
Apple fires engineer after his daughter’s iPhone X video goes viral - mercutio2
https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2017/10/30/apple-fires-engineer-after-daughter-iphone-x-video.html?ana=yahoo&yptr=yahoo
======
grzm
Discussion on the Verge article submission from 1 day ago (73 comments):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15576895](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15576895)

------
27182818284
From the article, "I had no idea this was a violation"

Welp, if you weren't getting fired for showing off the iPhone X before it
ships without permission you should be fired for being at Apple for _four
years_ and not realizing this _might_ be a problem.

I can't even take this as genuine. I seriously wonder if they were already
half out the door for other reasons.

~~~
dpark
The quote is from the daughter.

I don’t think it’s particularly genuine either, but it’s not a quote from the
employee.

------
notfried
She came from SoCal to visit him, planning to make this video, and possibly
knowing she'd see the iPhone X. I wouldn't be surprised if virality was her
target, and this was her way to get into Hollywood. And the father, this must
have been his way to help his daughter, maybe he was already planning to
retire.

He must have known he'd be fired. No one of his seniority is that naive. And
no way they shot all this footage in the Cafè and had this much face-to-face
interaction with workers there without someone reminding them about "No
Photography." No reasonable response he could've given except that they had
permission.

Edit: Come think of it, forget about the iPhone X, this is probably one of the
very few (only?) videos ever of Cafe Macs.

~~~
BFatts
I assume this is all sarcasm?

------
luckyt
Looks like they're making an example of him more than anything else. In this
case, a lot of media reporters already have made detailed videos of the phone
so the damage is minimal -- but if another engineer leaks the next iPhone at
an alpha stage, it would be very different.

~~~
reaperducer
Perhaps it wasn't in the linked article, but other ones I've read indicate
that the video showed things on the phone beyond what Apple's media department
let reporters see. Things like internal QR codes and project names. This
appears to be more than a simple case of making an example of a bad apple.

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dilap
Samsung should hire him, and also the daughter to do a walkthru of whatever
their next phone is.

~~~
exabrial
That would be brilliant marketing actually!

~~~
samfisher83
That would be. They should develop a whole ad campaign around that. Apple as
the heartless corporate behemoth vs the loving samsung. In reality they are
both corporate behemoths, but image is everything.

The engineer did violate his NDA, but he was trying to help out his daughter.
Should your job really come before family especially since he didn't reveal
anything truly secret.

~~~
unit91
> Should your job really come before family

I'm always nervous when I see phrasing like this because it all depends on
what you mean by "come before". For example, I would love to spend 40+ more
hours per week with my family, but I don't. That doesn't mean I put work
before my family, it means I love my family enough to provide for them.

Conversely, if I had a job that required 40 hours per week (objectives and
culture wise) and I worked 80 hours for the fun of it, then this would be a
clear case of putting work before my family. In that case, no, I shouldn't be
doing it.

The question here is which category (if either) does this fall into? It seems
as though the issue here is the employee had a non-disclosure condition of
employment, which he violated. The "help" he provided his daughter may have
helped her financially, though I suspect ego was the primary driver for both
the employee and the daughter. As unpopular as it may be to side with the big-
bad-company, I think Apple acted appropriately here.

------
sschueller
"I had no idea this was a violation"

Somehow hard to believe.

~~~
hinkley
I know several kids who can get out of pretty much any trouble by feigning
ignorance. Their parents drive me nuts.

~~~
unit91
Man I wish I could upvote this twice! Since I can't, I'll register my hearty
agreement with text.

------
forkLding
Sad but makes sense, Im thinking he violated his NDAs, Apple could have likely
sued him for that

------
dijit
Feels like someone has an agenda, this is the 10th time I've heard this story
and it has exactly the same information.

Father told/showed daughter prototype phone in breach of an NDA that I _know_
he signed if he had access to that hardware. Daughter felt really proud of
superstar daddy and took to the internet to show off.

Apple has three recourses,

1) Sue the employee to the fullest extent covered under the NDA. My employer
can hold me personally liable for any loss of revenue and it wouldn't be hard
to claim damage on this.

2) Ignore the incident, set a precedent that leaks are ok. Or internally
lambast the employee which is akin to bullying in some eyes.

3) Terminate the employee, allow a clean break and for the employee to persue
other jobs with newly accrued information (IE; that when your NDA says "NOBODY
(inc. Family) are to be told [...] that it generally means it.

This is a non-story. Yes, it's sad. But it's wholly self-inflicted and I think
Apple took the least destructive path on this.

~~~
notheguyouthink
Can someone explain why you're down voting this person? His/her comments seem
very reasonable, am I missing something?

I hate that HN lets you downvote without an explanation.

 _edit_ : And now I'm being down voted for asking a question!? Wtf is going
on.. I'm trying to get information here..

~~~
nix0n
From the official HN guidelines[0]:

> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good,
> and it makes boring reading.

[0][https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
notheguyouthink
Hmm, shame - I was hoping to promote actual discussion about the real reason
at hand, but I guess that's not allowed.

I do find it _very_ strange that we're not supposed to foster discussion, but
rather quietly accept silencing of dissenting views. Seems very against the
meaningful discussions that I come up HN for. Strange for me.

Thank you, despite it breaking the rules I guess. I'm let down by HN this day.
:/

~~~
philbarr
First rule of HN: do not talk about downvoting.

Second rule of HN: you get the idea....

~~~
notheguyouthink
Well more explicitly, I don't give a shit about downvoting - but _why_ someone
downvotes is very important.

Eg, if someone writes a long well thought out post, full of information, and
is down voted heavily - should we not question it? It seems the HN mantra is
"well the masses have spoken, best not to question them".

