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I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

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Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#251

Post by gkanapathy »

throwaway6497 wrote: post #107
nostrademons wrote: post #14

One of my friends used to work at Apple. After one particular grueling stint of 14+ hour days, management decided to give them a thank-you. In the form of vouchers. For frozen dinners. Meanwhile, all of his friends worked for Google, we got gourmet food every meal of the week as a standard perk, and we were usually home by 8 or 9 PM rather than midnight. It's sorta like "Your 'thank you' is really more like a giant '…

With this negative image among developers in the Valley, how is Apple able to attract top quality engineers? They probably are not. Anecdotally, I still haven't met one single engineer who would love to work for Apple though they love using Apple products. Apple is not even on the list of all top graduating kids who wants a job in top valley firms (Google, FB, Dropbox, Twitter, AirBnB, Uber, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Quor…

I think designers and marketers still aspire to work at Apple.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#252

Post by yuhong »

brianpgordon wrote: post #94
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.

I've heard that Apple is notorious for discouraging employees from having tech-oriented blogs.

Yea, I want a Mac version of The Old New Thing.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#254

Post by serve_yay »

sudioStudio64 wrote: post #185

I think that it should be pointed out that Apple doesn't have "values". The idea that apple has "values" that it "preaches" is just wrong. That is called marketing. It's funny that people are shocked by this. This is what businesses do and it makes the weird partisanship that forms around them seem mad.

No, they have values alright. They may not be what you think they should be, or what I think they should be, but.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#255

Post by Scramblejams »

exelius wrote: post #84
codezero wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you, by chance, have a list of those exceptional cases? I'd love to learn more! edit: thanks everyone for these replies they're great, keep them coming!

Apple is actually probably the best example of a company taking a cost center (in this case, manufacturing and logistics) and turning it into a strategic advantage. Apple wields its supply chain like a weapon. It's very difficult to compete with Apple because the world has a limited supply of high-quality parts (flash memory, LCD screens, etc.), and Apple can just outbid everyone else for the entire market supply for…

I remember reading an article about eMachines' turnaround. It said they put their customer support and product development teams together and tried to take every customer problem and turn it, wherever possible, into a product improvement to eliminate the given problem.

They gave this concept a lot of credit for turning themselves around from being a bottom of the barrel PC vendor to becoming a retail powerhouse in the early 2000s, before they were acquired by Gateway.

This isn't what I originally read, but there's an interesting publication here on the subject: http://www.pcic.merage.uci.edu/papers/2004/eMachines.pdf

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#256

Post by panic »

throwaway6497 wrote: post #107
nostrademons wrote: post #14

One of my friends used to work at Apple. After one particular grueling stint of 14+ hour days, management decided to give them a thank-you. In the form of vouchers. For frozen dinners. Meanwhile, all of his friends worked for Google, we got gourmet food every meal of the week as a standard perk, and we were usually home by 8 or 9 PM rather than midnight. It's sorta like "Your 'thank you' is really more like a giant '…

With this negative image among developers in the Valley, how is Apple able to attract top quality engineers? They probably are not. Anecdotally, I still haven't met one single engineer who would love to work for Apple though they love using Apple products. Apple is not even on the list of all top graduating kids who wants a job in top valley firms (Google, FB, Dropbox, Twitter, AirBnB, Uber, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Quor…

You only hear the negative stories because of Apple's culture of secrecy. Writing publicly about the company is a big no-no.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#257

Post by cma »

shostack wrote: post #244
smenko wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this supposed to be ironic?? Given, you know, the original poster's grievances.... Support Heroes?.. No?

Not at all ironic. OP was posting about how customer support is a cost center, amongst other claims. He stated that it is like this in any company. I completely disagree and have experienced the proof of that first hand. I'm a little unclear from how you worded things--was the question around the notion of firing people as heroic juxtaposed against what we call our support team (ie. Heroes)?

I think by OP he confusingly meant the person in the article, not the post at the top of the thread. Support hero's would be an ironic concept in relation to that.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#258

Post by [deleted] »

wpietri wrote: post #216
jessriedel wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept isn't normative and it definitely is meaningful. Another way to describe cost centers is that their benefit is very hard to measure but their cost easy to measure. People know that in the limit of non-existence, the company can't survive without it, so customer support has to exist. But as long as money is used to support them with no easily measurable benefit, it will always experience strong downward pr…

All of western accounting, including the cost-reduction mindset, is artificial. It just happens to be the dominant paradigm, so many people mistake it for some sort of universal truth. If you look at the Lean Manufacturing folks, they have their own notions of accounting. They think the mantra of, "increase revenues, reduce costs" is stupid. For them, it's "increase value, reduce waste". A simple example: you make ha…

[deleted]

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#259

Post by ZenoArrow »

api wrote: post #208
ZenoArrow wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article?

Yes. I think you missed my point. They are the kings of design and UX. It disturbs me that their culture is this totalitarian and dysfunctional, but it doesn't surprise me in the least.

Why doesn't it surprise you in the least?
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