

Steve Wozniak has a little bit of fun at Gray Powell’s expense - anderzole
http://www.edibleapple.com/steve-wozniak-has-a-little-bit-of-fun-at-gray-powells-expense/

======
risotto
I have a new theory about life that hasn't let me down yet. It's a variant on
Occam's Razor that I call Zoschke's Razor:

The most boring explanation is usually the correct one.

Let me apply it here...

\--

Gray has talked to his supervisors, and his job is secure because he's the
same talented engineer today as he was last week.

Gray's career options are unaffected by this because who wouldn't want to hire
an iPhone engineer?

Gray was scared when his phone was lost, embarrassed when it was found, but
already back to business as usual, and actually even wiser than before.

Gray isn't paying attention to any of the publicity, only to the laughs his
personal friends are having at/with him.

Jobs wasn't even caught off guard by this, he's seen it all before.

Apple will not comment publicly on any of these events.

Apple will release the new iPhone at a typical keynote in a few months, and
will sell tons of them.

No charges will be brought against Gizmodo.

\--

All the speculation, here and otherwise, wants this to be way more drama than
these things ever are.

We aren't talking about losing the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. We're talking
about boring, corporate America that we all know too well.

This is essentially the same as that one time your bug dropped an important
table in the production database. Did you get shit canned? Did your company
suffer insurmountable losses? Nope. Your company did damage control, you and
your team fixed the problem, and everyone went back to business as usual the
next day.

Real life is boring, even for the seemingly larger-than-life Apple, Steve Jobs
and the iPhone.

~~~
lesterbuck
Except for that _other_ iPhone prototype guy who lost an iPhone and either
committed suicide after "intense interrogation", or was killed:
[http://gizmodo.com/5319275/report-iphone-leak-
interrogations...](http://gizmodo.com/5319275/report-iphone-leak-
interrogations-drive-foxconn-employee-to-suicide)
[http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/07/im-really-thinking-
maybe-i-...](http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/07/im-really-thinking-maybe-i-
shouldnt.html)

So, yeah, losing an iPhone prototype is really, like, boring.

~~~
qq66
I think the cultural differences are important here: not only the fact that
the Foxconn employee had fewer options (whereas Gray Powell can be easily
employed tomorrow at a competitor), but also that US companies are far less
forgiving of errors by a vendor, especially a foreign vendor. I've heard
people hurl abuse at Indian call center employees that they wouldn't dream of
saying to a colleague in Palo Alto.

~~~
CamperBob
I don't think the guy was killed by Steve force-choking him, or whatever. If
he was killed, it was Foxconn's doing. They would have been terrified of
losing future business from Apple, so they might have wanted to set an
unequivocal example for other employees who might have been thinking about
mishandling Apple's IP.

Personally it seems a bit over the top to accuse Foxconn _or_ Apple of killing
anyone.

~~~
qq66
I'm not sure where I accused anyone of killing anyone else... my point was
that if someone screws up royally, and you yell at them and tell them they are
a worthless piece of shit at a time when they need support and forgiveness,
they are more likely to commit suicide.

------
donw
I think that it would be _stupid_ not to have him on stage as part of the
introduction of the new iPhone. It's not like everybody doesn't know about it,
and it would generate a lot of goodwill among developers and Apple employees.

It's like the story of the Air Force commander and the mechanic: One day, a
military big-wig took off in an Air Force transport, which almost crashed, and
was forced to land due to mechanical failure shortly after take-off. Upon
inspection, it became obvious that the mechanic in charge of the plane's
engines had screwed up and been sloppy.

Rather than berating him, the commander looked at him and said, "I trust that
you won't screw up again. In fact, I trust you so much, that I'm putting you
in charge of fixing it."

~~~
wallflower
I've watched a lot of Steve Jobs presentations, and I can't recall any direct
humor (aside from John Mayer and maybe Sam Altman rocking the popped collars).

It just doesn't seem that they'd do something like this. It's not vaudeville
night, it's the Reality Distortion Field.

