Apple Procurement VP Departs Company After Vulgar TikTok Comment | Hacker News Reader

Apple Procurement VP Departs Company After Vulgar TikTok Comment

macrumors.com

58 pointsmikece27 comments

This has to be THE dumbest reason for running someone out of a company I have ever seen. God help us as a society. The real irony is the people screeching the loudest scoldy shit like this today were also those most likely screeching (correctly) about the scolds in the moral majority from the 80's. Except they are a thousand times worse today.

Why? Do you think many women would want to work for or with a VP who says “I fondle big-breasted women for a living”?

I don’t anyone would care. It’s a bad joke but I don’t think it’s fair to think he actually fondles big breasted women for a living (or plays golf or buys “rich cars”).

It’s very likely that he does fondle big-breasted women, consensually, as there are many big-breasted women who date rich middle-aged men.

I would have a different stance if he said he sexually assaulted women.

> It’s very likely that he does fondle big-breasted women, consensually, as there are many big-breasted women who date rich middle-aged men.

His wife was there, and she was definitely one of those women. Which only supports your point even more.

If you sincerely think he was doing anything other than joking (quoting a freaking movie - as has been repeatedly pointed out) YOU are the problem, NOT him.

My boss told me at one point that he showed up to work that day to chew bubble gum and kick ass but because of the supply chain shortages he was unable to procure bubble gum. By the power of logic I was able to conclude the only viable option was that he was going to kick ass and since most people were WFH except mean he might kick my ass. Scary stuff.

I really hope this is sarcasm. Can’t tell these days though.

You seem to be unfamiliar with one of the greatest movies of all time:

https://youtu.be/Du5YK5FnyF4

It's a straight quote from the 1981 movie, Arthur, for the record. There would be zero legal liability to keeping him since any court would see it's a joke.

The trailer is almost unwatchable but includes the relevant quote (it's not a direct quote, but pretty close): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-vMsjd0ccM

It's not legal risk that's being discussed, it's reputational risk / cancel culture.

You do realise this is the company that claims to be righteous. Where they fight for fundamental human right ?

Seems like someone at Apple wanted him gone for a long time and this was a perfect opportunity to use as a “reason” for being fired.

If the powers that he wanted him to stay, then this would have been an Official Apology with The Most Sincere Words, a Commitment to Do Better, and then business as usual. IMO, what he said was immaterial and is distracting. I don’t believe he was fired for saying this, even if he’s a public leader that is always representing Apple.

>that is always representing Apple.

That's what happens when you get companies more interested in politics and values vs. just putting out the best products they can. You start to eat your own.

Ah yes, I think the phrase you're looking for is "go woke, go broke" or something, you know, catchy and highly repeatable like that.

Pretty sure Apple will manage.

Working so well for comics, american media and Hollywood - yes, the business model for success! Everything was fine for those industries too - until it wasn't.

The man is very well know in Apple's supply chain, and has a reputation of a used car salesman, nevertheless he is phenomenal at that.

I am speechless they fired a man they been trying to retain at any cost.

I attribute Apple's sound manufacturing operation, and insane profitability to him as much as to Cook.

>If the powers that he wanted him to stay, then this would have been an Official Apology with The Most Sincere Words, a Commitment to Do Better, and then business as usual. IMO, what he said was immaterial and is distracting. I don’t believe he was fired for saying this, even if he’s a public leader that is always representing Apple.

When has Apple ever done that?

> public leader that is always representing Apple

He's far more low profile than Cue or Federighi, and completely unknown among the general public, which backs up your "wanted him gone" theory. If they really did fire him purely for this, then I'm speechless; it never went viral, and it was clearly a joke.

Companies overall take social media far too seriously. The amount of women who would have been turned off working for Apple because of this joke is likely many orders of magnitude lower than the amount of people who refuse to work for Apple because of their strict social media and academic research policies (especially AI researchers).

For context, his line is a direct quote from the 1981 film Arthur; quite literally and obviously a joke; and most of the comments on social media seem to find this hiring puzzling.

I imagine this is how the board talk went, from The Hunt (2020) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sD5Xh88QZo

last I heard, free speech still exists.

Don't do that. Don't, don't First Amendment me, please. It's not a country. It's a business. A business, and there are optics.

You fired Martin?

No, he realized he had to take one for the team.

The team?

Yeah, the team. We have a team, our team.

Do you recall a joke you had December 17 at 10:00 in the morning?

I don't recall a joke I had last fucking Tuesday, Paul.

Go... go ahead, Nicole.

"I have rich cars, play golf and fondle big-breasted women, but I take weekends and major holidays off."

Oh, I get it.

Are you aware there's an active group of people out there who believe this is a real thing?

Believe wh-what's a real thing?

That you fondle big-breasted women.

(laughing)

Yeah, not funny.

Yeah?

Wh-Wh-Wh...

What?

Yeah, woke websites are all over it. They're going bananas. They're going berserk. Reddit. I mean, I don't know the names of them all.

Jesus, I can't believe you used that word.

"breasted"?

No. "women". It's... charged.

We have our best team at reputation management flooding... flooding the search engines in the hopes this thing doesn't go mainstream. I'm sorry. You got to go.

Paul... it was just a joke. One joke.

Wasn't funny.

It wasn't real.

I mean, I wish this didn't happen. I really do, but this idea is out there, and these people believe it, and they're not going away.

What people?

Sorry?

What people believe I fondle big-breasted women? What fucking people?!

Okay, this is gary4USA. He's got a podcast ...

Guess I won't be talking about being in a Turkish prison or seeing grown men naked on interviews anytime soon.

What the hell is wrong with fondling big breasts. It’s asinine things like this that are pushing people away from the left into the arms of the fascists.

It's a quote from the movie 'Arthur'. Seems overreaction.

Yeah this right here. Maybe they should've had Christopher Cross as the background music instead. Still a hard thing to say in 2022 though.

Not if you are a hip hop artist!

Just some regular banter got him fired. You could clearly see he was goofing off. I hope he gets a huge payday out of it.

Surprising number of comments defending this guy, which is a bit disappointing. No one has mentioned that the main reason to fire him is that he was stupid enough to say this on someone’s video.

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