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Comment by zozbot234 | Hacker News Reader

For anyone who isn't currently on Twitter, AGM is the guy who publicly called Bay Area women "soft, weak and full of $#!+" and was recently canned from a management role at Apple when people pointed out that his performance assessments of subordinates might not be free from bias. Sucks to be him of course, but what's the alternative?

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He wrote a gonzo book full of insensitive over-the-top passages, like the one you're referencing, in order to sell books. It worked. He created a literary persona that people loved or loved to hate.

It's a huge leap to go from "you wrote x passage" to "you may be biased against women". If you want to fire someone for bias, you need evidence of bias, not a theory that someone might be biased.

I think if you write something which says 'I am biased', the burden of proof is now on you to show hiring managers that it was all a bit, rather than on them to demonstrate that it wasn't.

Well you're wrong. The burden of proof is to show examples of bias.

This feels like an unreasonable expectation for the people who would be reporting to him.

If someone in your future/present management chain wrote a "I think people like slibhb are bad at this job" missive somewhere, would you then feel the need to wait for examples of bias?

You can be a big success either being or pretending to be a big asshole but what is the argument that this should be consequence free?

You don't actually "need evidence of bias". You can let someone go if they are not an asset to the company. This guy certainly wasn't once the amount of annoyance and upset his words had caused others in the company was pointed out to management.

It's always lovely to see people who, I'm sure, are staunch defenders of "workers rights" turn around and say "yeah just fire anyone who isn't currently an asset to the company by whatever criterion".

The difference between "can" and "should" is the entire moral universe.

Did his literary persona harass Heidi Moore?[1]

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

To be fair, his comments (and the entire book) is pretty gonzo, and he sets up a contrast with his romantic partner based on the theoretical other women of the Bay Area.

It's a literary device, and it's sad that it's biting him in the ass (I don't know him, but know lots of people who do, and they mostly seem to think he's OK).

> Sucks to be him of course, but what's the alternative?

Uh, not firing people over Twitter drama? I swear America is getting more insane by the day. It's even more obvious if you take a break from social network sites and then come back after a while.

This wasn't even Twitter drama. He wrote that in a published book, that then went on and on and on demeaning women in all sorts of "fun" ways (i.e. this isn't a single throwaway statement that might be misunderstood; the misogyny is core to what he was saying). His girlfriend is "special" of course, but he still manages to say very not-nice things about her.

The book is like 5 years old... So, why now? Because of Twitter drama?

Edit: Well, it seems that, according to Wikipedia, the impetus might have been an article in tech media (which seems to mean anti-tech media these days).

He also was hired at Apple in April. ~2k Apple employees then signed a letter condemning his hiring after excerpts of his book circulated. This wasn't so much a Twitter mob resurfacing an old book, as a group of Apple employees using a published work to criticize the hiring of a new manager.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/13/tech/apple-antonio-garcia-mar...

Why does Apple still sell Beats by Dre if they are taking a stand against misogyny?

I don't think that Dr Dre gets to evaluate the performance of Apple employees who are women (or Korean, etc) simply because they have a JV making headphones.

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