I don't give a damn about someones magic internet points, but what I'm being
told is I cannot try and prompt actual discussion? I just have to remain dumb
about something I'm missing, because that's what a HNer is supposed to do?

This seems so wrong :/

Honestly, this seems like an above _(not by you exactly)_ of the root idea. By
all means, don't talk about down votes, but I wasn't - I was talking about the
content, that others apparently did not find worthy. _Why_ was it not worthy?

Why is it a good rule to not understand why things aren't worthy? Again, I'm
not talking about magic internet numbers, I'm talking about content - yet
we're not allowed to do that either. Wtf?

~~~
philbarr
I totally agree with you. But every time I raise this as an idea I get
downvoted :)

I can only assume everyone else is perfectly fine with it - except yours is
not the first post I've seen like this.

------
feketegy
Relevant
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RvNS7JfcMM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RvNS7JfcMM)

------
abtinf
I would think this kind of unintentional mini-leak happens several times per
day at Apple: there must be hundreds of employees running around with
prototype hardware, using them as their primary phones.

If that is true, then it would seem pretty arbitrary to fire the employee,
especially since the articles makes it seem like his daughter took the video
down immediately on request.

Regardless, there is no shortage of demand for RF engineers. An engineer with
17 years of experience, getting fired over something uniquely a concern for
Apple, that he was not even primarily responsible for, and getting featured on
TechCrunch... This could be one of the best things to ever happen to his
career.

------
CodeSheikh
This scenario is pretty much applicable for any private corp. across the
nation or globe. Every company has their own rules and regulations around the
secrecy of new products before the launch in order to stay competitive. The
reason this news story is picking up extra traction is because a) it involves
Apple and b) some people are trying to justify the idiocy of this teenager
using innocence. This guy should be grateful that Apple is not coming after
him with a lawsuit that he cant even dream of defending.

------
tempodox
This seems to be the video in question:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBeD8E2xxck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBeD8E2xxck)

------
skywhopper
Showing the phone itself and its features does not seem like a fireable
offense, but it sounds like some internal naming, documentation and links were
visible, which is surely a major violation of company policy, if allowing your
family to have access to your internal account were not (which it also
certainly is).

------
joyoustech
How a tech company can dictate a lifestyle, and make you lose your job for it,
is beyond me. I guess you deserve the consequences if you subscribe to that
lifestyle contract.

~~~
atonse
Look, he violated his employer's NDA and it wasn't a mistake. What do you
expect?

Much worse violations have happened in the past at Apple, and were
unintentional. Like the firmware leak that leaked everything about this year's
iPhones. As far as I know, nobody was fired for that, because it was a
mistake.

------
exabrial
Sad, Apple has indeed lost it's way. Old Apple would have capitalized on any
press. Tim Cook is the Steve Balmer of Apple; right now they're still making
money off of legacy. Jobs demanded quality and usefulness, not silly
touchbars, half-witted protocol implementations, and removing of essential
ports (ethernet, headphone jacks, etc). The market is ripe for another
commercially supported Unix-based hardware/software outfit to take over and
give people what they really want.

~~~
lanewinfield
You think Jobs would've been cool with this? What are you smoking?

------
jacquesm
If Apple does not want their devices to be used as intended until an embargo
date has passed they should keep them on premises. Once the device is out of
the gates the secret is out as well.

NDA's are very effective when you are talking about documents and adults. As
soon as you're talking about devices and/or kids NDA's are ineffective because
_anybody_ that spots the device can post a picture without any recourse by the
company and kids will do whatever they want to in today's connected world.

Whether it was smart or not is another matter but I feel that firing someone
over something like this is way too harsh, besides all the good publicity it
gave Apple. But I guess when you're a tech-fashion company it's perfectly ok
to ignore the realities of producing physical goods and the fact that you're
going to have to let your product out of your control at some point.

~~~
deedubaya
> In the video, which has since been deleted, Peterson shops at Santana Row
> before meeting her father, Ken Bauer, for pizza at an Apple cafeteria in
> Cupertino. Bauer pays for their meals with an unreleased iPhone X, telling
> the cashier that he worked on the phone’s wireless payments feature.

This all happened on Apple's campus, mentioned in the second paragraph. Maybe
read the article before commenting?

~~~
jacquesm
Ah, I missed that. Ok, so even then: don't let your super secret phone out of
the developer area. Many non-Apple employees visit Apple and eat at the
cafetaria, any one of those could have spotted the phone.

I visited a couple of hardware manufacturers in the past (Swatch, Logitech)
and have seen pre-production hardware of which only single working prototypes
existed. There is no way that you'd be able to take a photograph of any of
those and those are not companies that are as paranoid as Apple about this
stuff.

My guess is that they are making an example out of this guy to cover up their
utter failure in process that allowed this to happen in the first place.

------
sillysaurus3
It's pretty strange that someone lost their livelihood solely because they
didn't bow to authority.

(As opposed to a practical reason, like "what he did mattered.")

~~~
Pica_soO
Well at least this was for a reason.

Remember that one guy they fired for a bad decorated apartment? You got life a
representative lifestyle- so designer cloths, designer furniture- else apple
does not want to associated with you. IKEA is very very close to crossing a
line there.

~~~
dpark
> _Remember that one guy they fired for a bad decorated apartment?_

No. What are you talking about?

~~~
djrogers
Sarcasm folks... GP complained about it being a 'lifestyle' thing.

~~~
dpark
This doesn’t read like sarcasm to me and the “lifestyle” comment is not in
this comment’s parent tree.

Maybe it is sarcasm, but it’s bizarre if so. (Bizarre either way, actually.)