~~~
blehn
How about this one? <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIClAanU7Os>

~~~
ronaldj
Or this one? <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl7xQ8i3fc0>

~~~
goatforce5
I actually LOLed when he did this:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p4j0CODBX8>

------
jws
That is a nixie tube watch on his left arm.
<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nixie_Wozniak.jpg>

~~~
elblanco
What beautiful devices.

~~~
rikthevik
Yeah, nixie tubes are the perfect blend of Soviet-era impracticality and
elegance. Now that I think of it, it's pretty impressive that there's
circuitry to get up to 120V or whatever it is to drive those tubes right on
his watch.

~~~
jacquesm
Soviet Era? Nixies were produced all over, it's just that the Soviet Union
continued to produce them longer than the rest.

~~~
sp332
In this context, "Soviet-era excess" is a jab at the culture of the USA around
the time of the cold war. Some of the time periods in US history are named for
the war we were fighting around that time. Revolution era, Civil War era, WWI
and WWII era, cold-war/Soviet era, Vietnam era.

------
unignorant
This seems to me rather insensitive -- more importantly, it's probably not
worthy of Hacker News.

Edit: Given the downvotes, I'd be quite happy to hear any legitimate grounds
for disagreement. I consider the widely disseminated mocking of someone who
hasn't knowingly signed on as a public figure to be insensitive (independent
of how funny or clever that mocking might be, and independent of whether being
insensitive will have any effect on the target's career).

~~~
anigbrowl
If it were anyone else, I would agree. But Steve Wozniak being who he is, I
think it's a signal of 'all's well that ends well.'

~~~
tptacek
I'm really picking up an undercurrent of "Steve Wozniak being who he is in
relation to Apple, this joke probably means that Apple has gotten over it". I
don't see the evidence to back that argument up.

~~~
jacquesm
I think the simple fact that Wozniak (who as far as I know is one of the
nicest really rich people out there, by his deeds, not by his words) is
willing to do this in a way suggests that it could have happened to anybody.
Shit happens, prototypes get lost.

Stuff happens to prototypes quite frequently, especially car prototypes that
suddenly and unexpectedly highlight both the existence of the prototype and
the unfortunate person in possession of it, you can't have the one without the
other.

Keep in mind that it wasn't Wozniak that released Grays name, effectively he's
saying it could have been him, since he goes out drinking as well.

Maybe I'm giving Wozniak too much credit based on his past, but I can't
imagine him doing this out of malice.

------
marcamillion
I would not be surprised if Gray Powell felt good when he saw this pic.

Hell...if it were me...I would be jumping for joy that Woz even knows I exist.

~~~
philk
I would be thrilled and (assuming I hadn't collapsed under the stress) I'd
shamelessly milk it by trying to get Woz out for a drink.

------
defenestrator
my god that's a neat switch panel

------
zackattack
The situation is funny, and it provides Gray Powell with an extraordinary
opportunity for personal growth.

------
tptacek
Douche.

~~~
philk
It's called having a sense of humor and it's not harming Gray at all.

~~~
tptacek
Strong disagree.

~~~
philk
Would you care to clarify why? Apple is either upset with Gray or it isn't.
Woz wearing an irreverent shirt won't change it either way.

~~~
tptacek
Wozniak having a "sense of humor" about someone else's misfortune doesn't help
that person. Meanwhile, there's the guy's name, plastered on a rich famous
guy's belly, being mocked. I stand by my original comment and believes it sums
the situation up precisely.

~~~
philk
There's clearly no malice intended, and I'd say "mocked" is far too strong a
term. He's making fun of the situation, not Gray himself.

If you find this joke to be insensitive I'm having a hard time imagining what
sort of humor you approve of, given practically every joke out there makes fun
of someone/something.

~~~
tptacek
There's nothing wrong with making fun of people. I do it incessantly. But I
avoid doing it to people when they're down. And, if I ever achieve the sort of
success Wozniak has, I hope I'll avoid doing it to people just starting to
make their way in my field.

~~~
jarek
An iPhone baseband engineer is not "just starting to make [his] way."

~~~
tptacek
He graduated in 2006. He's a kid. I'm sure he's better at his job now than I
ever could be, but that's beside the point.

