Former Apple Engineer Accuses Company of Defamatory Statements Over Dismissal
May 14 2021 - 10:36PM
Dow Jones News
By Tim Higgins
The prominent advertising-technology engineer let go by Apple
Inc. this week amid an uproar over sexist passages in his memoir
fired back at the tech giant, calling the company's statements
around his dismissal "defamatory and categorically false."
Apple said Wednesday it had parted ways with Antonio García
Martínez, who had been hired about a month ago to work on ad
platforms. His departure followed complaints by some workers at
Apple about sexist and misogynistic passages in a memoir Mr. García
Martínez wrote about his time at Facebook.
"At Apple, we have always strived to create an inclusive,
welcoming workplace where everyone is respected and accepted.
Behavior that demeans or discriminates against people for who they
are has no place here," the iPhone maker said.
Mr. García Martínez, however, disputed Apple's version of
events. "I did not 'part ways' with Apple. I was fired by Apple in
a snap decision," he wrote on his verified Twitter account Friday.
"Apple has issued a statement that clearly implies there was some
negative behavior by me during my time at Apple. That is defamatory
and categorically false."
In one passage of his book, "Chaos Monkeys," which was marketed
as nonfiction, Mr. García Martínez wrote: "Most women in the Bay
Area are soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of
worldliness, and generally full of shit."
In an interview Friday after his tweets, Mr. García Martínez, 45
years old, said Apple was aware of his book before hiring him and
the company had recruited and vetted him with his references,
asking them questions about things he had written in his book and
whether that was his real persona.
"That book is not me now, it wasn't even me then," he said. "To
be honest, there was a literary persona. I was trying to create a
style in my naive, first-time book writer sort of way, which in
retrospect, I think was a mistake and I regret much of it."
Earlier this week, some Apple employees communicated their
unhappiness with his hiring, including in a letter o Apple senior
executive Eddy Cue, who oversees internet software and services,
asking for an investigation into how Mr. García Martínez was
hired.
Apple said Mr. García Martínez was no longer with the company
after technology-news site the Verge reported on the letter.
Apple didn't immediately respond Friday to a request for comment
about Mr. García Martínez's tweets.
"I upended my life for Apple," he wrote on Twitter. "I sold my
WA residence which I built with my own hands, relocated myself,
shut down any public media presence and future writing aspirations,
and resolved to build my career at Apple for years to come."
Write to Tim Higgins at Tim.Higgins@WSJ.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 14, 2021 22:21 ET (02:21 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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