Edible Apple

Remember the report that surfaced a few months ago detailing how Apple will sometimes put employees on fake projects in an effort to determine their honesty?

Well, it turns out that there isn’t much evidence to substantiate such claims.

Ars Techncia did some legwork and touched based with various Apple employees and discovered that no one had really even ever heard second hand of an employee’s time being wasted on projects that were merely hollow.

“Apple always seemed to be a no-bullshit kind of place when it comes to the seriousness of your work and what you get done,” one former engineer told me when I asked him about fake projects. “I find it suspect that they’d ever waste their own and the employee’s time on something that didn’t directly contribute to their bottom line somehow.”

I spoke to Apple employees from various areas of the company at differing levels, some who are still at Apple and others who have moved on, but all expressed the same sentiment. No one reported any direct experience of being put on a fake project at Apple, and no one knew a friend or colleague at the company who had. A single former employee acknowledged having heard about fake projects—but only from a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, and the employee was quick to acknowledge that the rumor should be treated with a skeptical eye.

Given that Apple is busying itself with trying to change the world, I sincerely doubt it would put talented engineers to work on products and initiatives without a clear endgoal in sight.