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Ask HN: Was anyone working at Apple during Steve Jobs' return in 1997?

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Re: Ask HN: Was anyone working at Apple during Steve Jobs' return in 1997?

#261

Post by MaintenanceMode »

flutas wrote: post #234
MaintenanceMode wrote: post #91

I was there in 1999 as OS X was being developed, and the beta was just about to be released. I was building another product that was released at MacWorld in 2000 (and still exists today)! I have a lot of funny stories. Steve didn't like our data center rack mounts being silver, we had to pull them all out and spray paint them black, because silver just wasn't acceptable, in a datacenter. That was my first day at work…

Now I’m actually curious what the errors where that never got noticed. I’m sure the keynotes today will never have an error again, save a media server dying mid transcode and even then I’d expect there to be backups.

Jobs was a believer in the live demo. So when he was demoing a new product, the app actually crashed mid demo. He was so seamless in his delivery, it was like the audience was hypnotized.

Re: Ask HN: Was anyone working at Apple during Steve Jobs' return in 1997?

#262

Post by hn_go_brrrrr »

jimt1234 wrote: post #80
baby wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you look at in engineering culture?

I had a friend interview at "Big Nameless Corp" a few years ago. He said when he saw that the engineers interviewing him all had Windows laptops, he knew immediately it wasn't an engineer-friendly culture. I always thought that was funny.

I work at a BigCorp. A sister team develops client software for Windows. Can you guess what kind of laptops the engineers have?

Re: Ask HN: Was anyone working at Apple during Steve Jobs' return in 1997?

#263

Post by quickthrower2 »

kccqzy wrote: post #249
m463 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember finding out some companies had SO many VPs. how can you have that many VPs? isn't it like making everyone a senior engineer?

At my current job between the CEO and me the reporting chain had one SVP and three VPs.

Vice President right? Weird naming considering it makes it sound like there should be 1 and they are in position #2 of all people.

Re: Ask HN: Was anyone working at Apple during Steve Jobs' return in 1997?

#264

Post by quickthrower2 »

n4bz0r wrote: post #46
baby wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you look at in engineering culture?

I would assume there is no one thing to put a finger on. But there are some signs one can take a note of. Generally speaking, to name a few: - The ability and willingness of the management to invest time and resources into development of proper work processes and infrustructure (imagine having to code without version control in a team) - Understanding that things aren't always done the moment they appear to be done -…

If people have to enter time spent into any system then thats an no from me. Which means I cannot work for consulting companies :-).

Re: Ask HN: Was anyone working at Apple during Steve Jobs' return in 1997?

#265

Post by jordanbeiber »

brhsagain wrote: post #244
mradek wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish companies would be run in a way that removes insane leveling completely. In my current company there are 7 or 8 levels (depending how you look at it) for ICs. Why? IME it has led to so much “talk” and bloat, and useless meetings led by people trying to prove something who go on and on about things that make no sense. No execution, only flattery and BS. IMO, the only levels you need should be Software Engineer,…

I agree with you that promo culture is pretty much the root of modern big company rot, but under your system, how do you propose an industrious, ambitious IC move up, whatever that means? Even if you think the status is fake and dumb (and I would agree), how do you make more money as an IC?

Exactly - what does it mean?

You work on stimulating things and get paid what you accept.

You’ll have a yearly review where you have your say, and pay can be increased if employer think it’s worth it.

Titles are problematic in teams working to produce good stuff!

We should compare ourselves to athletes more than the MBA powerpoint version of a company.

I hear Tom Brady is a legend - is he an S10 quarterback? Senior quarterback? Or just a quarterback with high a salary based on performance?

I believe levels are instruments for managers not employees.

Re: Ask HN: Was anyone working at Apple during Steve Jobs' return in 1997?

