11 ms·

Apple’s Organizational Crossroads

176 points by hullo 10y ago

xtx23 10y ago
The reason why services and devices can't be totally separated as gunpowders and paint is software. Apple's recent software qualities have been facing many challenges and varied user feedbacks, Apple Map, Siri, FinalCut update, New Photos, iCloud hack issues. I doubt their organization structure is the magic fix to their software issues, in fact, a complete separation between devices + services might make some of their software challenges even harder.
chillaxtian 10y ago
this article is all fluff.
nocarrier 10y ago
This post makes the case that Apple is not organized in a way to allow it to effectively run services like iCloud, iTunes, Apple Pay, etc. I haven't worked there in ten years, but back then at least, I'd agree with that. Teams and orgs were heavily siloed and vertical. However, then it goes on to say a few things that I think are harder to defend. The author talks about how it's hard for Apple to build good services since they're so focused on achieving perfection with a tightly integrated device that has a new release once or twice a year. Basically, the thesis is that since the market penalty for releasing a bad device is so high, Apple has thrown a lot of resources into getting the device right the first time, which makes it very hard for them to think or operate at the tempo you need when operating services: "You only get one shot to get a device right, so all of Apple’s internal rhythms and processes are organized around delivering as perfect a product as possible at a specific moment in time." This isn't right in a couple ways. First, Apple has released all kinds of sub-par hardware in the past. And will likely do so in the future. Apple says they are looking to achieve perfection, and it sounds noble, but it's more of an iterative process than this article makes it sound like. Second, many of a device's features, especially the integration that the author lauds, are actually in software. Particularly the integration pieces that make the device seem like magic. And those are updated often as one can see with the release tempo of iOS updates. The pattern has been the same for a long time--release a bunch of new features in iOS X.0, then do point releases to fix bugs, plug security holes, and make minor tweaks to fix annoying things and make the user experience feel more smooth. The other conclusion I don't agree with is that the author says that in order for them to build better services, they need more accountability, which would be achieved by tracking profit and loss for each service and making the leaders financially accountable. I agree that accountability is something that's required to create strong services, but it's not the primary lever I would use. And I certainly wouldn't bring P&L into the accountability equation since that incentivizes the different service orgs to grow adversarial relationships. It's old company thinking IMO. Instead, I feel you need to build better services by building a better infrastructure culture. A lot of people look at situations like this and look for punitive or regressive measures to fix the problem, i.e. using the stick instead of the carrot. I think however they would build better services by focusing on other levers like open communication (the heavy siloing meant a lot of duplicated work), being open to criticism (lots of politics and defensiveness meant fiefdoms and grudges were created), a focus on instrumenting and measuring performance of services to have the right picture for how everything is working together (instrumentation and visualization of performance was terrible), a culture of learning from mistakes instead of assigning blame, having embedded SRE-like engineers who focus on production quality and availability instead of having separate second-class ops teams, etc. I could go on, but I have a really strong objection to boiling all their problems down to not making each service unit financially accountable. That won't fix things, it will instead make the internal culture on the infrastructure side much worse.
- Rexxar 10y ago
  The comment was marked as "dupe" but I don't see why so I vouch it. Is it a bug ?
  - PhantomGremlin 10y ago
    Check the guys comments to see the dupe. He posted the same comment to a separate submission of this article. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11559781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11559781
    - nocarrier 10y ago
      Yeah, I didn't realize you couldn't do that. Next time I'll just put a link to the comment versus pasting it verbatim.
abalone 10y ago
Nah. DuPont was selling gunpowder and paint to completely different customers. Apple sells devices and services to the same customers. Furthermore what they are selling needs to be tightly integrated.
- Maarten88 10y ago
  Apple Services could be sold to very different customers - those on Android and Windows devices.
  - jmspring 10y ago
    This assumes Apple can get their iCloud working properly. I've avoided pings from them in the past because their is no leadership in this area. ICloud has been a failure for multiple years. I'm not comparing management, but iCloud reminds me of the non-dropcam part of Nest - basically unable to deliver. I've been contacted by both for roles and just think why would one want to be part of a dysfunctional after thought?
    - HNSucksAss 10y ago
      iCloud is ridiculously broken, and if you've ever tried to develop for it, you know its API is grossly lacking. But Apple has always refused to learn. They persist in regressive and amateur-hour policies, like this one: http://goldmanosi.blogspot.com/2012/06/forcing-people-to-use-e-mail-address-as.html http://goldmanosi.blogspot.com/2012/06/forcing-people-to-use...
    - gurkendoktor 10y ago
      I agree that the iCloud brand has generally been a failure. Does anyone ever proudly use their @icloud.com address anywhere? MobileMe is considered an embarrassing failure by many, but I still see @me.com email addresses from time to time. But technically, iCloud is not really one "thing". iCal, Reminders, Notes and Photos work pretty well, whereas iCloud Core Data is an unsalvageable afterthought. Working on some parts might still be fun.
- 10y ago
hans 10y ago
fascinating thought is what a well-run services Org looks like? and how that can layer onto a hardware / device Org.. they never seem compatible
