Apple employees call for company to support Palestinians in internal letter(theverge.com)
theverge.com
Apple employees call for company to support Palestinians in internal letter
https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/20/22446059/apple-employees-palestinians-support-internal-letter-tim-cook
50 comments
Personally, I think it's important to encourage corporations to take human rights into greater consideration. Complex as the issue is, it still results in Apple enriching itself and a nation which could reasonably be considered an apartheid state, by doing business there. In my view, that gives them at least some responsibility to speak out against human rights violations by states hosting economies in which they participate, if not to stop doing business there entirely...
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It’s about time the continuous flow of statements from big corporations around political (supposedly consensual) issues start to backfire.
Just make your customers happy, don’t strongarm them, don’t overprice your products, and pay taxes, is all people are really asking from corporations.
Just make your customers happy, don’t strongarm them, don’t overprice your products, and pay taxes, is all people are really asking from corporations.
This isn't a statement from a big corporation, though. This is a statement from employees of the big corporation (presumably all of whom feel comfortable leaving on a moment's notice) to the corporation.
Companies have long known that making your customers happy involves retaining skilled employees, and that incurring extra costs to keep skilled employees happy is worthwhile for the business. Sometimes that involves paying them well. Sometimes that involves putting San Pellegrino in the fridge. And sometimes that requires boycotting the State of Israel.
Companies have long known that making your customers happy involves retaining skilled employees, and that incurring extra costs to keep skilled employees happy is worthwhile for the business. Sometimes that involves paying them well. Sometimes that involves putting San Pellegrino in the fridge. And sometimes that requires boycotting the State of Israel.
The thing is those employees allow themselves to mix political issues with corporate life because they saw their CEO issue those same kind of statements about other political issues in the past.
I feel CEO making public statements around political issues is typically an american thing.As an example, my personal experience in France is that politics is completely out of bounds of corporate life.
I feel CEO making public statements around political issues is typically an american thing.As an example, my personal experience in France is that politics is completely out of bounds of corporate life.
Sure, but the US is consistently beating France in terms of economic performance. And Silicon Valley itself, home of outspoken employees and CEOs, beats the US as a whole. Why should we sacrifice economic growth in the name of political correctness?
California also beat US in the past, before this recent trend of CEO wanting their company to become at the forefront of political issues. I don’t think it’s in any way related. I’d say the recent trend is on the contrary people in the industry wanting to leave california despite the good salaries...
Boycotting any nation is a political statement. Doesn't matter if it was employee pressure or not, it's still political.
I agree that it would be a political statement (if the statement gets made), but I also think there's a meaningful difference between "We are making this choice because we believe it to be the right choice" and "We are making this choice because of market pressures."
When, say, GitHub decides to have their place of business in the US and to subject themselves to US embargoes and therefore bans users in Iran, that's certainly a political statement. But if they say "We were forced to ban users in Iran, because we've decided it's net good for business to be subject to US law and the US does not like Iran," people interpret that as a pretty different political statement from GitHub spontaneously banning users in Iran because they themselves don't like Iran.
When, say, GitHub decides to have their place of business in the US and to subject themselves to US embargoes and therefore bans users in Iran, that's certainly a political statement. But if they say "We were forced to ban users in Iran, because we've decided it's net good for business to be subject to US law and the US does not like Iran," people interpret that as a pretty different political statement from GitHub spontaneously banning users in Iran because they themselves don't like Iran.
Glad they picked a simple issue where it's easy for everyone to agree on things. Presumably Apple will have an easy time resolving a conflict after the UN and US have repeatedly failed. ;-)
Given that Apple has a reasonably large R&D facility in Haifa and a fair amount of business in Israel, I don't see them disinvesting any time soon.
I could imagine them opening a Palestinian office and more stores though.
Given that Apple has a reasonably large R&D facility in Haifa and a fair amount of business in Israel, I don't see them disinvesting any time soon.
I could imagine them opening a Palestinian office and more stores though.
Love this. Complete thread killer.
Can somebody please explain to me this modern fashion of employees attempting to strongarm CEOs to publicly voice views irrelevant to the company's mission? I've been seeing a lot of this lately and I simply don't understand it. Should CEOs also be forced to publicly state that smoking is bad for you and recycling is good?
Quoting from another HN member post [1] not long ago ( I remember this post so vividly )
>When I talk to my family and non-tech non-coasts non-city friends about the sort of political polarization I encounter at my high-tech Seattle job, they often think I'm messing with them, that I'm being facetious or exaggerating. Unfortunately, I'm not. It's all so tiresome. The increasing politicization of everything, and tech being at the center of it, made me realize I have no interest anymore in climbing the corporate ladder. I realize that my lack of political fervor is a liability. I wish I cared more about these things, I really do, but I don't.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27044664
>When I talk to my family and non-tech non-coasts non-city friends about the sort of political polarization I encounter at my high-tech Seattle job, they often think I'm messing with them, that I'm being facetious or exaggerating. Unfortunately, I'm not. It's all so tiresome. The increasing politicization of everything, and tech being at the center of it, made me realize I have no interest anymore in climbing the corporate ladder. I realize that my lack of political fervor is a liability. I wish I cared more about these things, I really do, but I don't.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27044664
One term I have heard for this phenomenon is a "purity spiral".
