Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

Post by rhino369 » Sun, Jun 07, 2015, 7:41 PM UTC

gumby wrote: post #42

bomanbot wrote: post #19

Maybe another reason why Apple spawned comparatively few startups might be that some of the areas of expertise for Apple and their employees are harder to do in startup-sized companies; namely hardware engineering and mass manufacturing innovation. Apple does a lot of work in hardware and hardware manufacturing, both areas which are pretty capital-intensive and might not lead themselves as easily to the startup world…

> ...harder to do in startup-sized companies; namely hardware engineering and mass manufacturing innovation. Don't forget all the hardware companies you know today were once startups. Yes there's a current fashion to call companies that are basically small businesses "startups", but the term encompasses a far more profound class of enterprise. And Apple itself was founded by an engineer (Woz) who first got his start…

Post by TylerE » Sun, Jun 07, 2015, 7:43 PM UTC

javier2 wrote: post #57

jsjohnst wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've a number of friends on various teams, from WebKit, to iOS, to datacenter folks, to various app teams, and hardware teams and not one has ever consistently worked a 40hr work week. Most are easily averaging 50-60, with spurts close to or over 100 before launches. Consistently the message I've heard is people are expected to "work till its ready", so I'm not sure where you'd have heard this about Apple.

How do people do that? I'm fairly new in the game, but right after Christmas I had to work 3 weeks, about 70 hours each in a row. I was _exhausted_ after that. By the end of the third week, my head was just spinning and I went on a low morale and creative drought for 3 months... I could barely code deserialisation functions without losing focus.. So basically, how do you do it and keep sane?!

Post by morgante » Sun, Jun 07, 2015, 7:45 PM UTC

Sir_Substance wrote: post #60

morgante wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't forget all the hardware companies you know today were once startups. Unfortunately the winds of VC have changed a lot since then. Originally, VCs were willing and eager to invest millions in a promising innovation. Now they expect you to demonstrate traction before any large investments—which is infinitely harder with hardware startups.

Really? I get the strong impression (what with people throwing the word bubble around and making regular comparisons to the dotcom era) that VC's are far less picky today then they were 10 years ago.

Post by arrrg » Sun, Jun 07, 2015, 7:45 PM UTC

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #18

(I really hope I don’t offend any Apple people saying this) My impression, which comes from meeting a handful of Apple employees and several friends who took jobs and later left, is that the culture of Apple is that of “show up, do good work, cash the paycheck, and go home to your family.” It is not one of “Let’s conquer the world and become bazillionairres while we’re at it” — the Google culture — which is more pron…

Post by morgante » Sun, Jun 07, 2015, 7:46 PM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #63

morgante wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't forget all the hardware companies you know today were once startups. Unfortunately the winds of VC have changed a lot since then. Originally, VCs were willing and eager to invest millions in a promising innovation. Now they expect you to demonstrate traction before any large investments—which is infinitely harder with hardware startups.

Not only that, but software startups used to not be so cheap either. 15 years ago you need to raise millions just to buy servers. Granted that wasn't the case in the early days of software (Microsoft didn't need servers when they were a startup), but it's an interesting dynamic in the internet age.