Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine Page #11

Apple found its tax haven

in the green fields of Ireland

where Jobs and his team set up

holding companies in the early 1980s.

The scheme is known as

a "Double Irish".

Holly Hill industrial estate

can scarcely be compared

to California's Silicon Valley.

There is the feeling that Apple of Cork

may become something of a Silicon Hill.

Today, Apple holds more than

$137 billion of its profits overseas.

Much of it in two small Irish

companies, one with no employees.

While the actual cash is held

and invested by New York banks,

the paper profits are steered

through an office park in Reno, Nevada,

and then back to the Emerald Isle

where it's taxed at rates less than 1%.

Senator, we're proud

that all of our R&D,

or the vast majority of it,

is in the United States.

I know, but the profits that

result from it are sitting in Ireland

in corporations that you control

that don't pay taxes.

Part of the mythology

of these new companies

was that they in some way reflected

something about America.

Both Google and Apple

have played on the idea

of political virtue as part

of selling their company.

So then to find out they weren't about

political virtue is distressing.

Steve Jobs said he wanted

to change the world, but into what?

Companies all over the world

make choices on how to treat workers,

what to give back

and where to put their money.

What were Steve's choices?

In meditation, he found simplicity.

He loved the idea of "Be Here Now."

But where was "here?"

Ladies and gentlemen,

we have just landed

at Beijing International Airport.

I thought it was important

to cover China

because Apple has

all of its products made there.

I mean,

they design their own products,

but the manufacturing is done in China,

and so it's caught up in another

country's industrial revolution.

And a lot of that is

out of Apple's control.

Four workers died

and 77 were wounded

in explosions

at two Apple supplier factories

caused by careless safety procedures.

The solvents used to sparkle

Apple's touch screens

were powerful but dangerous,

causing nerve damage

that led to weakness

and loss of touch in workers.

They complained about low wages

and pressure to meet Apple's deadlines.

In the Chinese factories

of many tech companies,

copper, chromium

and other heavy metals

saturate the run-off that flows

into local waterways.

Sometimes chemical levels

are so high

that sewage treatment plants

can't adequately clean the water

for it ever to be used again.

In 2010, Chinese activist Ma Jun

contacted all the tech manufacturers

to discuss the issue

and even wrote to Jobs personally.

All the companies ultimately responded

except one. Apple.

It wasn't until Jobs left the company

that Apple even agreed

to speak to Ma Jun.

Foxconn is Apple's top supplier,

so it all goes downhill from there

in terms of the standards,

in terms of everything.

These young people

come from the countryside

under unimaginably poor conditions,

looking for a better life.

Sun Danyong, nicknamed Yong,

came to Foxconn

from a small mountain village.

Placed in the product

communications department,

he was responsible for the security

of iPhone prototypes

bound for Apple's headquarters

in Silicon Valley.

In 2009, an iPhone 4 prototype

went missing on Yong's watch.

Sun Danyong was

the first factory worker

who came under the spotlight.

What makes his story incredibly vivid

is that in today's day and age,

there's CCTV cameras recording

where his movements were.

He had a conversation with his friends

on the Chinese Twitter site,

and you could really track

what had happened.

Yong searched

high and low for the prototype

before reporting it missing

to Foxconn security.

That evening, officials took him

into an interrogation room

where he was assaulted

and was told police would arrive

the next morning to question him.

Yong was finally permitted

to leave the factory at 10:41pm.

He wandered to an internet cafe

where he chatted online

with his friends.

He logged off

around 1:
30 in the morning.

Soon after, security cameras

spotted him in an elevator

in his apartment complex.

He got out on the 12th floor

and texted his girlfriend.

At 3:
33am, security cameras recorded

Sun Danyong jumping to his death.

Over a period of two years or so,

there were 18 suicides.

Foxconn set up these nets

to catch people who fall off.

People were jumping

off of the buildings,

so they were going to

prevent people from dying

by having safety nets to catch them.

You know, they've had,

if you count the attempted suicides,

13 so far this year.

And while that is still...

They have 400,000 people at this place.

So, 13 out of 400,000

is 26 per year so far.

For 400,000 people or, you know,

let's say seven per 100,000 people,

that's still under the US suicide rate

of 11 per 100,000 people,

but it's really troubling.

Right. It's in one place, too.

Well, you measure it

by number of people.

You measure it by numbers of people.

So, we're all over this.

And it's... It's very troubling.

So, we're over there trying

to understand what's happening,

and more importantly,

trying to understand how we can help.

Apple isn't the only company

to manufacture in China,

but it is different in one way.

Its enormous profit margin.

The profit on every iPhone 4

was over $300.

Yet Apple paid its Chinese workforce

less than $12 per phone.

If Jobs had really "thought different,"

shouldn't he have cared more

about the people

who touched the iPhones

before they appeared in

the hands of Apple's customers?

When I was writing

critical stories about Apple,

the mail would be 80% hate mail.

Even the most reasoned,

judicious criticism

about labor practices in China,

for crying out loud, it didn't matter.

People didn't want to hear it.

They loved this company.

They loved its products.

They loved the status symbol

of having these things in their hand

and looking at it all the time,

and it just felt cool,

and they'd stood in line for two days

to buy one,

and they didn't want to hear it.

I was one of those people

who had to have an iPhone.

I didn't want

to hear about other products,

and I believed against all reason

that owning an iPhone made me

part of something better.

And when it was in my pocket,

for every idle moment,

my hand was drawn to it,

like Frodo's hand to the ring.

The real magic of it

is that these myths

are surrounding a company

that makes phones.

A phone is not a mythical device.

Um...

And it sort of makes you wonder

less about Apple than about us.

The myth-making

around technology in general

allows the technologist to do things

that would be viewed as heinous

if they were done

by other kinds of companies.

This is a story that's amazing.

It's got theft, it's got buying

stolen property, it's got extortion.

I'm sure there's sex

in there somewhere, you know?

Really?

So somebody should make

a movie out of this.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes