After being fired by Apple, digital ads expert Antonio Garcia has come out in his own defense by accusing the Cupertino tech giant of publishing a false statement regarding his hasty dismissal. Garcia broke his silence on Twitter by rebutting the assumption that his background wasn’t vetted before his appointment and that the company was well aware of his book’s content.
Garcia left his role as Director of Facebook Ad Exchange in 2013 and in 2016, wrote a book called Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley’ that detailed his professional journey on starting AdGrok, and working at Facebook. And some misogynist passages in the book became the ground for his terminal from Apple. For example, he had written, “Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit.” Therefore, quoting such commentary 2000 employees signed a petition against Garcia’s hiring. Only after a month at Apple as part of App Store and Apple New ad teams, the company decided to let him go and released the following statement:
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.
And Garcia does not agree with what the it implies.
Former Facebook ad manger, Antonio Garcia calls out Apple for releasing a misleading and false statement regarding his dimissal
Expressing disappointment over shattered dreams of working at Apple and building ads privacy, Garcia said that his termination was a “snap decision”.
Apple has issues a statment that clearly inplies there was some negative behavior by me during my time at Apple. That is defematory and categorically false.
He also share that he was seeked and recruited after a through vetting process so that compay was well aware of his writing before he was hired.
Apple actively recruited me for my role on the ads team, reaching out via a former colleague to convince me to join. Apple found my experience in the ads space, specifically around data and privacy, highly relevant to their efforts and persuaded me to leave my then role.
Apple was well aware of my writing before hiring me. Me references were questioned extensively about my bestselling book and my real professional persona (rather than literary one).
I have thus far maintained my silence on the Apple situation as I've sought to settle things amicably with the company that I admired, and at which I hoped to build the future of ads privacy.
As they however are not maintaining their silence on the matter, neither will I.
— Antonio García Martínez (@antoniogm) May 14, 2021
Furthermore, Wall Street Journal reports that Mr. Garcia has regrets his former statments and says he is not same person he used to be.
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.”
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