Apple fires Antonio García, former Facebook manager, after past misogynistic remarks surface

Apple has fired Antonio García Martínez, former Facebook manager after misogynistic comments from his book were circulated. A petition was started by 2000 employees at Apple against his hiring as well, through which the staff members expressed their disappointment against background checks done before his hiring.

Apple swiftly fires its newly hired ex-Facebook product manager after his misogynistic comments surfaced

Antonio, a former Facebook product manager with their ads team, had written a controversial book called Choas Monkeys in which he had written some misogynistic passages against women in Silicon Valley. The disrespectful passages were referred to by disgruntled employees in the internal petition shared at Apple which questioned Antonio’s hiring and that it “calls into question parts of our system of inclusion at Apple, including hiring panels, background checks, and our process to ensure our existing culture of inclusion is strong enough to withstand individuals who don’t share our inclusive values”.

The Verge reports that soon after the petition was shared internally at Apple, Antonio’s Slack account was deactivated and an emergency meeting was called with the ad platforms team. In the meeting, it was confirmed that Antonio was fired from Apple.

Apple confirmed that it has fired Antonio García Martínez and that the company will not tolerate any people who clash with its values of inclusion and diversity.

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.

Apart from Antonio’s hiring and swift firing from Apple, the timing of hiring a new product manager for its ads team was met with some questions. The company is looking to expand its own ad business right at a time when it has made changes like App Tracking Transparency in iOS 14.5, that affect the entire ads industry. The company just rolled out Search tab campaigns which puts an ad unit on the App Store search page.