Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My Experience at Apple

ex-apple-engineer.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

671–680 of 840 posts

Re: My Experience at Apple

#671

Post by jelliclesfarm »

hsuduebc2 wrote: post #594
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any company that has to change its name to avoid bad publicity is not worth working for.

Can you give us additional info please?

Arthur Anderson used to be one of the Big 5 accounting firms along with Deloitte and Touche, KPMG, Price Waterhouse and Ernst&Young.

I was briefly at an Indian subsidiary of EY(those days, the Big 5 weren’t allowed to operate by themselves without partnering with a local chartered accounting firm) because only certain firms could do bank audits and I wanted the experience at one if the Big 5. KPMG was known for its entertainment industry accounts. I picked E&Y for manufacturing and I think I ended up with an international cement conglomerate account. The Big 5 clearly decided who gets what industry. They operate like a cartel. They also had consulting divisions. AA after Enron simply focused solely on consulting and IT.

They are all ‘special’ kinds of hell. Just different flavors. AA/Enron scandal was a big deal and was the only talk for days and days and days.

Slightly dated.. 2018: https://riskmagazine.nl/article/2018-03-19-how-the-big-five-...

[..] Andersen was responsible for checking the accounting of energy company Enron. The energy company went down with great noise because of shoddy accounting. Trouble came for Andersen as they had approved this accounting. After learning the Securities and Exchange Commission had begun an investigation of Enron’s accounting, orders were given at Andersen to destroy thousands of documents and e-mail messages. These illegal acts resulted in a conviction, which made it impossible to act as a public accountant for American stock exchange funds. Andersen decided to hand in its licenses before the SEC would withdraw them.[..]

[..] On appeal for the destruction of the files, Andersen was acquitted and there was no formal objection to the continuation of the audit practice. However, almost all employees had left due to the obscure practices. The practice had changed hands and the name would always be linked to this scandal. The few employees that stayed, worked on litigation arising from past audits, as well as pension issues and few other matters. Also there still is another firm which reminds us of the existence Andersen, namely Accenture. Accenture started off as the consultancy part of Andersen, which split off just in time, before the scandal happened.[..]

Re: My Experience at Apple

#672

Post by [deleted] »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #618
idlewords wrote: post #469

My brief advice to anyone writing such a post: start with the most serious accusation you have, and avoid the temptation to add ancillary grievances, however justified, until you have the reader fully engaged and outraged. The way this post structured now, beginning with fairly unspecific complaints about the hiring process, who invited whom to lunch, etc. makes the author come across as a young high-drama individual…

I stopped reading when it became obvious that this was some coddled kid’s first exposure to real life. When I see words like “psychological safety”, that sounds straight out of the playbook with the Brown University “safe spaces” crap. Maybe they were saving their real bombs for the end. I’ll never know, but they are probably going to have a very difficult time adjusting to any job.

[deleted]

Re: My Experience at Apple

#673

Post by seirim »

neycoda wrote: post #570
abraxas wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is due to the exponential payoff in a success scenario. Especially in high tech where certain initiatives can have a “winner take all” effect. I find it completely unsurprising that internally the tech giants function like a cluster of startups competing against each other. Capitalism is based on the idea of transplanting the survival of the fittest paradigm into the economy and that’s exactly how I’d ex…

Internal competition on the same project shows a lack of confidence from management... it literally shows they don't know what to do, and are just throwing spaghetti at the wall, or aren't confident in their skills to get something deployed with what they choose. It's not solid leadership, it's dissonant. It also sets people against each other, creates better-than-you mental heirarchies between equal workers where no…

>Internal competition on the same project shows a lack of confidence from management...

