Apple Co-Founder Says Goldman’s Apple Card Algo Discriminates
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
Say DHH got 10K USD. Then his wife got 5K USD which is really low for someone with the assets she can likely claim. But let's say he got 1M USD and his wife got a mere 50K USD...kind of a different story then.
Banks do underwriting in various ways. When I (white male) got an AMEX student card in college 25 years ago, I had a $3k limit. MBNA and Citi gave me $35,000 and $20,000, respectively.
I doubt very seriously that Apple would call Goldman and ask them to give some people special treatment. I’m not saying that Apple wouldn’t do that because it isn’t fair. They wouldn’t waste their time doing it.
Therefore, its possible that DHH has some ultra-premium cards with 100K limits or whatever, while his wife does not, and despite having similar credit limits "the algorithm" says "hey this guy has huge credit limits and an Amex Black card, we better give him a huge limit too."
This is bending over backwards to make up a "certain people are singled out for better treatment" story just so you don't have to admit to yourself that a "certain people are singled out for worse treatment" story is at least as plausible.
And wow I read the rest of it. Woman this women that.. and yet no idea where he’s getting any evidence this issue has to do with gender.
I mean maybe they made an unfair calculation for her, why is it all of a sudden clearly a case of gender discrimination.
Either he’s having a tantrum or trying to virtue signal for some unknown reason very hard.
That aside, his evidence is limited because Apple and GS both refuse to share the rationale behind their credit decisions. It's an algorithm. So he's basing it on what he does know.
A lot of the technology we produce is fundamentally biased by our own perceptions, and in ML case most especially by the input data. The danger is a self-perpetuation of already established systemic bias. Given access to good credit is key towards economic mobility that can have massive ongoing implications. The fact that they're saying "It's just what the algorithm produces" should be triggering huge alarm bells, regardless of the veracity of any of his other claims.
I don’t think it’s really fair to expect a C-level exec to know the low-level details of how creditworthiness is determined. I’m sure they can paint in broad strokes, but expecting a detailed answer for why a specific person got approved for a certain amount is a bit of a reach.
In the case of Woz having a higher limit than his wife, I’m sure it boils down to the usual stuff like, oh I don’t know, not being a cofounder of a massively successful corporation and therefore being filthy rich for the last 30+ years.
There might very well be a case to be made here but not likely between two people who are so very different in financial terms (or were for most of their lives). Your credit score isn’t something that changes the instant you get married to someone who’s rich.
Now that's probably cause for concern too, of course. Imagine if you actually saw the massive personal data trove that has been collected on you which is being used to make these decisions. Sends a shiver up the spine doesn't it?
That isn't what concerns me. I wouldn't expect the CEO of Apple to explain the inner workings of any of their algorithms. That's not their function. What scares me is that people who program or specify these things don't know how the heck decisions are made.
From credit decisions to self-driving cars, we are trusting black boxes with no idea why they make specific decisions.
No, I wouldn’t be concerned in the slightest - I’d just get a card from somewhere else.
You want credit for the sum of the couple's income when filing jointly and applying for credit jointly? Great! But that doesn't mean that you get to have that full credit TWICE, separately, when each partner applies. You get it once.
There’s also no way to apply jointly for the card. You can input your joint income, sure, but they’re single-user accounts. You can’t, during signup, specify a lower balance in order to “free up” that credit for another family user. The thing is literally not built for married couples, who command an outsized share of spending & wealth. Stop trying to outsmart the gimped product and skip it, there’s so many better options out there.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209228
I was baffled myself.
What happened to "research" and integrity? All for that click bait and ad-money I suppose.
I do get Apple getting shit for partnering with a horrible company. But does anyone know if Apple has any influence over the credit limit? I am having a hard time coming up with a reason why they would.
But my point is that Apple doesn't have some fancy algorithm deciding females are 1/10th a person. Goldman does..
Why do I care about the business relation of Apple and GS or whatever? If my MacBook CPU fails, its on Apple, not Intel. I don't care where they got it.
I don't have an Apple card though, not available here.
Eh, not quite. It’s fairly well-understood what is used to determine a credit score and basically how all that information is compiled.
1. How much money do you make?
2. How long have you been making that much?
3. Is your income irregular?
4. Have you ever taken out a loan? When’s the last time you did so?
5. Have you ever failed to pay back a loan?
6. How many loans do you currently have open?
7. Are any loans behind?
8. Do you have a revolving line of credit (credit card)? How many?
9. How much of your revolving credit is in use?
10. Are you late in paying any of your credit lines?
And I’m sure there’s more stuff I’m missing. But broadly, if you’re looking to get credit/loans, banks prefer someone who a) makes enough money to service their debt, b) doesn’t have too much debt relative to their income, c) pays their bills on time, and d) has an established history of a, b, and c for an extended period of time.
Creditworthiness is not a mysterious algorithm that few can comprehend.
They're both considered "top" credit risks, but obviously one of the two people has demonstrated a longer history of being such trustworthy person to lend money to (also probably makes a lot more money than the other person to boot). It's not at all uncommon for people with "identical" credit scores to have different limits.
Now perhaps there's an argument to be made for more granularity in scores to make something like this more obvious, but it is what it is.
Seeing that your first three points have nothing to do with your credit score and aren’t captured by credit agencies, you’ve kind of demonstrated that it isn’t well understood.
Credit applications usually just ask for your income. They only verify it my experience sometimes for car loans and only for the last month and they only go back three months for verifications for mortgages.
That's the main problem he has. Major decisions based on secret information. (Or secret algorithms).
The sense of entitlement that’s taken hold of the world is dismaying. If you don’t like the terms Apple / GS are offering, then go somewhere else.
If they are basing those terms based on one of the protected classes (race, gender, age) that is illegal and should be investigated.
> The sense of entitlement that’s taken hold of the world is dismaying.
I know, right. Damn these brown people, LGBTQ, women for demanding a seat at the table. Cis-het white people must be feeling particularly oppressed with all of these racist|sexist|genderist calls for reform
Maybe if they earned it instead of demanding it they’d be taken seriously?
But I understand your point.
It's also a corner case the credit rating systems don't handle. I am reminded of many years ago when I had no credit but good income, and none of the credit card companies cared about that last point enough to trust me. These are imperfect systems.
But this is also far from perfect. If times are tough or you’re just irresponsible, you’re going to pay your utility bills because of the extreme inconvenience of having your utilities cut off but you may not pay your phone bills.
Codeword for Woz
Really, what makes him an expert on this? Why should we pay attention to what he has to say about it?
His opinion is as meaningless and irrelevant here as a random person off the street.
If your livelihood depended on an insight into the way Apple's financial systems operate, and your options were Steve Wozniak or the first person you saw on the street in a major city, you'd say "flip a coin?" I didn't think so.
2) I used to work at Apple and I know people that were fired for leaking. So I would be very surprised if anyone would be stupid enough to leak the inner workings of the company to Steve. Especially from a financial products team.