An Apple employee has been fired after discoveries of his past writing inspired employees to circulate a petition calling for his hiring to be investigated.
Antonio García Martínez left his role after more than 2000 of his co-workers signed the petition, highlighting "misogynistic" comments the former Facebook product manager made in his 2016 autobiography.
In the book, Chaos Monkeys, dedicated to "all his enemies", Martínez called women in the Bay area of San Francisco "soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit".
"They have their self-regarding entitlement feminism, and ceaselessly vaunt their independence, but the reality is, come the epidemic plague or foreign invasion, they’d become precisely the sort of useless baggage you’d trade for a box of shotgun shells or a jerry can of diesel," he continued.
In addition to the sexist statements, he also came under fire when he compared a co-worker named Chander to a rickshaw driver.
"In his ill-fitting polyester polo shirts with color palettes stolen from the late seventies, he reminded me of the bored auto-rickshaw drivers in front of Connaught Place, Delhi, who'd overcharge you a hundred rupees to go down the street to Paharganj," he wrote.
The hiring of Martínez called into question the system of inclusion at Apple, including hiring panels, background checks, and processes to ensure the existing culture of inclusion is strong enough to withstand individuals who don't share our inclusive values, the petition stated.
Not long after it was circulated, an emergency meeting was held with Martínez's team where Apple confirmed he was no longer employed.
"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," Apple said, in a statement to The Verge.
Martínez was fired by Facebook in 2013 after working on their now-defunct real-time bidding advert exchange FBX.
