I Quit: What really goes on at Apple • Hacker News Board

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#231

Post by michaelt » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 9:57 PM UTC

thirdtruck wrote: post #149

bbcbasic wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes the silver fox is IT's best kept secret.

What's a "Silver Fox" in this context?

I assume that refers to this bit:

  Based on this, I have to conclude that most good 
  engineers@Apple are candidates who have a tenure of 
  more than 15 years and are aging.

With "silver" meaning grey hair and "fox" meaning clever.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#232

Post by Apocryphon » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 9:58 PM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #25

FD3SA wrote: post #7

Another perfect data point to add to Michael O`Church`s excellent series on the politics and psychology of the modern corporation. For you starry eyed youngsters, just remember that this is Apple, the world`s most profitable company. It only gets worse as you go down the list. Work for yourself. Consulting, the trades and any type of work you can do independently is far superior to dealing with wannabe Machiavellians…

For you starry eyed youngsters, just remember that this is Apple, the world`s most profitable company. It only gets worse as you go down the list. I wouldn't go that far. I mean, quite a large number of organizations are dysfunctional, but the mean-spiritedness and overt psychopathy described by the OP is fairly rare, even in Corporate America. From his description I'd guess that Apple is worse than 95% of places whe…

It's a huge corporation with a huge amount of variance. But it seems that Apple, at its worst, is worse than other firms at their worst. And that's something related to the corporate culture.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#233

Post by endtime » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 9:58 PM UTC

johnward wrote: post #115

sdab wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I worked there, it was 12pm-8pm. My friends who work there now do the same. We just get to make our own hours and being in my twenties, I like sleeping in.

I find this interesting. How do people collaborate? Did most of your team work the same hours? Do you just schedule meetings from noon-4? I would personally hate that schedule as someone with a family.

My team mostly works similar hours to me (1-9, as I said elsewhere) but my previous team was more nine-to-fivey. We just had meetings after lunch, it wasn't a big deal. A couple folks on the team had kids and left every day at 5:00, and I did their code reviews in the evenings (so they were ready waiting when they came in the next day), and they did mine in the mornings, and it worked fine.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#234

Post by archagon » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 10:01 PM UTC

underbluewaters wrote: post #195

archagon wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting aside for the moment the illegality of collusion, I appreciate your take, and I think it's important to always try to see things from the other side, even if it stands against everything you believe in. With that said, isn't the obvious solution to just raise everyone's salaries? Also, the explanation only reinforces the idea that these executives view their employees as chips to be bartered, not free agents.

How does raising salaries change the situation? All the other party has to do is raise the offer another 10k. There are enormous costs associated with loosing a valued employee, but naturally very little cost for the employee to move.

dragonwriter above offers a more informed solution: "But if a company wants to restrict 'poaching' of its employees unilaterally, it can just offer them defined-term personal services contracts with suitable compensation."

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#235

Post by serve_yay » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 10:03 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #217

serve_yay wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To even use the phrase "poaching" is to give too much to the devil. It implies that a person "belongs" at a certain organization, as opposed to being a self-interested economic actor, and that there is something incorrect or dirty or unethical or wrong about leaving where they work to work somewhere else.

The free market is only for the billionaires. You are just some resource to be exploited and expended.

Sadly true. But what's worse is, look at who I'm replying to - not a group of CEOs or other billionaires, I reckon. Even the people who get screwed by this kind of shit agree with the reasoning behind it, for some reason.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#236

Post by nathanvanfleet » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 10:03 PM UTC

archagon wrote: post #69

In "Becoming Steve Jobs", Tim Cook says the following in regards to Apple's collusion scandal: "I know where Steve's head was. He wasn't doing anything to hold down salaries; it never came up. He had a simple objective: if we were working together on something, like with Intel, where we threw everything in the middle of the table and said, 'let's convert the Mac to the Intel processor', well, when we did that, we did…

But even the Tim Cook statement is the exact same tone as Ed Catmull. At first "protect his employees" sounds like it's as if he's protecting chess pieces from being killed in battle. But really what it boils down to is him protecting his employees from becoming employees at another company, from getting opportunities outside of Apple. Which is essentially him keeping assets to himself.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#237

Post by amyjess » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 10:04 PM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #137

javawizard wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about future time off? I'd happily work 60 hour weeks for $1,000,000/year, then retire after 5 years.

Those type of jobs do exist. People working insane hours for about 5 years then cashing out. A lot of people say they would do it, but I wonder how many would survive that type of grind.

I've heard similar stories from people who work on oil platforms.

Forgot the exact numbers, but it's something like six months you live there and work most of your waking hours, then six months vacation, and the pay is stupid high (and living on the platform while you work there means you have almost no personal expenses during that time).

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#238

Post by nathanvanfleet » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 10:04 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #45

The culture of silence between Apple and the public extends to more than just upcoming products. Has anyone noticed that there aren't as many Apple employees participating in tech conferences, hackathons, public presentations? Even for subjects unrelated to their work? Definitely fewer than Google/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft employees.

They go, but they don't always identify themselves. Because of their corporate culture. Which isn't great mind you.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#239

Post by rodgerd » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 10:05 PM UTC

serve_yay wrote: post #214

Retric wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An air traffic controller messes up and they risk hundreds of lives and 100's of millions of dollars in property. That's a high high-pressure workplace, Tech is just a combination of greed and poor managment.

Ehhh. Zooming out this far just makes the phrase meaningless in the context of tech, which seems counterproductive since as you may have noticed we tend to discuss tech around here.

Fine. Writing air traffic control systems is tech, and is pressure.

The difference is artificial pressure driven by concerns like "I will look bad to my boss" or "or EPS might dip a fraction of a present", as opposed to "people will die".

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#240

Post by gknoy » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 10:05 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #204

kbenson wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sonic.net, in the ISP market. They spend quite a bit on customer support, and use it, where they can (locally, mostly) as a feature. Back in the day when they were reselling AT&T DSL (which they are doing again, I hear), it was a big bonus to get AT&T DSL at the same price, but not have to deal with AT&T almost ever. Let a third party deal with that and provide better service for the same cost. Win. Full Disclosure:…

I've never worked at Sonic, but I'll give you a hearty amen as a customer for several years. When I try to get friends to switch from Comcast, all I hear is, "But it costs more!" To which I say, "However, it actually works. And when it doesn't, you can talk to somebody smart." Not having to fuck around is worth cash money to me. Customer service isn't a cost center. It's a value creator.

I realize it's a little bit comical to consider customer service so highly, but I have had __consistently__ excellent support from Sonic.net, and have been a very happy customer ever since literally the first day it was installed.

I have similar probably-irrationally-high opinions of In-N-Out Burger's operations.

I've had such excellent service for so many years that even when I have an objectively __terrible__ experience [0], I end up writing it completely off as a fluke, or an inexperienced or frazzled employee. I actually reflected on this the last time it happened, and even recognizing this I still think highly of their service.

They get customer service so right in so many directions that I almost feel bad exposing the rare instances that my visit hasn't been flawless.

0: Last week, in the same visit to the drive-through: "No, I didn't order those [3] shakes. I actually ordered two fries." They eventually got me the right things, and my burgers were right, but I've had that wrong too before. Almost never.