Apple engineer leaves company after employees speak out about his ‘misogynistic’ past comments

• Apple engineer Antonio García Martínez has left the company, according to Bloomberg.
• Employees had spoken out about the hire, citing his “misogynistic” past comments, The Verge reported.
• They said Antonio García Martínez wrote “racist and sexist remarks” in his autobiography, “Chaos Monkey.”
• See more stories on Insider’s business page.

Apple engineer Antonio García Martínez has left the company following employee backlash over his comments about women and people of color, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.

“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,” Apple spokesperson Tom Neumayr told Insider.

The Verge reported earlier Wednesday that Apple employees had circulated a petition demanding an investigation into García Martínez’s hiring, citing “misogynistic statements” in his 2016 autobiography, “Chaos Monkey.”

“Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of s–t,” García Martínez writes in the book, according to The Verge.

“Given Mr. García Martínez’s history of publishing overtly racist and sexist remarks about his former colleagues, we are concerned that his presence at Apple will contribute to an unsafe working environment for our colleagues who are at risk of public harassment and private bullying,” the employees wrote in the petition, according to The Verge.

They also said Apple’s hiring of García Martínez undermines its commitment to its stated values as well as its diversity and inclusion goals, and asked Apple to guarantee García Martínez won’t be involved in “hiring, interviewing, or performance decisions.”

In a rare show of public protest from Apple employees, several took to social media to criticize García Martínez’s hiring.

“It’s so exhausting being a woman in tech; sitting opposite men who think because of my gender, I am soft and weak and generally full of shit,” one Apple engineer wrote on Twitter, referencing the quote from “Chaos Monkey.”

“I have been gutted, as many other folks at Apple were, with the hiring of Antonio García Martínez,” another engineer tweeted.

Apple and other large tech companies have made little progress increasing diversity among their ranks, despite years of public promises – particularly among technical and leadership roles, which tend to pay higher.

According to Apple’s 2020 diversity report, 34% of employees were women, while women held just 24% of technical and 31% of leadership roles. In 2014, women made up 30% of the company and held 20% of technical and 28% of leadership roles.

In 2020, white employees made up 47% of the company overall but held 59% of leadership roles, compared to 55% overall and 64% of leadership roles in 2014.

In recent years, Apple employees, like those at other companies, have also filed lawsuits alleging racial and gender discrimination, as have suppliers.