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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

#391

Post by mikeash »

clarky07 wrote: post #306
vacri wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very hard to make conclusions for the whole company from such a small sample. Statistically speaking, an n of 100 is a reasonably decent sample of 5000 data points. It seems to me that you're looking for excuses, as if this concept of 'dry-run' meetings only happens to be within the author's "hundred-person bubble".

as noted elsewhere, apple actually employs over 90,000 people. it's less significant in that scope. Also, while I have no doubt his experience sucked, he was also in customer service as opposed to being a developer/engineer. I suspect those areas differ somewhat. (Not suggesting it's ok at all, just that it may not be completely representative of the entire company)

Actually, the size of the population as a whole is nearly irrelevant when considering the significance of a particular sample size. 100 people has just about the same significance for a population of 1000 as it does for a population of 1 billion.

That said, since the people he met certainly weren't randomly selected, it'll be a heavily biased sample.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#392

Post by mikeash »

api wrote: post #120

Apple has built one of the most successful businesses in the world on mostly one thing: design. (And user experience, which is design more broadly applied.) Undortunately, it seems to me that good design requires totalitarianism. Apple's products are comparatively coherent, clean, unified, and aesthetically pleasing. This is achieved via a culture of totalitarianism that extends all the way down to the device. OSX ha…

Apple happens to have good design and happens to be totalitarian, but I don't think the one comes from the other. Apple used to be a lot less awful in this respect, but their design and usability was still great (arguably better than today).

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#393

Post by a8da6b0c91d »

noonespecial wrote: post #305
exelius wrote: post #24

But... 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…

I think people need to remember that Apple is a tiny, tiny innovative core surrounded by a huge bog-standard "big-corp" full of the same chimps from the Career Builder commercials that all big-corps have. If you're not part of that tiny core, you just work at Office Space.

Apple has a horrible reputation as a work place that seems to span all layers. Look up online employer reviews. I have a friend who was employed there doing iphone interface design (as I understand it) and he only lasted a year. He said the place was full of insufferable egomaniacs.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#394

Post by cmrdporcupine »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #110
MrNobody wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my understanding Apple effectively owns your entire output when you're employed full-time (at least as an engineer). At a recent interview I mentioned I like tinkering with code on the side and was told I'd have to give that up and stop contributing to open source. I imagine that extends to participation in the "outside world" at least to some extent. The fact that Apple developers I've spoken to spend their per…

From my understanding, it's effectively impossible for Apple employees to have any apps listed in the App Store through personal accounts. Which, no doubt, accounts for a lot of the reason why the Xcode -> iTunes Connect -> App Store experience is so miserable.

But both of these things also apply to Google employees without special permission to 'moonlight.' And yes, it's possible to get it, and people do, but it's going to be scrutinized.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#395

Post by greenyoda »

cookiecaper wrote: post #248
archagon wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Employees don't want that. The terms of the current relationship are centered around the employee's desire for continuity and stability. Most employees do not want to be tied down to the company in a binding fixed-term commitment; how much worse would things be if people weren't free to pursue other employment whenever they wanted? How much more abuse would employees suffer if they didn't have the option of walking o…

"Employees don't want that."

It depends on the terms of the contract. If a company offered me a three-year contract for more than I thought I could earn anywhere else over the next three years (e.g., $500K per year), why shouldn't I take the opportunity?

The contract would need to spell out working conditions, of course. For $500K, I wouldn't lock myself into an obligation to work 60-hour weeks for three years straight. My health and sanity are worth more to me than that.

Some of the highest-paid workers in our society lock themselves into contracts: professional athletes, movie stars, etc. Would you want to start filming a high-budget movie if your leading actor could walk off the job at any time?

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#396

Post by ChuckMcM »

May I suggest that when you leave a place, and it was not a positive experience, you look back on that experience, try to learn from what you experienced and generally deal with the emotional trauma of trying to fit in, in a place where you do not fit. Ben Farrell writes in his blog ...

"Road Less Travelled is authored by Ben Farrell, (online alias ‘nomadic_rambler’) – Freelance Writer & Photographer – That’s me!"

When I read that I thought to myself, this guy has so much passion and enthusiasm for understanding the world, it is a shame he took a job at a company that is as intensely focused as Apple is.

