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Comment by williamsmj | Hacker News Reader

If anyone thinks this is a case of "cancel culture wokerati you can't say anything these days", I can only assume you've never heard of the guy.

Read the many, lengthy direct quotes from his writing in https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/12/22432909/apple-petition-h....

This is a guy who has made a writing/speaking career of knowingly saying crassly offensive and, at best, childishly naughty things about entire classes of people he would be managing at Apple (or anywhere else). He's a professional troll. It's not like someone dug up a single reddit post of his he made when he was in high school.

It's a genuine mystery to me how he got hired for any management job in the first place.

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According to a review in the New York Times:

"Mr. García is not just a keen observer of corporate and social culture, but a thoughtful business and policy analyst armed with a highly refined detector for pretentious nonsense. "

See: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/business/dealbook/review-...

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/on-the-hypocrites-at-apple-who...

I think people complaining here are full of it again.

Maybe apple should also be more inclusive towards people who can provide honest criticism, and different forms of humor...

Honest criticism of this is completely fine. I have difficulties if people demand firings. I honestly could't imagine working in that atmosphere. I just don't believe people that they get honestly offended.

I have some friends that are pretty sensitive on stuff like this, but they would never go that far like these people did.

"The key to comedy is to put a delicate idea indelicately or an indelicate idea delicately" – Cicero.

Worth bearing in mind Chaos Monkeys came out 8 years ago – an age in cultural years. That same year Warren Buffett was quoted as saying this: “Credit worthiness is like virginity. It can be preserved but not restored very easily so it is crazy to play around with it.”

I'm not sure if he'd would say that now, but I'm not sure this was such uncomfortable syntax in the 2010s.

If he were a comedian, I believe he would be given more slack (assuming he changed the tenor of his jokes in the intervening years).

As a manager, as someone responsible for others' livelihoods and careers, he has to be held to a much higher bar. Even if it were purely in jest, is it fair to have his direct reports try to figure out the line between what he publicly writes and privately believes?

I mean this is a country that made Donald Trump President. So why is it a mystery what type of men populate the rest of the food chain.

There is no dearth of douchebags in positions of power and responsibility. And they are happy to over ride "HR processes" not because they are incapable of recognizing another douchebag, but because they think the douchebag will be effective.

The problem with cancel culture is it doesnt address that belief. All I see is "cancelled" ppl and various douchebags afraid of being cancelled getting together and supporting each other reinforcing their "victimhood".

Sooner or later enough of them aggregate at one spot or the other and create new issues for everyone.

The only way to deal with douchebags especially in the corporate world, is to be more effective than them in delivering results. That makes the story simple.

Cancel culture just complicates it.

I agree I've never heard of the guy, and that these quotes are pretty offensive. But had you heard of him before today? That's the "cancel culture" concern here - his status as a well-known offensive figure appears to have been created from scratch between lunchtime and now.

Yes, I had heard of him, and presumably so had the Apple employees who assembled a letter that quotes him extensively: https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/12/22432909/apple-petition-h....

I... do not see why we would presume that.

The guy wrote a literal NYT/WSJ bestseller, a justifiably noteworthy book about the tech industry. It was covered in the tech and mainstream press extensively. He's a well known public figure, not an anonymous engineer.

I don't see any reason to doubt that plenty of people at Apple had heard of him and read the book, other than a self-regarding faith that people you disagree with can't possibly know something you don't.

It was covered in the tech and mainstream press, yes. Did any of that coverage indicate that it was so shockingly offensive nobody should ever hire him, as these employees claim to find obvious?

The petition just implied someone should have read the book before Apple offered him a job.[1]

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/12/22432909/apple-petition-h...

No, admittedly Apple needed to a little more background research to know in advance that if he joined them then they would be successfully sued by the first female report he had a problem with.

Examples of the background research they could have done:

1. talk to any of the employees who organized the petition

2. read his book! It's widely available! This is a guy whose hiring was literally a positive news story yesterday https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-hires-chaos-monkeys-au.... When you hire people who are going to be news you do a little background. It's a short book! Apple screwed up!

Or just Google him and read the first few sentences and top comments from years ago on his Reddit AMA…

He’s an author with a published book and a Wikipedia article. I’ve known about him for like five years. This isn’t some no name person.

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