Lots of money means lots of asshatery. When the cycle comes around again and Apple finds themselves scrambling, this will all go away, because such people are useless.
I Quit: What really goes on at Apple
171–180 of 566 posts
Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
More like 10 or 11. Most of my friends are late-risers (perhaps because I'm a late-riser), and Google doesn't have set hours. People have been known to roll into work around 2:30 PM as long as they get their work done.
That's pretty cool. I hope to work there some day. My hours now are flexible; I come in and leave an hour early to avoid traffic.
Nice that you live somewhere that an hour makes a difference.
I work 6am to 3pm, and I still get stuck in traffic pretty regularly.
Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple
#173One of my friends used to work at Apple. After one particular grueling stint of 14+ hour days, management decided to give them a thank-you. In the form of vouchers. For frozen dinners. Meanwhile, all of his friends worked for Google, we got gourmet food every meal of the week as a standard perk, and we were usually home by 8 or 9 PM rather than midnight. It's sorta like "Your 'thank you' is really more like a giant '…
With this negative image among developers in the Valley, how is Apple able to attract top quality engineers? They probably are not. Anecdotally, I still haven't met one single engineer who would love to work for Apple though they love using Apple products. Apple is not even on the list of all top graduating kids who wants a job in top valley firms (Google, FB, Dropbox, Twitter, AirBnB, Uber, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Quor…
They sound like Amazon up here in Seattle, but at least Amazon has pockets of goodness... This sounds way more widespread.
Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I worked there, it was 12pm-8pm. My friends who work there now do the same. We just get to make our own hours and being in my twenties, I like sleeping in.
I find this interesting. How do people collaborate? Did most of your team work the same hours? Do you just schedule meetings from noon-4? I would personally hate that schedule as someone with a family.
Every brilliant Googler not collaborating with other brilliant Googlers is also not collaborating with other brilliant talents at Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, etc...
Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, but the interesting part is that for a while, Samsung was the only manufacturer capable of producing LCD screens that met Apple's specs. Apple outbid Samsung's mobile division on those parts, so that resulted in a situation where the iPhone had better screens than the Galaxy, even though the iPhone's screen was manufactured by Samsung. AFAIK Samsung still manufactures Apple's mobile CPUs (likely under heavy NDA…
And yet they had to go back to Samsung for screens because no one else could really provide the quality & quantity that Samsung could.
Yeah; it's been a problem for them. Apple has been making strategic investments in these areas trying to create a healthier marketplace so they don't have to go to their biggest competitor to buy critical components. Fortunately, Samsung loves money more than it hates Apple.
Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple
#176I wonder how many people the author has really interacted with? Even if it was 100 individuals (which is probably unlikely) that's still 5000 employees?) of the total organization. Basically a rounding error. It's very hard to make conclusions for the whole company from such a small sample. That borders discrimination/racism thinking. Not in any way trying to say that he had a pleasant experience or that his manageme…
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".
My experiences at Apple are vastly different than the author's; As a developer I've never had such a low-stress position. My hours will sometimes drift over the 40-43 mark but not often.
Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple
#177The culture of silence between Apple and the public extends to more than just upcoming products. Has anyone noticed that there aren't as many Apple employees participating in tech conferences, hackathons, public presentations? Even for subjects unrelated to their work? Definitely fewer than Google/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft employees.
It also seems unlikely that anybody would have the energy after 14+ hours days without weekends. 5 days a week with just 6 hours of meeting and such a level of intrigue would exhaust me to zombie level.
Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple
#178But... 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…
But... customer support isn't a cost center at Apple. They sell the AppleCare extended warranty, and if you don't purchase that when you buy the product, you have to pay them by the minute for customer support via telephone.
And most customers just go into an Apple Store if they have a problem, which is a profit center.
Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I worked there, it was 12pm-8pm. My friends who work there now do the same. We just get to make our own hours and being in my twenties, I like sleeping in.
I find this interesting. How do people collaborate? Did most of your team work the same hours? Do you just schedule meetings from noon-4? I would personally hate that schedule as someone with a family.
You can get the same no-rush-hour benefit by going the opposite direction; I show up to the office at 7am, and I'm out the door by 330 at the latest. There's somebody else in my office that I've only ever overlapped with for a couple hours at a time because he basically never shows up before noon. He used to give me a hard time about how early I left every day until I explained that I was showing up to the office an hour or two after he went to sleep each night.
I'm in California and I try to get meetings scheduled for the late morning or early afternoon. 11am meetings are totally reasonable for anybody on the west coast, and it's not too hard to convince people in (for example) New York to not schedule meetings for before 10am their time. On the rare occasion that I need to make a 6am phone call with somebody who's a real go-getter on the east cast, I'll just bite the bullet and show up at 6, and then take off around 2.
On the other hand, I used to work in a bakery, so waking up at 7am is still sort of like sleeping in for me. But there's nothing like finishing your day at 330; I love it.
Re: I Quit: What really goes on at Apple
#180Apple 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…
Maybe. But the real question is: is a few percentage points in difference in aesthetics and usability worth it?
It is hardly curing cancer.