Live data from Hacker News

Apple Execs on Facebook (2011)

techemails.com

101–110 of 143 posts

Re: Apple Execs on Facebook (2011)

#101

I’m kind of curious how this shook out at the time and then evolved to what the experience is today. That’s kind of missing from just the emails. Also, aren’t these emails normally deleted with very short retention? How are they showing up in court cases a decade later.

If a person is involved in a court case, they are under document retention and can’t delete anything. All Apple’s execs are likely always under document retention.

I was at Apple, and tons of people were under document retention. Individual contributors too.

Re: Apple Execs on Facebook (2011)

#102
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It should be illegal when it's causing harm to competition and it totally does Banning being mean to your competition, that's a first.

Read what competition law is about. It's not simply about absolute monopoly which is an extreme edge case. It's about harm to competition. Anti-competitive practices totally should be illegal.

> Read what competition law is about

OK

> Anti-competitive practices totally should be illegal

So are there competition laws that make it illegal, or do you wish there were? Are you asking for enforcement? Or are you just hoping for change?

Re: Apple Execs on Facebook (2011)

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they don't. Source: the entire archive of Internal Tech Emails.

Those are not the people at that level.

CEOs at the biggest companies in the world are not “in that level”?

You should read them, they are very, very interesting.

Re: Apple Execs on Facebook (2011)

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure I don’t disagree. My point was that the quote isn’t “proof.”

The thing I took away from this exchange was the total lack of discussion about what’s in the end user’s best interest. What’s best for the user’s experience? It’s all “We want this” and “Facebook wants that” and the end user is just a bystander. Nobody cares what we think or want. For all these companies’ marketing-talk about how they care so much about the end user experience, the executives don’t seem all that int…

Do you not think that this would already have been discussed when the policy under discussion was first developed? The rationale for the policy - whatever it is - would have been determined well before this problem arose. There would be no need for these people, who would have been central to those policies, to rehash their reasons in these emails. They already know all the arguments.

Re: Apple Execs on Facebook (2011)

#105

And this is why FB has invested billions in the Metaverse, so they are not at the mercy of a capricious platform. This thread brings me back the salad days where FB sought to facilitate an ecosystem on their social graph.

This is what nobody sees - they have a thriving marketplace of ads that rivals Google and they did not need to start a hardware business to get it. But they want too and so far it seems they'll burn everything to find their niche in hardware.

They are their own platform.

Re: Apple Execs on Facebook (2011)

#106
post #66
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've developed a sort of polite code that stands in for more precise/honest wording they would use in person. Execs understand the discoverable nature of email.

I'm not an exec, but I've worked with people that make millions in big tech. You just don't get there unless you are fantastically competent at what you do. Pettiness and immaturity really just is an inefficiency that nobody wants to deal with at that level. When the decisions you are making are measured in the 10s to 100s of millions then nobody else will tolerate a second of your emotions. You'll quickly find yours…

> Pettiness and immaturity really just is an inefficiency that nobody wants to deal with at that level.

I've seen a lot of docs and written a bunch of docs for higher ups in one of the FAANG companies (one of my docs made it's way to the CEO level). The advice I heard often in reviews was "no weasel words" and "don't interpret the data - assume your audience is smart enough to understand the implications."

One interesting thing that stood out to me is that the lower levels tended to review exactly what was written in the docs while reviews at the VP and SVP level read the docs and used them as launch pads for discussion - it never stuck to the content in the doc. This is likely there's another reason to not inject pettiness in that it doesn't just get in the way of consuming the information, but gets in the way of having the larger discussion that everyone is interested in.

Re: Apple Execs on Facebook (2011)

#107
post #12

This might not be a popular view here, but I'm surprised how professional they are in these exchanges. I would expect a much more visceral discussion on how the other party is trying to bypass paying them, how they can get more money the other way, etc.

I'm too young to say this with a straight face, but I'll say it regardless: I miss when writing communiques was considered an art in its own right. You were measured socially by how eloquently you wrote letters and missives.

It has become a lost art in the age of email and subsequently texting and instant messaging.

Re: Apple Execs on Facebook (2011)

#108
post #12

This might not be a popular view here, but I'm surprised how professional they are in these exchanges. I would expect a much more visceral discussion on how the other party is trying to bypass paying them, how they can get more money the other way, etc.

> All these apps won't be native, they won't have a relationship or license with us, we won't review them, they won't use our APIs or tools, they won't use our stores, etc.

I read this as code for letting business through without paying vig. It's couched nicely in case it comes out in discovery (hey! it did!), but "license" (leverage), "review" (leverage), "APIs" (stickiness), "stores" (30% of sales) - it's a string of words about control and money making.

Re: Apple Execs on Facebook (2011)

#109
post #2

> So, for example If Adobe comes in with an app that links to new web apps that they promote we need to allow that "app store" in, even worse Google could come up with an app that runs all their 3rd party Chrome web apps and we would need to allow that in too! I don't see why we want to do that. All these apps won't be native, they won't have a relationship or license with us, we won't review them, they won't use our…

The thing that surprised me the most is there’s no mention of what makes a better product for the user. It’s all business strategy and scheming to build a silo. I hope regulators obliterate the platform owners.

But then they'd also have to obliterate Microsoft, Google, and who knows what else. This won't happen.

Re: Apple Execs on Facebook (2011)

#110
post #12

This might not be a popular view here, but I'm surprised how professional they are in these exchanges. I would expect a much more visceral discussion on how the other party is trying to bypass paying them, how they can get more money the other way, etc.

> I would expect a much more visceral discussion

Is this influenced by the Balmer interview about the iPhone and how he scoffs at it?

Post reply on HN