blinkingled 10y ago
Services are hardly a unique Apple specific problem though. For a few that get services right you'll find many that suck. It takes a very different collective mindset, culture, processes and iterative improvements - those are a no brainer. Beyond those it also takes unconventional innovation at multiple different levels - look at how HTTP2 happened for example and look at how everything underneath GMail must have improved to make it what it is. Also think of AWS and how many first-have problems they must have needed to solve. It's hard to get services right and even harder to keep them right. I am of course not saying Apple can't get there but merely separating the hardware and software/services isn't a meaningful first step.
- derefr 10y ago
  I don't know about processes or mindset; I think it's mostly a matter of hiring real Engineers and letting them do real Engineering on your backend. That's a cultural problem, though, on an organizational level: if you run everything in the "20-somethings burning midnight oil to ship" mode, the experienced Engineers don't want to join you. You'd have to shift your culture into one that has room for them (like e.g. Facebook is continuing to attempt to do with the Engineers from Whatsapp.)
Osiris30 10y ago
Well argued rebuttal and counter by John Kirk at Techpinions https://techpinions.com/apple-shouldnt-cross-that-road-till-they-come-to-it/45209 https://techpinions.com/apple-shouldnt-cross-that-road-till-...
- Dwolb 10y ago
  Thanks for sharing - I wouldn't have found this otherwise. Is anyone aggregating discussions like this today? NYT has some opinion pieces and shares rebuttals, but I haven't seen long-form opinion aggregators around.
  - yoodenvranx 10y ago
    > Is anyone aggregating discussions like this today? That's something I'd like to see as an official feature on HN or reddit. In addition of normal comments on the article you can also add "additional information from a qualified source" (which can be either a qualified user or another article from another reputable journalist). But I am not sure if that would work. Perhaps it would be fine on HN, but it would be difficult to enforce and moderate on reddit.
  - canuckintime 10y ago
    Michael Tsai often does so on his apple-focused blog (e.g. Paid App Store Search[1]) but he hasn't gotten around to this discussion yet. [1]http://mjtsai.com/blog/2016/04/15/paid-app-store-search/ http://mjtsai.com/blog/2016/04/15/paid-app-store-search/
  - djloche 10y ago
    I'd love for a TechMeme style site that sorts and organizes the articles more intelligently ( sort out the articles that just say the same thing without adding anything new, mark and organize responses and followup third party articles as 'informative', 'rebuttal', or 'support', etc.
- petra 10y ago
  His opinion is interesting, and leads to the question: Why shouldn't apple start a services division, with it's own process, managers and internal profit and loss, but that would have somewhat limited independence, by definition - in major decisions they would have to consult the CEO and the other divisions to make sure this doesn't interfere with the hardware products.
appleflaxen 10y ago
This is dated 4/19, but I would swear I've read this (and seen the same organizational graphics) before. Was this already posted somewhere else? Is this a summary of a bigger work that is getting the summary treatment on multiple sites? Weird.
- appleflaxen 10y ago
  Ah. Realized it was probably the discussion of Microsoft in 2013 on the same site. https://stratechery.com/2013/why-microsofts-reorganization-is-a-bad-idea/ https://stratechery.com/2013/why-microsofts-reorganization-i...
- MBCook 10y ago
  His stuff always has that style of graphics, and I believe that graphic was used in a different post a year or so that went into more detail about horizontal/vertical organizations. Edit: I see you found it
tyingq 10y ago
Is Amazon a good comparison? Amazon Web Services is a separate organization from the consumer side (amazon.com, zappos, etc). As I understand it, the "jewels" (retail/consumer) do depend on AWS...they supposedly are strong on "eating your own dog food". But, they have roughly equal footing and representation. There is the difference that Amazon's services can be sold standalone, rather than just bundled, I suppose.
- rmccue 10y ago
  Amazon and AWS have different markets (consumers vs business), similar to DuPont's paint and gunpowder (consumers vs military). Generally speaking, the markets don't overlap. As noted in other comments here, Apple's products and services are both consumer-focussed; ideally, you're trying to sell the consumer both of them, so the outcomes for the two are co-dependent. Amazon doesn't really care about how many instance-hours AWS sells; the iCloud team cares a lot about how many devices Apple sells.
acqq 10y ago
The scary example against the "separation" the author suggests is Sony, having the structure where the different profits and loses produced the results where one Sony makes another Sony worse and vice versa.
williesleg 10y ago
Here we go. Tim Cook really needs to step down. Nothing innovative out of that place in years. Software is really buggy, in fact, it's almost unusable in the case of the new Apple TV. Cloud stuff is in shambles. Instead, he thinks he's gonna change how the government works and how their unisex bathrooms work. How about a real piece of hardware I want to buy?
majestik 10y ago
This article makes the case Apple should have a dedicated Services division. Pretty sure Eddy Cue runs a division called "Internet Software and Services" which is iCloud/Maps/Siri etc: http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/eddy-cue.html http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/eddy-cue.html Article: 0 Fact: 1
- simonh 10y ago
  Yes, but what Ben is proposing is that instead of being a functional division, it would be it's own business unit reporting it's own profit-and-loss. That might even mean having it's own engineering team, it's own design team, it's own sales, etc, etc. Maybe not all of those, but certainly some of them.
marcus_holmes 10y ago
This is the road that IBM and HP went down, isn't it? Stop making things and start providing services around the things you used to make.

