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Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

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Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#141

Post by ianamartin »

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?!

I did 110 hour weeks at a market research startup in Chicago. Every week for about 8 months.

I'm not convinced that I wasn't insane there for a while. I am pretty sure that I've never drunk that much in my life.

On the bright side, the 45 hours a week I do now seems like a damn vacation.

Perspective is important.

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#142

Post by acqq »

dasil003 wrote: post #117
acqq wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You are wrong. At that time the whole universities had, if they were rich, a couple of mainframes for the whole institution, if they were poorer, one or none.

All the students wich are entitled to access to the mainframe worked typically on a single mainframe which was also used for the university accounting etc.

Mainframes were, using the more modern words, the big servers with the capital S, effectively.

Hobbyist keyboard alone (without the TV) had the price of nearly 1000 US dollars equivalent today in 1975

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_Typewriter

The cheapest self containing computer that year had a minimal cost of 30,000 of today's US dollars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_5100

The "operating system" of it were Basic and APL, and it had the storage of 200 KB.

Now compare all this to the "server" which started this discussion. The claim was that when Gates started he didn't need "servers."

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#143

Post by ridiculous_fish »

zak_mc_kracken wrote: post #140
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…

> It's frustrating to work on projects that are cancelled, I'm going to guess you're fairly junior in the profession? The more time you spend writing code, the more you realize that most of your projects will never, ever ship. That's just how the gig goes. And it's okay. As an engineer, you should be looking forward more to the journey and how much you'll learn working on that project than anything else. Once in a wh…

I have 12 years of professional experience. In that time, most of what I worked on shipped. It would be a serious failure if we committed to a feature and were unable to deliver it. To be fair, I have tended to work on mature products, which have predictable lifecycle. Perhaps you've had a different experience because you've worked for startups or on early development?

Anyways, the way I see it, if I'm OK with my project being cancelled, I am working on the wrong project. We should not be comfortable with delivering results "once in a while."

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#144

Post by Animats »

Animats wrote: post #108
nickpinkston wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Compare emachineshop.com. They have been doing that for years, and have a site with actual information instead of just pretty pictures.

(sorry about the duplicate - HN had a database timeout.)

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#145

Post by lmm »

ridiculous_fish wrote: post #143
zak_mc_kracken wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's frustrating to work on projects that are cancelled, I'm going to guess you're fairly junior in the profession? The more time you spend writing code, the more you realize that most of your projects will never, ever ship. That's just how the gig goes. And it's okay. As an engineer, you should be looking forward more to the journey and how much you'll learn working on that project than anything else. Once in a wh…

I have 12 years of professional experience. In that time, most of what I worked on shipped. It would be a serious failure if we committed to a feature and were unable to deliver it. To be fair, I have tended to work on mature products, which have predictable lifecycle. Perhaps you've had a different experience because you've worked for startups or on early development? Anyways, the way I see it, if I'm OK with my pro…

90% of startups fail, ergo if you're working in a startup and have a better-than-10% chance of your code shipping then you're doing it right.

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#146

Post by gumby »

zak_mc_kracken wrote: post #139
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…

> Apple went through that mode and was within a few weeks of dying. Luckily they debugged themselves. Not really, Bill Gates rescued them.

>> Apple went through that mode and was within a few weeks of dying. Luckily they debugged themselves.

> Not really, Bill Gates rescued them.

Microsoft unquestionably kept them from dying at that point by giving them $150M. And probably it was a call from Jobs to Gates so I suppose you can say "Gates" instead of "Microsoft".

But my point was that foolish management got Apple to that point and they replaced that with a smarter management approach (and replaced a bunch of people).

Microsoft's cash lifeline wouldn't have helped them if they hadn't debugged themselves. Instead it would have simply have delayed death.

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#147

Post by meej »

pvg wrote: post #6

Article doesn't seem to give any evidence of this. Apple's been around forever and former Apple (and NeXT, if you stick to the logic it's some sort of Jobsian startup-suppression field) employees have been involved in zillions of startups over the years. EA, Danger/Android, Nest, Flipboard come to mind.

While reading the article I thought to myself, "I guess OQO is ancient history by now." I know at least two founders were Apple alums.

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#148

Post by philwelch »

zak_mc_kracken wrote: post #139
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…

> Apple went through that mode and was within a few weeks of dying. Luckily they debugged themselves. Not really, Bill Gates rescued them.

I'm tired of this urban legend. Microsoft agreeing to maintain release parity for the Mac and Windows versions of Office did more than the 150MM, but the company was already profitable again and had almost ten times that amount of cash in the bank anyway.

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#149

Post by philwelch »

gumby wrote: post #146
zak_mc_kracken wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple went through that mode and was within a few weeks of dying. Luckily they debugged themselves. Not really, Bill Gates rescued them.

>> Apple went through that mode and was within a few weeks of dying. Luckily they debugged themselves. > Not really, Bill Gates rescued them. Microsoft unquestionably kept them from dying at that point by giving them $150M. And probably it was a call from Jobs to Gates so I suppose you can say "Gates" instead of "Microsoft". But my point was that foolish management got Apple to that point and they replaced that with…

> Microsoft unquestionably kept them from dying at that point by giving them $150M.

Apple had $1.2B cash at the time. It was symbolic, not substantial, for either party.

Re: Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?

#150

Post by philwelch »

beambot wrote: post #136
threeseed wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more the long hours / weekend work for months on end that causes problems. The secrecy is never an issue.

I wouldn't underestimate how much secrecy plays a role psychologically. Not being able to talk to friends, family, and loved ones about what you work on can be a real drain. (Spoken from some experience; I did classified work at a DOE nuclear lab in the past.)

I must be odd, because I never talk about my work with my family even when I'm allowed to. None of them have the context to understand or care. It's a different compartment of my life entirely. Do normal people really do this?
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