This is the money quote for me, "Finally now, for the first time in two years, I feel light, creative and inspired. I am again an individual with my own creative ideas, perceptions, values and beliefs. It may take me a while, but from what I believe – I’m now able to express such beliefs again." I really admire Ben for sticking it out for two years. The key here is that Ben was always the individual with ideas, perceptions, values and beliefs, and it sounds like that was not what Apple was looking for in this position. I've seen it time and again where someone races home after work to play in their garage band or rebuild an engine or practice some other art. And if there peers at work are staying late to work on something they believe in at the office, well that is a recipe for a problem.

I also think that if you find yourself in the situation of finally unwinding what turned out to be a painful choice in your life, its probably not the best thing to blog about it on the same day you take action on your future :-)

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#397

Post by nostrademons »

mark-r wrote: post #295
johnward wrote: post #93

Earlier 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.

The "not related to your employer's line of business" is the tricky clause. With a large diversified tech conglomerate like IBM, Apple, or Google, they could conceivably argue that anything tech-related was in their line of business. They may not win, but you don't really want to fight one of their legal teams in court, and so it had a chilling effect regardless.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#398

Post by kziojzwsndppqgg »

Apocryphon wrote: post #245
kziojzwsndppqgg wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, as an Apple employee I have no idea what the hell he's talking about. I've worked here 4 years and I absolutely love. my. job. I take days off to work from home whenever I feel like it. We drink at the office on occasion. I'm never harassed for not being constantly online. I don't have endless meetings. I'm constantly praised for the work I do, I get great reviews, with large bonuses. My impression from reading…

It's a big company, and there will certainly be diversity in experiences. But he's not the first person to talk about such situations: http://oleb.net/blog/2014/09/work-habits-at-apple/ ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8389238 ) It does happen.

I'm not really sure that article even paints Apple in a bad light. Yeah, it talks about how much you work hard, but even just listen to them:

> I mean, it’s not that it’s not fun, it’s not that it’s not fulfilling, it’s not that you don’t get to work around all these brilliant people. The bad side effect is they’re all, like, workaholic, psychotic brilliant people.

For me, one of the best things in life is the opportunity to work hard at work worth doing. Apple gives me that, and I feel extremely fortunate.

I've been at jobs where the stress is very low and I had time to browse the internet at all hours and didn't have much expected of me. This is 100% the opposite of that, and I'm happier now than I ever was then. It's been 4 years and I've never had anything close to burn-out, because I've never felt that the work wasn't "worth it". (To me, burn out is a result of feeling like you're not getting anywhere, and that just plain isn't the case at a company where we consistently ship things with huge scopes, on time and to resounding success.)

Yeah, there's exec demos, and yeah there's dry-run meetings for them, but you know what? The execs here are fucking smart. Every meeting I've had with execs has left me awestruck at the level with which someone can be simultaneously so big-picture oriented while still being able to sweat little details. There's a reason they got to where they are, and I really feel that at Apple it's a true meritocracy.

It sounds like it's even harder work if you're in the direct email line-of-sight of an exec (which I am not), and I feel for the authors of your linked post about how hard that must be, but to me that comes with the territory of being so close to the success or failure of a product that you are under that kind of scrutiny. What else would you expect?

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#399

Post by storgendibal »

clarky07 wrote: post #367
storgendibal wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you don't get it. The point is that is working insane hours worth the hourly wage you get in finance.

well it doesn't help your (or their) point when they underestimate the hourly wage by an order of magnitude.

I don't disagree. The point was directionally correct, mathematically inaccurate.

Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple

#400

Post by Zisko »

kziojzwsndppqgg wrote: post #189
francoisdevlin wrote: post #8

Is this for real? Can anyone else corroborate this?

FWIW, as an Apple employee I have no idea what the hell he's talking about. I've worked here 4 years and I absolutely love. my. job. I take days off to work from home whenever I feel like it. We drink at the office on occasion. I'm never harassed for not being constantly online. I don't have endless meetings. I'm constantly praised for the work I do, I get great reviews, with large bonuses. My impression from reading…

Hi! I start at Apple soon, and all of this makes me nervous. Can you email me? email: the[myusername]@gmail.com
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