Apple’s New Silicon Initiative to Revolutionize Future of Underpaid Interns
In a groundbreaking move that surely shocked no one, Apple has unveiled its latest strategy to ensure its monopoly on the labor market’s fresh and bright-eyed talent. Entitled the “New Silicon Initiative,” the program seeks to mold the computer-friendly brains of Georgia Tech students into the perfect semiconductor engineers of tomorrow—or, as the rest of the world knows them, the overcaffeinated and underappreciated interns of today.
“Let’s face it,” said Apple spokesperson Ima Silicon, carefully not tripping over the cord of the $1,000 dongle she needed to connect her laptop to a projector, “while some industries look for experience, we at Apple have realized that catching them early means molding pliable human clay before they can develop bad habits, like asking for a reasonable salary.”
The initiative, which cunningly pairs eager university students with grizzled, vitamin D-deficient Apple mentors, promises to teach them how to convert raw enthusiasm into the heady excitement of an Apple keynote, where iPhones are praised as though they descended from Mount Olympus itself. It’s all part of Apple’s commitment to, ahem, “innovation”—a term loosely translated here to “whatever keeps kids from defecting to Android.”
Fruit-based multinational overlords—or as they prefer to be called, conglomerates—like Apple, GlobalFoundries, and Texas Instruments have realized that the earlier they can get students interning, the quicker they can start the time-honored tradition of promising them the universe in exchange for just one more all-nighter before the impending product launch.
“We believe in empowering our workforce,” insisted Georgia Tech’s Dean of Hopeless Optimism, Dr. Chip Resistor. “By funneling our students directly into the fires of corporate expectations, we’re ensuring they’re prepared for the real world, where their personal algorithm for happiness involves caffeine and impromptu office napping.”
Of course, critics have pointed out that this initiative does little for the major problems faced by the tech industry, such as an overabundance of jargon and the glaring lack of agreeable cologne among software engineers. But in true corporate fashion, these concerns have been addressed with the kind of PR finesse that transforms ‘sweatshop’ into ‘open-air innovation plaza.’
One intern, or “future innovator” as the initiative encourages them to call themselves, gushed, “It’s amazing! I actually got to handle a keyboard on my first day. At first, they didn’t trust us with anything sharp—like a pencil.”
As the New Silicon Initiative rolls on, aspiring engineers are encouraged to become the change they want to see in Apple—or at least ensure they contribute to the manufacturing of a device that will become obsolete in eighteen months.
For now, these wide-eyed students remain dutifully glued to their Macs, all the while dreaming of the distant day when they might be able to afford one themselves.