I'd disagree, internal competition (like it or not, and yes it doesn't sound fun and often doesn't feel great or fair) can be a very effective motivating strategy. And management is used to using this with sales teams, everyone in sales is always competing with each other. It's never fair, they'll have unequal markets, for example, but the competition is incredibly motivating. When I was in sales long ago, the drive to be the best and regarded as such was even more motivating than just getting more commissions. It's dog eat dog but for better or worse it works.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#677

Post by ex_Apple_throw »

microtherion wrote: post #487
m0llusk wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't really true. Steve Jobs was no nonsense, but was most often merely direct rather than rude. One thing which Steve Jobs did do was go to great length to assemble highly qualified teams for missions that were clearly stated and understood and which all involved agreed were worthwhile even if there might be quibbles over details. The Apple that rescued itself from near death with colorful and fun designs and…

Jobs himself was abusive. But in his second stint at Apple, he generally worked through layers of management who bore the brunt of his abusiveness, and oddly enough, for the most part, his managers did not emulate his abusive ways. The two members of senior management that I had a chance to interact with for some time (Bertrand Serlet and Jony Ive) did not at all strike me as abusive. One of the reasons, I suspect, i…

Next time you see Jony Ive, tell him that it was his fault that I had to work in a hellhole when Apple told me that our team were "guinea pigs" for the new spaceship building. That was all his work. They took my office away and replaced it with a panopticon prison-style environment where everything was glass, with no curtains for the external windows, a black globe surveillence camera right above/next to me. Every 2 minutes someone would walk by, distracting me. I couldn't see my screens because of the windows behind me with no curtains, so I was being blinded by the sun. They didn't even provide a bookshelf for my programming-related books. AND they never once asked me about my experience in that "office." I found three (sorry, but OBESE/UGLY) individuals constantly walking around and pointing at things - I followed them around and those were Ive's employees examining the horrible workplace they were creating. That was all Ive's fault. Then they forced us to be in the "office" every day instead of working remotely like I had for years. In his words, "And I know how we work and you don't!" RIGHT. Well, I left that job after 15 years while in that crap environnment. That's when I lost all respect for Jony Ive.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#678

Post by ex_Apple_throw »

rgarrett88 wrote: post #470
m0llusk wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't really true. Steve Jobs was no nonsense, but was most often merely direct rather than rude. One thing which Steve Jobs did do was go to great length to assemble highly qualified teams for missions that were clearly stated and understood and which all involved agreed were worthwhile even if there might be quibbles over details. The Apple that rescued itself from near death with colorful and fun designs and…

Read his biography. He was abusive and got shit done.

[flagged]

Re: My Experience at Apple

#679

Post by p1esk »

bigiain wrote: post #636
p1esk wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you can do this when you have several equally good offers in your pocket. Meaning you're good enough to be picky. What would be your response if you don't feel you're better than all others who applied for this position?

There’s nothing wrong with choosing a job that you know are going to expect all-nighters, probably un compensated all-nighters - but make sure you choose it knowingly instead of pretending it’s an office hours job. It’d be a rare job in video game production that didn’t involve crunch time, and if you want to work in those roles you can, so long as you accept/embrace that. If you’re the sort of person for whom 2-3 mo…

Actually, I just realized I can't relate to this concern. I've never had a situation when someone asked me to work extra. In every job I've ever had I was expected to get things done, and no one ever cared when I do it as long as I do it by a deadline, or by a sprint review, or by a demo day, etc. More often than not it was me who were setting those deadlines for myself, just because I'm ambitious, and I like to impress others, and I like being promoted. Besides, I could never work 9-5. I usually accomplish little in terms of actual work during those hours. Occasionally I get into the zone late at night, without any distractions. That's when I feel most productive, and that's when I do most of the work. Another thing is, I either work on something I love, or I work for a very decent salary. In both cases, I feel fine working extra hours.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#680

Post by ardy42 »

cambalache wrote: post #548
ip26 wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're also hip, maintain some level of underdog cachet, and folks like their products. People wish they could be that, and tend to give a pass to the things they idolize. You might also imagine that inside a company made of money, there's no need for anyone to be a jerk.

> They're also hip Yes > folks like their products Yes > maintain some level of underdog cachet ???????

>> maintain some level of underdog cachet

> ???????

They were clear underdogs in the 90s, and it's maybe only in the last decade or so that they've been in dominant mega-corp territory. I'm sure a lot of people still carry associations from that older time that haven't been completely extinguished.

Post reply on HN