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Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

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Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#91

Post by nickpinkston »

derefr wrote: post #36
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…

> rent out a scalable 14nm chip fab from AWS I was pondering the viability of almost exactly this. Could one invest in a hardware pipeline that efficiently combines e.g. 3D printing with FPGAs to create the consumer-electronics equivalent of Lulu.com's just-in-time small-batch book printing + drop-shipping. Or, in other words: you can do pretty much anything with the sensors in a modern smartphone. All most manufactu…

At Plethora, we're building the mechanical pieces of this - starting with full-auto, on-demand CNC milling as fast as LuLu or similar, then adding more capabilities.

Happy to make some free parts for anyone's ideas on here!

http://plethora.com

nick@plethora.com

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#92

Post by _yosefk »

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…

Erm... you can "rent" it from TSMC, you could before AWS existed, and in fact some of Apple chips are manufactured by TSMC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_system_on_a_chip#Apple_A8...)

Now "an idea for something great in CPU design" is unlikely to result in a marketable chip these days, but chip startups exist, and some are very small. Adapteva for instance is a 5-people company.

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#94

Post by vidarh »

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?!

You don't. You put in the hours, but realistically beyond the first week at that kind of schedule, most people are so unproductive that they're just fooling themselves if they think it's helping.

I've worked with many devs who think they can work those kind of schedules and be productive the whole time, but I've yet to work with one that actually was.

On the other hand, I've had to send people working for me home after getting pressured into having people work long hours to finish a project and having people snap or become so unproductive that it was a net drain on the team.

Mostly when people do crazy schedules and think it works they have lots of downtime they simply aren't paying attention to, e.g. drawn out morning rituals before they do any actual work; lots of breaks. And they'll simply just slow down and make more mistakes.

It looks like it "works" because people seem busy the entire time, and seem exhausted at the end of it, but being busy and feeling exhausted is not an indicator of being productive.

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#95

Post by PMan74 »

ddorian43 wrote: post #76
gumby wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.” I have a lot of friends and former colleagues who are at Apple and you're wrong about the 'go home to your family.' At least the friends I have (mostly nerds admittedly) are routinely in…

which is the second cash cow?

I'm also scratching my head, Advertising and ? - Youtube, Gmail - really just advertising - Android - is it a cash cow, there's some lic fees I guess but not huge - Google Apps - is that big money?

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#96

Post by codesushi42 »

marcell wrote: post #72
gumby wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.” I have a lot of friends and former colleagues who are at Apple and you're wrong about the 'go home to your family.' At least the friends I have (mostly nerds admittedly) are routinely in…

I recently left Google and I think your characterization of those two groups is accurate. There is a large group of engineers at lower levels working on mundane products who are not especially excited or empowered. I wouldn't recommend working there unless you are on a researchy project (eg. Brain), or you are focusing on things aside rom your career (eg. Many employees with families tolerate working there because of…

I absolutely agree. I left recently as well after more than 3 years. I would not recommend working there unless you 1) Are working on a cutting edge project. Which is unlikely, because those positions are reserved for exceptionally brilliant types, including industry renowned figures (think Sebastian Thrun). Or 2) You want some job security with a big paycheck so that you can manage to live in high-cost Silicon Valley. In return, you'll take remedial work in Java with your choice on any number of systems that Google needs to maintain.

Most people fall into #2. Further, I found that many if not most of the engineers there are foreigners on work visas. Many are not that motivated or very good, and they are most concerned with playing politics and entrenching themselves so that they can stay on their work visas. This has helped to create a culture surrounded with politics and bureaucracy, even more so than other large companies I had worked for beforehand.

The Google name still has a lot of prestige attached to it, especially outside of the Valley. But word is getting out in the Valley about what a mess the company really is, and it's only getting worse.

I would go with a smaller company. You'll learn a lot more.

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#97

Post by seizethecheese »

tlogan wrote: post #22

Not sure if this is true - I would like to see some stats. I think the problem is that the press will not write about some founder as "ex Apple engineer", "ex Oracle engineer", etc. It is not cool. The story will sell if founder are "ex-Google", "ex-Facebook", "ex-Dropbox", "Y-combinator", etc. For example, if you are ex-Oracle, then you need to have significant revenue in order to be mentioned in the press as ex-Ora…

I disagree entirely. Many of the Nest articles that I read were heavy on the "ex Apple" rhetoric.

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#98

Post by wtetzner »

PMan74 wrote: post #95
ddorian43 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which is the second cash cow?

I'm also scratching my head, Advertising and ? - Youtube, Gmail - really just advertising - Android - is it a cash cow, there's some lic fees I guess but not huge - Google Apps - is that big money?

Maybe the Google Play store? I have no idea how much money it makes though.

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#99

Post by vacri »

PMan74 wrote: post #95
ddorian43 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which is the second cash cow?

I'm also scratching my head, Advertising and ? - Youtube, Gmail - really just advertising - Android - is it a cash cow, there's some lic fees I guess but not huge - Google Apps - is that big money?

Google Apps for Business is a big moneymaker.

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#100

Post by ridiculous_fish »

cromwellian wrote: post #75
gumby wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.” I have a lot of friends and former colleagues who are at Apple and you're wrong about the 'go home to your family.' At least the friends I have (mostly nerds admittedly) are routinely in…

Working backbreaking hours with bad work/life balance is considered unGoogley. There are sometimes when people burn the midnight oil, but in general Googlers don't work 60hr weeks. I think the primary difference may come down to a culture of secrecy. Openness breeds cross fertilization, couple that with very few restrictions on Googlers in working on side projects, open source，and collaborating outside Google and it…

I've worked at both Apple and Google, as a SWE. I found very few engineers at either company who are phoning it in. There is great passion in both organizations. I also found engineers to be very vocal internally at both companies, Apple at least as much as at Google. Apple engineers absolutely do not "fall in line" without a fight.

Google is definitely more open in the way you describe, both in terms of collaborating internally and externally. "Googlers switch products often" matches my experience. The transfer process is easy, and hiring managers are welcoming.

The downside is that your team is constantly in flux, making it harder to build relationships or friendships. It is not healthy for a team to be constantly changing; it's better to have stable teams, where contributors can develop deep expertise and collaborative relationships.

At Apple, you have greater chances for meaningful ownership. Software teams are generally smaller, so your responsibilities are broader. Product direction is top down, so what you work on is more likely to actually ship.

Google's "bottom up" culture makes it easier to start up a project. But it also results in duplication, and a sense that the company isn't really committed to your product. My work at Apple mostly shipped, but my work at Google was mostly scrapped. It's frustrating to work on projects that are cancelled, through no fault of your own.

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