Apple is so obsessed with secrecy, it sometimes puts new hires on fake products until they can be trusted.

Adam Lashinsky reported this tidbit in his new book "Inside Apple," and a former Apple employee confirmed it when Lashinsky spoke at LinkedIn the other day.

Here's what the engineer said:

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 employee also believes that Tim Cook has the charisma to be president. Not the president of Apple -- the president of the United States.

The exchange was captured on video by Fortune's Philip Elmer DeWitt, and pointed out by Jim Romenesko earlier today.

Here it is: