to read the entire thing before hiring them.

Apparently you won't even read the dust cover synopsis, either. That's the legendary "Apple pedigree" that you hear so much about.

Steve Jobs: "People Don't Read Anymore."

https://www.wired.com/2008/01/steve-jobs-peop/

Today, more than a decade after Steve's death, new Kindle models are still going into production.

Maybe you should. Autobiographies at least.

How long can a hiring manager at Apple give to evaluating a candidate? Reading a book will take 10+ hours. In this case it would obviously have been a good idea for everyone (although an emotionally well-adjusted hiring manager might read it and not realize that it would create such a shitstorm).

Let's be clear here, this isn't some minor technical book - his autobiography was on the New York Times best-seller list for business books and was reviewed in the paper.