#266

Post by mradek »

brhsagain wrote: post #244
mradek wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish companies would be run in a way that removes insane leveling completely. In my current company there are 7 or 8 levels (depending how you look at it) for ICs. Why? IME it has led to so much “talk” and bloat, and useless meetings led by people trying to prove something who go on and on about things that make no sense. No execution, only flattery and BS. IMO, the only levels you need should be Software Engineer,…

I agree with you that promo culture is pretty much the root of modern big company rot, but under your system, how do you propose an industrious, ambitious IC move up, whatever that means? Even if you think the status is fake and dumb (and I would agree), how do you make more money as an IC?

Impact? Someone could be an amazing mentor and mediocre at actual output, but their impact could lead to a bunch of people being able to stay leveled up and think more efficiently that lets the team ship more with less bugs. Maybe there’s a senior engineer who can consistently crank out high quality code and identify optimizations that save money.

Some sort of holistic 360 reviews by peers where others can vouch for you could work. What’s the big deal with having one senior paid 180k and another 350k if their impacts are considerably different? I have personally dealt with BS like “we can’t promote you rn but also can’t give you a raise because you’re at the upper limit of your salary band”. That’s not fair, imo.

Re: Ask HN: Was anyone working at Apple during Steve Jobs' return in 1997?

#267

Post by nostrebored »

jordanbeiber wrote: post #265
brhsagain wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you that promo culture is pretty much the root of modern big company rot, but under your system, how do you propose an industrious, ambitious IC move up, whatever that means? Even if you think the status is fake and dumb (and I would agree), how do you make more money as an IC?

Exactly - what does it mean? You work on stimulating things and get paid what you accept. You’ll have a yearly review where you have your say, and pay can be increased if employer think it’s worth it. Titles are problematic in teams working to produce good stuff! We should compare ourselves to athletes more than the MBA powerpoint version of a company. I hear Tom Brady is a legend - is he an S10 quarterback? Senior q…

Everyone who cares about Brady is watching him and knows how he is performing. This is not true of engineers.

Re: Ask HN: Was anyone working at Apple during Steve Jobs' return in 1997?

#268

Post by aliqot »

diskzero wrote: post #171
E39M5S62 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a PowerPC Mac in ~1998 and I put BeOS R4.5 on it. What a HUGE change from MacOS ... I couldn't believe a computer could actually act and respond like that! I jumped ship to Intel hardware to stick with BeOS. I'm very curious what you worked on at Be - the development team wasn't that large, was it?

The development team was very small. I worked on audio mixing code, capturing video encoded from Bt848 cards, audio and video codecs, anything related to audio and video timing. Several great programmers were there and continue to do amazing things at other companies big and small. I ended up working with many of them at Apple. At some point, it seems many had to choose between Google or Apple.

Thank you for your service

Re: Ask HN: Was anyone working at Apple during Steve Jobs' return in 1997?

#269

Post by pjmlp »

seabrookmx wrote: post #240
cloudking wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well he did cut Stadia, which had a sizable team working on it.

The fact that Stadia even launched was a failure. The most basic of market research would tell you that in gaming, content is king. And with Google's track record of cancelling products, nobody would trust what they offered even if it was vastly technically superior.

Not only content, go check GDC talks from Google.

While other platform vendors have technical stuff, some of it deep dives into their technology stack, Google's ones are mostly about Play Store, KPIs, and when technical, very superficial, where a blog post would be enough.

How can a studio thrust such company into having what it matters to launch a AAA tile, while being asked to rewrite for their platform.

Re: Ask HN: Was anyone working at Apple during Steve Jobs' return in 1997?

#270

Post by cma »

hot_gril wrote: post #174
cma wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kids even use TikTok as an alternative to Google searches for knowledge Is that why Google search heavily forces tons of Youtube results to the top now even when it is barely relevant?

Maybe not cause of TikTok directly but because subtitled videos in general are an easier format on a phone compared to scrolling around search results and dealing with 2-5 popups (including the cookies agreement) on every site. Web browsing is much easier on a PC, but that's the minority use case.

> compared to scrolling around search results and dealing with 2-5 popups

Queue the four minute youtube ad.

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