He missed a big chance not titling the article "iQuit".
That bit about missing time to take care of his pregnant wife is pretty horrible.
I Quit: What really goes on at Apple
311–320 of 566 posts
Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple
#312Earlier 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…
That was a great read, thank you.
Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple
#313As others have pointed out, life in a cost center is very tough. People turn to infighting because it's hard to use revenue as an arbiter. Apple doesn't venerate customer support. Apple celebrates the designers and engineers. It would be more interesting if this article came from there.
Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
IBM had us sign something that said we couldn't work on outside projects without permission. It seems like it's not that difficult to get permission. Most people just ignore it. When we got notice of the acquisition a group of devs had a lawyer come in and from what I hear the lawyer basically said "don't sign this if you want to do anything outside of work ever". I just thought this was common for these megacorps. I…
Check out California code 2870 which basically says anything you work on at home, on your own time, using your own equipment, and not related to your employers line of business, is yours. The company can still fire you for your side business though.
When checking out California Labor Code section 2870, also remember to check out California Labor Code section 2871, which expressly states that the restriction in 2870 does not limit the employer's right to require the employee to provide confidential disclosure of inventions during the employee's term of employment, and also to require a review process by the employer to "determine such issues as may arise" related to the disclosed inventions.
Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't downvote either of you, but I didn't respond to either of your comments because they miss the point of mine. Yes, Samsung's been making phones forever. They have not been making smartphones forever. The iPhone was a fundamentally different product category from what phone manufacturers were doing before, requiring that competitors scrap a lot of what they were doing before [1]. And Samsung had a big leg-up i…
There were so many smartphones before the iPhone, the main thing that Apple added was touch, which allowed them to have full screens. Not like it wasn't going that way anyway, LG prototyped a phone like that a year before the iphone came out.
Not even that. Sony Ericsson P800 had a touch screen, apps, multitasking (with automatic termination of background tasks, just like Android and iOS) - in 2002! This was using Symbian and their UIQ interface (now dead).
Apple did introduce capacitive touch screens though, as far as I know, getting rid of the stylus. And they had a very attractive UI at launch. But not much was really new.
Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
That quote is so nuts! He didn't think for a minute he was doing anything wrong. That's supposed to make me feel better ? I agree with you, the way these rich people look at employees as chess pieces rather than humans is awful. If you're so afraid of someone quitting, then address that by making it worth their while not to quit! Not with collusion for god's sake. The fact that they call someone getting a better job…
The optimal arrangement for both companies is no poaching. As soon as someone pulls the trigger and starts poaching it gets exponentially more expensive for these companies to operate. This is the Prisoner's Dilemma, plain and simple.
Sure, it is the optimal arrangement for both companies. It's also illegal because it is patently unfair to the majority of the people involved.
I can understand why large company CEOs would want to do this. I can even empathize with them and imagine myself wanting to this were I in their situation. I can also see how this affects employees, though, and why employers shouldn't be allowed to do so.
Either way, it would surprise me if people who are otherwise happy at their company would randomly switch to a partner company unless either: a) the salary offered were significantly (>30% or so) higher than at their current company for similar work in similar conditions (meaning they are undervalued or undercompensated at their current company), b) the other company looked much more promising a place to work for or offered a much better position (in terms of autonomy or career advancement). Pretty sure the solution there is just to compensate your employees fairly and make their work conditions on par with the standard for similar workers in the industry (or better, if possible).
Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple
#317One 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…
> With this negative image among developers in the Valley, how is Apple able to attract top quality engineers? They probably are not.
I met several current and former Apple employees. Many of them are extremely talented.
Based on my anecdotal experience, that doesn't show Apple has any problem attracting top quality engineers.
Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple
#318Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple
#319But... the author worked in customer support, managing agents. Customer support in any company is like this: it's full of bobblehead managers who make work to justify their own jobs. It's a cost center, and cost centers are where you put executives who are capable, but not exceptional. This is why OP has stories about how firing people was considered heroic -- when you work in a cost center, the only thing the busine…
You are painting with an overly broad brush. Where I work, our Support Heroes (yes, we call them Heroes because the lengths they go to for our customers are heroic) are one of the main reasons so many of our customers love us and stick with us so long. You've probably heard that it can cost ~5x more to acquire a new customer than retain an existing one. An exceptional Customer Support team is your front line in fight…
> Where I work, our Support Heroes
Smugmug?
Smugmug's support staff is great. There is a huge difference when dealing with regular customer support, and customer support that goes above and beyond to provide exceptional service.
Smugmug Crutchfield Dreamhost Nordstrom All provide great, consistent support.
Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Actually, it gets better. That's the dirty little secret that I never knew about. Investment banking used to have insane hours (100+ basically on call all the time). The idea was that after 4-5 years you leave for a buy-side gig (hedge funds, private equity) that pay you the same or more ($1-5M in your early to mid-30s) but with more reasonable hours. This is why the smartest CS/Math/EE/Physics grads from MIT etc wen…
> And all I have to show for it is stock that increased a little bit.
Oh lucky guy. I've heard enough of these stories without even that. But startups are highly voluntary so I take that relatively lightly compared to corporate responsibility of Apple et al.