176 points by hullo 10y ago

xtx23 10y ago

The reason why services and devices can't be totally separated as gunpowders and paint is software. Apple's recent software qualities have been facing many challenges and varied user feedbacks, Apple Map, Siri, FinalCut update, New Photos, iCloud hack issues. I doubt their organization structure is the magic fix to their software issues, in fact, a complete separation between devices + services might make some of their software challenges even harder.

chillaxtian 10y ago

this article is all fluff.

nocarrier 10y ago

This post makes the case that Apple is not organized in a way to allow it to effectively run services like iCloud, iTunes, Apple Pay, etc. I haven't worked there in ten years, but back then at least, I'd agree with that. Teams and orgs were heavily siloed and vertical. However, then it goes on to say a few things that I think are harder to defend. The author talks about how it's hard for Apple to build good services since they're so focused on achieving perfection with a tightly integrated device that has a new release once or twice a year. Basically, the thesis is that since the market penalty for releasing a bad device is so high, Apple has thrown a lot of resources into getting the device right the first time, which makes it very hard for them to think or operate at the tempo you need when operating services: "You only get one shot to get a device right, so all of Apple’s internal rhythms and processes are organized around delivering as perfect a product as possible at a specific moment in time." This isn't right in a couple ways. First, Apple has released all kinds of sub-par hardware in the past. And will likely do so in the future. Apple says they are looking to achieve perfection, and it sounds noble, but it's more of an iterative process than this article makes it sound like. Second, many of a device's features, especially the integration that the author lauds, are actually in software. Particularly the integration pieces that make the device seem like magic. And those are updated often as one can see with the release tempo of iOS updates. The pattern has been the same for a long time--release a bunch of new features in iOS X.0, then do point releases to fix bugs, plug security holes, and make minor tweaks to fix annoying things and make the user experience feel more smooth. The other conclusion I don't agree with is that the author says that in order for them to build better services, they need more accountability, which would be achieved by tracking profit and loss for each service and making the leaders financially accountable. I agree that accountability is something that's required to create strong services, but it's not the primary lever I would use. And I certainly wouldn't bring P&L into the accountability equation since that incentivizes the different service orgs to grow adversarial relationships. It's old company thinking IMO. Instead, I feel you need to build better services by building a better infrastructure culture. A lot of people look at situations like this and look for punitive or regressive measures to fix the problem, i.e. using the stick instead of the carrot. I think however they would build better services by focusing on other levers like open communication (the heavy siloing meant a lot of duplicated work), being open to criticism (lots of politics and defensiveness meant fiefdoms and grudges were created), a focus on instrumenting and measuring performance of services to have the right picture for how everything is working together (instrumentation and visualization of performance was terrible), a culture of learning from mistakes instead of assigning blame, having embedded SRE-like engineers who focus on production quality and availability instead of having separate second-class ops teams, etc. I could go on, but I have a really strong objection to boiling all their problems down to not making each service unit financially accountable. That won't fix things, it will instead make the internal culture on the infrastructure side much worse.

