I think the cultural differences are important here: not only the fact that the Foxconn employee had fewer options (whereas Gray Powell can be easily employed tomorrow at a competitor), but also that US companies are far less forgiving of errors by a vendor, especially a foreign vendor. I've heard people hurl abuse at Indian call center employees that they wouldn't dream of saying to a colleague in Palo Alto.

I don't think the guy was killed by Steve force-choking him, or whatever. If he was killed, it was Foxconn's doing. They would have been terrified of losing future business from Apple, so they might have wanted to set an unequivocal example for other employees who might have been thinking about mishandling Apple's IP.

Personally it seems a bit over the top to accuse Foxconn or Apple of killing anyone.

I'm not sure where I accused anyone of killing anyone else... my point was that if someone screws up royally, and you yell at them and tell them they are a worthless piece of shit at a time when they need support and forgiveness, they are more likely to commit suicide.

Yikes I remember that story now. Strange that Gizmodo is breaking that story too...

I'll grant Chinese factories are more interesting than the Cupertino labs.

The most boring explanation here would be that the worker stole the phone, got caught, and chose to take his own life instead of suffer the other unpleasant consequences.

My posed principle would indicate there was no inappropriate investigation or murder, Gizmodo is again sexing up the story.

But its just a thought experiment, tragic and dramatic things do happen.