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Comment by lapcat | Hacker News Reader

Funny, I always thought misleading shareholders was illegal. I guess they only care if the share price goes down.

The thing that is valuable to Apple as a company is to have these people, their networks and their decades of knowledge accessible. Even if someone is in retirement age and already practically living in Costa Rica sipping Pina Coladas all day - the fact that you can call up the guy and ask him some weird question is invaluable.

Many jokes have a kernel of truth, and that's the kernel behind this classic engineer joke [1].

[1] https://www.et.byu.edu/~tom/jokes/Consultant_Engineer.html

That's fine, but Apple is still apparently lying about what these people are doing exactly.

> their networks and their decades of knowledge accessible.

Having that experience outside the company doesn't magically make it inaccessible, it just means they have to pay a fair rate, along with everyone else, for access to it.

What it allows is them _monopolizing_ those networks and knowledge and ensuring no one else can access it.

This is not a good outcome.

The joke is copied from a real life example [1].

[1] http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/charles-proteus-steinm...

Why are you downvoted?

I think this tactic is nothing more than deception, the guys are not staying around and give some guidance, they left or did not do the job the shareholders thought they were doing.

I have no problem, that people get payed big money to stay at the company and just to little consulting, but hiding their real position or amount of work is just theatre.

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