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Apple executive fired for repeating a joke from “Arthur”.
A senior Apple executive was sacked after a video on TikTok showed him joking about fondling 'big-breasted women' for a living.
Apple confirmed Thursday that Tony Blevins, a high ranking vice president, will be departing the Silicon Valley office after dozens of reports and complaints from several hundred employees over the viral video uploaded on September 5, Bloomberg reported.
In the video, TikToker Daniel Mac, who asks owners of expensive cars their occupation, approaches Blevins, 55, as he parks his $500,000 Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren.
Like he's done dozens of times, Mac asks Blevins what he does for a living, with Blevins answering: 'I have rich cars, play golf and fondle big-breasted women, but I take weekends and major holidays off.
'Also, if you're interested, I got a hell of a dental plan.'
Sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that members of Apple's operations and procurement teams reported the video to Human Resources, with the topic becoming popular discussion among employees and business partners in recent weeks.
They claimed that CEO Tim Cook and COO Jeff Williams were among those angered by the comments.
The video was taken on August 18, at a car show Blevins attended in Pebble Beach, California.
The former Apple executive appeared to be referencing the 1981 movie, Arthur, where the titular character describes his career as: 'I race cars, play tennis and fondle women, but I have weekends off and I am my own boss.'
He was the latest to be approached by Mac, who's asked several high profile celebrities about their cars, including actress Helen Mirren, President Joe Biden, Brooklyn Beckham and Jay Leno.
Although Mac and his viewers seemed to be amused by Blevins' remarks, those at Apple took the video, which has more than 141,000 likes, seriously.
Blevins, who's worked at the tech giant for 22 years, confirmed that he was fired over the incident and offered an apology for his actions.
'I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended by my mistaken attempt at humor,' Blevins told Bloomberg.
Blevins had most recently served as the tech giant's vice president of procurement, where Salary.com and Glassdoor estimated his salary between $273,000 and $377,000.
Among Apples 100 vice presidents, Blevins was with the about 30 who reported directly to Cook and Williams.
The incident serves as a fall from grace for Blevins who recently worked to secure major deals to drive down costs for critical parts of Apple's mobile devices.
Sources knowledge able his work told Bloomberg that Blevins has been pivotal in helping procure groundbreaking tech for Apple and beating out the competition.
In a 2020 Wall Street Journal feature about his prominence at Apple, Blevins told the outlet that he goes by 'the Blevinator' as he negotiates with suppliers to keep costs down for the tech giant.
Read the WSJ article linked to above, and ask which does more harm to Apple: losing a top-notch employee of 22 years who’s saved them billions of dollars in production costs, or the hurt feelings of 100 snowflakes who are offended by an old movie joke? Tim Cook’s always been a useless tit, but this sort of insanity is so stupid it takes one’s breath away.
Here are just two snippets from the article, two tiny examples of what this man brought to Apple. You may want to read the whole article to get a sense of what Apple’s lost:
Under Mr. Blevins, 52 years old, Apple paid Intel Corp. about $10 per modem chip in recent years, roughly 50% less than Samsung paid Qualcomm Corp., according to IHS Markit.
Mr. Blevins declined to comment, saying he didn’t have Apple’s permission. “I’m a loyal company guy,” he said.
And:
Around 2012, Mr. Cook so valued Mr. Blevins’s work driving down costs that the CEO tapped him to manage negotiations for the glass encircling Apple’s futuristic new headquartersin Cupertino, Calif., people familiar with the project said. The design called for an endless wall of curved glass measuring a mile in circumference. Apple projected the glass could cost as much as $1 billion, making it one of the largest glass orders in history.
Mr. Blevins invited several glass makers to the Grand Hyatt in Hong Kong, those familiar with the process said. He put bidders in conference rooms and went from room to room, pushing them to go lower.
If you don’t come down in price, he said, another bidder would. He used familiar negotiation tactics, including prolonged silences and bluffing numbers, the people said.
It worked. Apple reduced its glass costs by an estimated hundreds of millions of dollars.
