Comment by risotto | Hacker News Reader

Comment by risotto | Hacker News Reader

I have a new theory about life that hasn't let me down yet. It's a variant on Occam's Razor that I call Zoschke's Razor:

The most boring explanation is usually the correct one.

Let me apply it here...

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Gray has talked to his supervisors, and his job is secure because he's the same talented engineer today as he was last week.

Gray's career options are unaffected by this because who wouldn't want to hire an iPhone engineer?

Gray was scared when his phone was lost, embarrassed when it was found, but already back to business as usual, and actually even wiser than before.

Gray isn't paying attention to any of the publicity, only to the laughs his personal friends are having at/with him.

Jobs wasn't even caught off guard by this, he's seen it all before.

Apple will not comment publicly on any of these events.

Apple will release the new iPhone at a typical keynote in a few months, and will sell tons of them.

No charges will be brought against Gizmodo.

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All the speculation, here and otherwise, wants this to be way more drama than these things ever are.

We aren't talking about losing the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. We're talking about boring, corporate America that we all know too well.

This is essentially the same as that one time your bug dropped an important table in the production database. Did you get shit canned? Did your company suffer insurmountable losses? Nope. Your company did damage control, you and your team fixed the problem, and everyone went back to business as usual the next day.

Real life is boring, even for the seemingly larger-than-life Apple, Steve Jobs and the iPhone.

Maybe Apple is a very cool company, but I've watched people get fired for far less significant data loss incidents. I hope you're right.

Except for that other iPhone prototype guy who lost an iPhone and either committed suicide after "intense interrogation", or was killed: http://gizmodo.com/5319275/report-iphone-leak-interrogations... http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/07/im-really-thinking-maybe-i-...

So, yeah, losing an iPhone prototype is really, like, boring.

I think the cultural differences are important here: not only the fact that the Foxconn employee had fewer options (whereas Gray Powell can be easily employed tomorrow at a competitor), but also that US companies are far less forgiving of errors by a vendor, especially a foreign vendor. I've heard people hurl abuse at Indian call center employees that they wouldn't dream of saying to a colleague in Palo Alto.

I don't think the guy was killed by Steve force-choking him, or whatever. If he was killed, it was Foxconn's doing. They would have been terrified of losing future business from Apple, so they might have wanted to set an unequivocal example for other employees who might have been thinking about mishandling Apple's IP.

Personally it seems a bit over the top to accuse Foxconn or Apple of killing anyone.

I'm not sure where I accused anyone of killing anyone else... my point was that if someone screws up royally, and you yell at them and tell them they are a worthless piece of shit at a time when they need support and forgiveness, they are more likely to commit suicide.

Yikes I remember that story now. Strange that Gizmodo is breaking that story too...

I'll grant Chinese factories are more interesting than the Cupertino labs.

The most boring explanation here would be that the worker stole the phone, got caught, and chose to take his own life instead of suffer the other unpleasant consequences.

My posed principle would indicate there was no inappropriate investigation or murder, Gizmodo is again sexing up the story.

But its just a thought experiment, tragic and dramatic things do happen.

The only slight hitch I see in your points is the police investigation; but I suspect it will come to nothing (from the perspective of - they had to make some form of response and the media seized on it because it was the story/scandal they wanted).

At the end of the day; Apple are on such a high at the moment it will almost certainly have been "forgiven"

At the end of the day; Apple are on such a high at the moment it will almost certainly have been "forgiven"

Historically, counting on Apple to be a gracious winner is risky.

I completely agree. Apple lost almost nothing (1 phone) and got millions of dollars in free PR. My understanding is this was covered on a variety of comedy shows, all the morning shows, all over the Internet from tech sites to mainstream news sites. All over the world. They should give Mr. Powell a bonus. He actually managed to eclipse Apple's normal media hype frenzy with what is, basically, a very positive story. (there's going to be a new iPhone and it's so amazingly great people are trying to steal it before we can even release it! In 2 months you can buy one too!)

But what did they lose in sales to people who are now holding out for a 4G? Thats the primary reason Apple is so secrative. I also very much doubt this story eclipsed a normal Apple media buy in terms of exposure.

    Zoschke's Razor:
    
    The most boring explanation is usually the correct one.

I'm kinda hoping somebody makes a 'demotivational poster' out of that.

Gizmodo will not be charged, but they probably will be sued in civil court. Just to discourage 'repeats'.

Pulp Fiction? At least one person is known to have died for losing iPhone prototype. Not sure if he was quoted a passage from Bible prior to asphalt-diving.

Point is, don't rely on your rule too much.

That sounds incredibly reasonable to me, especially the first 4 points.

Awesome analysis -- agree with most of it.

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