Former employee also confirms that the company conducts fake product testing

Jan 29, 2012 21:24 GMT  ·  By

Apple’s new CEO certainly has what it takes to make profits soar, but one former employee believes he has enough charisma to be the next president of the United States.

Speaking to Adam Lashinsky at LinkedIn, the former Apple employee confirmed an interesting account from the author’s book, Inside Apple, regarding fake product testing.

Apparently the company is so paranoid engineers might leak product information that it actually has them using fake prototypes to put their loyalty to the test.

“A friend of mine who's a senior engineer at Apple, he works on -- or did work on -- fake products, I'm sure for the first part of his career, and interviewed for 9 months. It's intense,” the former employee said.

The discussion continued with the duo touching on various aspects about Apple as an organization.

At one point in the dialog (the 3:00 mark in the clip embedded below) the ex staffer confidently states that Tim Cook has enough charm to be the next US president.

“Even Tim Cook has so much charisma that he could certainly be our next president,” he said.

Lashinsky was intrigued by his statement. He opined that Cook would certainly have his way cut out for himself as president, given the twisted scenarios in politics today.

“The only thing I would disagree [with] is that I don’t think he has the political chops to put up with the BS that politicians have to put up with,” Lashinsky replied.

In the book - Inside Apple - author Adam Lashinsky “reveals the secret systems, tactics and leadership strategies that allowed Steve Jobs and his company to churn out hit after hit and inspire a cult-like following for its products,” according to the description on Apple’s iBookstore.

“If Apple is Silicon Valley's answer to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, then author Adam Lashinsky provides readers with a golden ticket to step inside,” the description says.