There is something special about being able to buy your food from the store and not having it be a political issue. I feel like we are slowly losing this. Commerce should really be separate from politics. Pushing politics into everything risks reducing cooperation between people and all these positive sum trades that naturally occur.
I’m looking forward to having to use a tracking app that will determine my price “discount” wether it’s positive or negative, and more importantly if I’m even allowed to even be there.
It’s been working great in China, and it feels like Yuu and other stupid things are going to bring it to Hong Kong so why not the west too?
It’s been working great in China, and it feels like Yuu and other stupid things are going to bring it to Hong Kong so why not the west too?
It's sort of a new thing. All the major tech companies were forced in the last decade to move away from the neutral platform position and started to do more proactive moderation or some would say censorship, turning themselves into responsible publishers.
Thus, in being willing censors (or at least moderators) for the powers of good, they have also let themselves be strongarmed by whomever says what is good.
from another angle, the Arab Spring uprisings or Ukrainian Euromaiden events from last decade which were organised on neutral tech platforms, would not be able to take place now because these tech companies have much more moderation and internal responsibilities to be a clean publisher.
Thus, in being willing censors (or at least moderators) for the powers of good, they have also let themselves be strongarmed by whomever says what is good.
from another angle, the Arab Spring uprisings or Ukrainian Euromaiden events from last decade which were organised on neutral tech platforms, would not be able to take place now because these tech companies have much more moderation and internal responsibilities to be a clean publisher.
It’s a combination of a few things:
(1) Tech demands a lot from its employees. We are dedicating a significant portion of our waking hours. They expect us to believe in their mission, and so we also expect that mission to align with our values.
(2) Technology itself is much more far reaching than any other industry. These corporations are massive, and with them massive budgets for lobbying etc. Not demanding that they reflect the values of their employees and customers would be a massive waste of that power or worse — letting them actively use that power to make the world worse.
(1) Tech demands a lot from its employees. We are dedicating a significant portion of our waking hours. They expect us to believe in their mission, and so we also expect that mission to align with our values.
(2) Technology itself is much more far reaching than any other industry. These corporations are massive, and with them massive budgets for lobbying etc. Not demanding that they reflect the values of their employees and customers would be a massive waste of that power or worse — letting them actively use that power to make the world worse.
>we also expect that mission to align with our values.
"we" do? personally i expect my employer to provide financial compensation in exchange for me doing things for them. beyond that i don't really care about whether the giant corporation i work at is truly reflecting my core beliefs. i suspect that they probably aren't.
> reflect the values of their employees
do all employees truly feel the same way about every issue? do employees with a minority opinion feel comfortable expressing those views?
"we" do? personally i expect my employer to provide financial compensation in exchange for me doing things for them. beyond that i don't really care about whether the giant corporation i work at is truly reflecting my core beliefs. i suspect that they probably aren't.
> reflect the values of their employees
do all employees truly feel the same way about every issue? do employees with a minority opinion feel comfortable expressing those views?
You left out an important part of the first sentence you quoted. Companies that expect employees believe in the mission end up with employees who expect a mission they can believe in.
Talking about employee values in aggregate doesn't imply all of them feel the same about every issue.
Talking about employee values in aggregate doesn't imply all of them feel the same about every issue.
When you give people a lever, they tend to pull it. Silicon Valley CEOs have signaled they will respond to this kind of pressure.
This seems to be a pretty expected outcome of an American narrative that societal decisions should be made through or in partnership with the private sector. If we've gone through decades of policy and ideological thought taught that action should happen through the private sector, that people would start acting through private companies rather government acting as our method of social action. I know plenty of individuals in the tech sector that ascribe to some form of the "government is so woefully incapable, it's best left to the private sector" or "I'd rather solve problems through entrepreneurship rather than government or non-profit" school of thought. This seems to me to be a pretty direct expected consequence. We've made private companies pretty central to the way our society is organized.
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The same Apple employees who got a petition together to get a Jewish employee, Anthony Garcia Martinez, who is unashamed of his support of Israel, fired? (I'll bet you wondered why he wasn't given consideration as a "latinx" employee. It's because he's Jewish.)
As Martinez said to Apple, "This will be your life now every week."
https://twitter.com/antoniogm/status/1395515386402021377
I still use an iPhone. I'm going to be moving away from it now. Apple Management needs to stand up to employees bullying them.
As Martinez said to Apple, "This will be your life now every week."
https://twitter.com/antoniogm/status/1395515386402021377
I still use an iPhone. I'm going to be moving away from it now. Apple Management needs to stand up to employees bullying them.
This is kind of a non-sequitur. Jewish people are allowed to have weird gender-based opinions and get fired for them too, just like everyone else. I don't really have a strong opinion on the overall actions by Apple, but people being offended by this quote is orthogonal to what ethnicity he is:
> Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit
> Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit
I like the word “allowed”, but who is doing the alllowing?
s/are allowed to/can/
It was an awkward turn of phrase
It was an awkward turn of phrase
You read one sentence from a well-reviewed popular book, because someone told you to read it and get outraged!
C'mon now. Be honest with yourself.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/books/review/chaos-monkey...
Nobody noticed this when the book came out. A posse was out to get him, and scrutinized this book with a fine-toothed comb.
C'mon now. Be honest with yourself.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/books/review/chaos-monkey...
Nobody noticed this when the book came out. A posse was out to get him, and scrutinized this book with a fine-toothed comb.
Again, I'm not outraged. But the people that are outraged certainly aren't saying to themselves "well, because he's Jewish, I will/won't be outraged about what he's saying"
I thought they are both at war? And Apple is supposed to interfere?
It's called disinvestment and it's not a new concept. For instance in years past, activists called upon companies to disinvest from apartheid South Africa. Among those activists was a man you may have heard of, Barack Obama.
There's the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement [1]. A number of states in the US have passed laws or issued executive orders targeting participation in that movement [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott,_Divestment_and_Sancti...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott,_Divestment_and_Sancti...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
Doing the right thing isn't always easy, or legal.
Black income, and income inequality, has worsened since the end of apartheid: https://www.nber.org/digest/jan06/why-south-african-incomes-...
South Africa is heading towards being a failed state.
South Africa is heading towards being a failed state.
Are any of these people interested in actually “building great products” anymore?
Whether you agree with them or not (I feel that companies should not take political stances in general), Are there no boundaries between work and personal beliefs? What happened to having your own beliefs and not forcing it on others?
Whether you agree with them or not (I feel that companies should not take political stances in general), Are there no boundaries between work and personal beliefs? What happened to having your own beliefs and not forcing it on others?
Heh. Just wait till they get wind of XinJiang or labor conditions in Foxconn factories and see how the management responds to those concerns... oh, nevermind. We’ve known that for years but that must okay to activists since silence is violence and I haven’t heard peep.
The response to this argument from the activists is "don't let perfect be the enemy of good", and they will carry on ignoring the stuff they want to ignore without feeling bad. (It's not true that they don't know though.)
There is some logic here and I've not found a good way to argue against it.
There is some logic here and I've not found a good way to argue against it.
Well, the way to respond to it is “wait, no, Apple as a company is a much more direct contributor to working conditions at Foxconn than it is to violence against Palestinians. You are concentrating on an empty statement from management in lieu of demanding corporate actions that would actually have an effect. Your priorities are misordered.”
Yup. Radio silence on that front for years. But it’s not just them, it’s many others on this new trendy virtue signaling dance until they later do something incompatible with their public statements and ignore it once again when called out.
Perhaps Coinbase and Basecamp are the clever ones to resist accidentally signing up to the lifetime of demands from extremely politically charged activists that thrive from catching out employees and cancelling them for wrongthink and screaming about their dramas all over Twitter.
Perhaps Coinbase and Basecamp are the clever ones to resist accidentally signing up to the lifetime of demands from extremely politically charged activists that thrive from catching out employees and cancelling them for wrongthink and screaming about their dramas all over Twitter.
My wish they’d all eventually gravitate to one particular state (Calif or NY, whatever) attracted by their common goal, do their thing there, let the rest of us work in peace and they can go on with their forever revolutionary activism to their hearts’ content till they realize that someone has to do actual productive work to ensure continuity.
As a New Yorker, I'd agree with you. My anecdata is that the activists are generally the most productive and engaged employees. Yours, I guess, is otherwise. We should just put this to the test - the activist leave the professional centrists alone, the professional centrists leave the activists alone, and we see who's better for business.
It'd be nice to get some actual real-life results and this would get us there, so yeah, it'd be pretty nice if it happened.
And nothing about the ongoing Uyghur genocide. So you know these activists are not sincere actors. It's about flexing political or tribal power and signaling to other tribal members.
fortran77(1)
> Apple employees
At least two!
At least two!
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One of these days a company will rise above all others by committing on spot firing every signee of letter/petition that demands dismissal of a person for non work/work ethics reasons
In their letter they dismiss the notion that the issue is complex and can't be boiled down to the company simply saying "we support X" or "Y is in the right here", but that's exactly what it is. A consumer electronics company cannot be expected to make sense of and take sides in a centuries-long religious and geopolitical conflict.