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Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

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Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#111

Post by codesushi42 »

ridiculous_fish wrote: post #100
cromwellian wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 collaboratin…

I'm curious which years you were at Google? The bottom-up culture has been dead for the past 2 years, and a deluge of projects were canned in the past 12-18 months. There's really zero chance now of starting your own project at G and building a team around it.

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#112

Post by [deleted] »

ridiculous_fish wrote: post #100
cromwellian wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 collaboratin…

[deleted]

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#114

Post by opinionated1 »

Maybe it's because the company DNA attracts less entrepreneurial minded employees in the first place than for example Google. I think that people working for Apple:

- like to have a strong leader in front of them (or at least used to when Jobs was around).

- are engineers comfortable to be less at the center of product development than at other big tech companies.

Whereas an entrepreneurial-minded person is famously rather reluctant to subordination. Exceptions confirm the rule.

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#115

Post by gumby »

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.

Well, lets tease this apart.

Hardware startups are still being funded. Software startups are still being funded. Life science startups are still being funded. And it's a lot of the same old line VCs who are doing these deals. I'm thinking $15M-$20M first round, with companies need significant funding but get quite large.

Then there are a ton of small companies, many of which are really small businesses (just look at the list of companies at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9666013), that are getting small amounts of funding ("spray and pray" funds). Are their funders really "VCs" in the classic sense when the amount they invest is =It's the latter that aren't particularly picky. The traditional VCs seem mostly to still look for the same things.

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#117

Post by dasil003 »

acqq wrote: post #110
dasil003 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Microsoft didn't need servers when they were a startup Wrong. Gates and Allen used Harvard's University mainframe to do their first gig, then paid for other mainframe time: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_BASIC

That's a dev box not a server Mr. holier-than-though smartass.

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#118

Post by threeseed »

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 Apple and none of what you said rings true for me.

Apple doesn't prevent you working on side projects, open source etc. It's just that you are working so many hours under tight deadlines that you want to spend time with friends/family during a spare time.

And Apple absolutely allows challenging management and product vision. In fact I was involved far more in product design that I expected to be. Every team is different but it is a relatively flat structure.

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#119

Post by ridiculous_fish »

codesushi42 wrote: post #111
ridiculous_fish wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 collaboratin…

I'm curious which years you were at Google? The bottom-up culture has been dead for the past 2 years, and a deluge of projects were canned in the past 12-18 months. There's really zero chance now of starting your own project at G and building a team around it.

I left literally last week. I looked for other positions internally, and I did get the sense that there were lots of "startup opportunities" within Google. Cardboard is an example of new-ish team, in the process of ramping up.

I wonder why we saw things differently? I stayed away from the big central codebase (you know the one), instead working in Android and Chrome. Maybe the bottom-up culture is more vibrant on the periphery?

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#120

Post by threeseed »

jsjohnst wrote: post #41
beambot wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> show up, do good work... > work 50-60 hrs per week Those aren't incompatible. In fact, based on current and former Apple employees I know, you're both right. It's also worth pointing out the extreme compartmentalization at Apple. I imagine that makes it more difficult to get a handle on systems-level considerations that are so key for lean startup teams.

You are definitely right, I focused more on the "go home to family" part. Many I know at Apple have had relationship issues with significant others and family due to the sometimes grueling pace and "CIA spy" level secrecy some teams are forced to have even with their spouses.

It's more the long hours / weekend work for months on end that causes problems.

The secrecy is never an issue.

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