Rexxar 10y ago
The comment was marked as "dupe" but I don't see why so I vouch it. Is it a bug ?
- PhantomGremlin 10y ago
  Check the guys comments to see the dupe. He posted the same comment to a separate submission of this article. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11559781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11559781
  - nocarrier 10y ago
    Yeah, I didn't realize you couldn't do that. Next time I'll just put a link to the comment versus pasting it verbatim.

abalone 10y ago

Nah. DuPont was selling gunpowder and paint to completely different customers. Apple sells devices and services to the same customers. Furthermore what they are selling needs to be tightly integrated.

Maarten88 10y ago
Apple Services could be sold to very different customers - those on Android and Windows devices.
- jmspring 10y ago
  This assumes Apple can get their iCloud working properly. I've avoided pings from them in the past because their is no leadership in this area. ICloud has been a failure for multiple years. I'm not comparing management, but iCloud reminds me of the non-dropcam part of Nest - basically unable to deliver. I've been contacted by both for roles and just think why would one want to be part of a dysfunctional after thought?
  - HNSucksAss 10y ago
    iCloud is ridiculously broken, and if you've ever tried to develop for it, you know its API is grossly lacking. But Apple has always refused to learn. They persist in regressive and amateur-hour policies, like this one: http://goldmanosi.blogspot.com/2012/06/forcing-people-to-use-e-mail-address-as.html http://goldmanosi.blogspot.com/2012/06/forcing-people-to-use...
  - gurkendoktor 10y ago
    I agree that the iCloud brand has generally been a failure. Does anyone ever proudly use their @icloud.com address anywhere? MobileMe is considered an embarrassing failure by many, but I still see @me.com email addresses from time to time. But technically, iCloud is not really one "thing". iCal, Reminders, Notes and Photos work pretty well, whereas iCloud Core Data is an unsalvageable afterthought. Working on some parts might still be fun.
10y ago

hans 10y ago

fascinating thought is what a well-run services Org looks like? and how that can layer onto a hardware / device Org.. they never seem compatible

blinkingled 10y ago

Services are hardly a unique Apple specific problem though. For a few that get services right you'll find many that suck. It takes a very different collective mindset, culture, processes and iterative improvements - those are a no brainer. Beyond those it also takes unconventional innovation at multiple different levels - look at how HTTP2 happened for example and look at how everything underneath GMail must have improved to make it what it is. Also think of AWS and how many first-have problems they must have needed to solve. It's hard to get services right and even harder to keep them right. I am of course not saying Apple can't get there but merely separating the hardware and software/services isn't a meaningful first step.

derefr 10y ago
I don't know about processes or mindset; I think it's mostly a matter of hiring real Engineers and letting them do real Engineering on your backend. That's a cultural problem, though, on an organizational level: if you run everything in the "20-somethings burning midnight oil to ship" mode, the experienced Engineers don't want to join you. You'd have to shift your culture into one that has room for them (like e.g. Facebook is continuing to attempt to do with the Engineers from Whatsapp.)

Osiris30 10y ago

Well argued rebuttal and counter by John Kirk at Techpinions https://techpinions.com/apple-shouldnt-cross-that-road-till-they-come-to-it/45209 https://techpinions.com/apple-shouldnt-cross-that-road-till-...

