The family of the Foxconn employee who reportedly committed suicide over a lost iPhone prototype has been compensated for his death, even though the company suspects him of industrial espionage, the New York Times reports.
The family of Sun Danyong, 25, received 300,000 renminbi, or more than $44,000, and his girlfriend got a new Apple laptop.
However, Foxconn, which makes iPods and iPhones under contract to Apple, says the employee had a history of suspiciously “losing” products, suggesting he might be involved in industrial espionage.
“The case also underscores the challenges that global companies face in trying to safeguard their designs and intellectual property in the hotly contested smartphone market, particularly here in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, an electronics manufacturing center known for piracy and counterfeiting,” the Times says.
On July 16, Danyong apparently leaped to his death from the 12th floor of an dormitory building on Foxconn’s giant factory campus. Sun was being investigated by Foxconn security after allegedly losing an iPhone prototype he was supposed to mail to Apple in California.
He failed to report the prototype missing for three days, the company says, and his explanation “did not seem credible and that he had had problems before.”
“Several times he had some products missing, then he got them back,” the company told the Times. “We don’t know who took the product, but it was at his stop.”
The company says his death was a suicide. Reports suggest Sun was beaten and “humiliated” by Foxconn security investigating the lost prototype. The company has suspended a security guard pending a police investigation.
The Times‘ reporter, David Barboza, spoke to the company and the employee’s family, and was given a partial tour of the plant. However, he didn’t get many answers.
The family is puzzled by his death, saying he was honest and would never steal prototype products.
His girlfriend posted his last text message to her shortly before he died.
“Dear, I’m sorry. Go back home tomorrow,” he wrote. “I ran into some problems. Don’t tell my family. Don’t contact me. I’m begging you for the first time. Please do it! I’m sorry.”
The family suggests he committed suicide as a form of revenge on the company for mistreating him. “He was extremely angry at Foxconn,” his brother said. “They humiliated him and he wanted to resist the company, and planned to do something big.”
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander is an expert on:
Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
Apple Watch and watchOS
Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