Dwolb 10y ago
Thanks for sharing - I wouldn't have found this otherwise. Is anyone aggregating discussions like this today? NYT has some opinion pieces and shares rebuttals, but I haven't seen long-form opinion aggregators around.
- yoodenvranx 10y ago
  > Is anyone aggregating discussions like this today? That's something I'd like to see as an official feature on HN or reddit. In addition of normal comments on the article you can also add "additional information from a qualified source" (which can be either a qualified user or another article from another reputable journalist). But I am not sure if that would work. Perhaps it would be fine on HN, but it would be difficult to enforce and moderate on reddit.
- canuckintime 10y ago
  Michael Tsai often does so on his apple-focused blog (e.g. Paid App Store Search[1]) but he hasn't gotten around to this discussion yet. [1]http://mjtsai.com/blog/2016/04/15/paid-app-store-search/ http://mjtsai.com/blog/2016/04/15/paid-app-store-search/
- djloche 10y ago
  I'd love for a TechMeme style site that sorts and organizes the articles more intelligently ( sort out the articles that just say the same thing without adding anything new, mark and organize responses and followup third party articles as 'informative', 'rebuttal', or 'support', etc.
petra 10y ago
His opinion is interesting, and leads to the question: Why shouldn't apple start a services division, with it's own process, managers and internal profit and loss, but that would have somewhat limited independence, by definition - in major decisions they would have to consult the CEO and the other divisions to make sure this doesn't interfere with the hardware products.

appleflaxen 10y ago

This is dated 4/19, but I would swear I've read this (and seen the same organizational graphics) before. Was this already posted somewhere else? Is this a summary of a bigger work that is getting the summary treatment on multiple sites? Weird.

appleflaxen 10y ago
Ah. Realized it was probably the discussion of Microsoft in 2013 on the same site. https://stratechery.com/2013/why-microsofts-reorganization-is-a-bad-idea/ https://stratechery.com/2013/why-microsofts-reorganization-i...
MBCook 10y ago
His stuff always has that style of graphics, and I believe that graphic was used in a different post a year or so that went into more detail about horizontal/vertical organizations. Edit: I see you found it

tyingq 10y ago

Is Amazon a good comparison? Amazon Web Services is a separate organization from the consumer side (amazon.com, zappos, etc). As I understand it, the "jewels" (retail/consumer) do depend on AWS...they supposedly are strong on "eating your own dog food". But, they have roughly equal footing and representation. There is the difference that Amazon's services can be sold standalone, rather than just bundled, I suppose.

rmccue 10y ago
Amazon and AWS have different markets (consumers vs business), similar to DuPont's paint and gunpowder (consumers vs military). Generally speaking, the markets don't overlap. As noted in other comments here, Apple's products and services are both consumer-focussed; ideally, you're trying to sell the consumer both of them, so the outcomes for the two are co-dependent. Amazon doesn't really care about how many instance-hours AWS sells; the iCloud team cares a lot about how many devices Apple sells.

acqq 10y ago

The scary example against the "separation" the author suggests is Sony, having the structure where the different profits and loses produced the results where one Sony makes another Sony worse and vice versa.

williesleg 10y ago

Here we go. Tim Cook really needs to step down. Nothing innovative out of that place in years. Software is really buggy, in fact, it's almost unusable in the case of the new Apple TV. Cloud stuff is in shambles. Instead, he thinks he's gonna change how the government works and how their unisex bathrooms work. How about a real piece of hardware I want to buy?

majestik 10y ago

This article makes the case Apple should have a dedicated Services division. Pretty sure Eddy Cue runs a division called "Internet Software and Services" which is iCloud/Maps/Siri etc: http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/eddy-cue.html http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/eddy-cue.html Article: 0 Fact: 1

simonh 10y ago
Yes, but what Ben is proposing is that instead of being a functional division, it would be it's own business unit reporting it's own profit-and-loss. That might even mean having it's own engineering team, it's own design team, it's own sales, etc, etc. Maybe not all of those, but certainly some of them.

marcus_holmes 10y ago

This is the road that IBM and HP went down, isn't it? Stop making things and start providing services around the things you used to make.