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I actually thought the Apple engineer, Patrick Gates, was super polite - a lot of people wouldn't even have bothered to respond. And I don't think anyone ever w

by sriramk 16y ago

I actually thought the Apple engineer, Patrick Gates, was super polite - a lot of people wouldn't even have bothered to respond. And I don't think anyone ever wanted to acquire anything.

kenjackson 16y ago
How is lying being polite? I'd rather get no response than a flat out lie. If you email Steve Jobs and he says, "I'm sending you a new iPad in the mail. Just send us your address." Are you happier that he responded then if he hadn't (except for the fact that you now have a good blog story to tell). Being polite would have been "thanks for contacting us. As you can imagine we're swamped with work, but we are interested in this. I'm going to have to put this on the backburner and get back to it when I can. No promises. I'll follow up with you when it looks like there's a good fit schedulewise. Thanks."
- sriramk 16y ago
  Because he isn't lying. Stuff comes up all the time. He was being polite and I'm betting he genuinely wanted to get to it. I'm sympathetic because I've done this often - told someone I'll get back to them and then been absolutely drowned in work. I always hold out hope I'll get back to to it but I never do. I feel like the Apple engineer is being penalized for being polite. A lot of people would have just said "Thanks but we're busy". It looks like he genuinely wanted to look at it but never got around to it. The OP demonstrated some bad behavior by jumping multiple levels and CCing Jobs. When someone does that to me and CCs my management chain, he or she rarely gets the help they want - they've ticked me off and my management chain is going to trust me to deal with things. The OP mentions that he posted this just to show how bad Apple's corporate culture was. Though I doubt that's why this was posted, I actually thought this showed some good culture from Apple. The CEO CCes someone down the stack and then trusts his call. That's what you want your management to do. Across all this, I can't believe the OP thought he was looking at a possible acquisition by AAPL. At best, Patrick Gates was demonstrating polite engineer interest. The OP needs to learn to take a hint and how to deal with email communication.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    "Because he isn't lying. Stuff comes up all the time. He was being polite and I'm betting he genuinely wanted to get to it. I'm sympathetic because I've done this often - told someone I'll get back to them and then been absolutely drowned in work. I always hold out hope I'll get back to to it but I never do." I find it hard to believe that you can't spend 30s to shoot a quick email. I think you "think" you're being polite, but you're not. Leading someone on for weeks isn't being polite. That girl who you wanted to date, who leads on for a year, but always has other plans when you go to pick her up isn't being polite. She may think she is, but really she's being selfish. "Thanks but we're busy" is the right thing to say if you're busy. And if you get busy later say, "Hey, we just got busy, gonna need to put this on hold. Don't know for how long". Took me about 5s to write. Respect the time of other people as much as you respect your own time (because apparently your time is so valuable that you can't break 30s to send an email). That's being polite.
    - sriramk 16y ago
      First of all, this isn't the same as being asked out by someone. This is one email among thousands of others, code review requests, bug reports and what else. Sure it has a bit of a higher priority since Jobs wanted you to look at it but it doesn't look like Jobs was particularly interested either. Also, the OP should know that this stuff happens all the time. And people who want a response send a polite ping request and would say that "If I don't hear back, I'll go ahead with <foo>" or "I'll assume <foo>". The OP didn't do that and went straight to the top which was a terrible move again. At best, someone trying to be polite. At worst, someone being drowned in work and not communicating how busy they are (and being sick in the middle too). Extrapolating and calling that some sign of corporate bad culture is bad form.
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      I agree with everything you wrote, except that I think it was not polite. It's not how I handle things. And speaking of bug reports, I used to run a team and when I started they'd get customer reports and then say "Won't Fix" and delete the report. One of the first things I did was to make sure every customer got a reply. Sometimes it was just "Sorry, this bug isn't going to get fixed this release." The satisfaction from our enthusiast base shot through the ceiling. Again, I agree with a lot of what you say. The OP didn't handle it well. But with that said, the engineer still wasn't being polite. I don't think he was a jerk. As you note, it is common for people in our field to simply not respond. But it's not how I do thing Edit: This response is in reference to the post below me.

by sriramk 16y ago

I actually thought the Apple engineer, Patrick Gates, was super polite - a lot of people wouldn't even have bothered to respond. And I don't think anyone ever wanted to acquire anything.

kenjackson 16y ago

How is lying being polite? I'd rather get no response than a flat out lie. If you email Steve Jobs and he says, "I'm sending you a new iPad in the mail. Just send us your address." Are you happier that he responded then if he hadn't (except for the fact that you now have a good blog story to tell). Being polite would have been "thanks for contacting us. As you can imagine we're swamped with work, but we are interested in this. I'm going to have to put this on the backburner and get back to it when I can. No promises. I'll follow up with you when it looks like there's a good fit schedulewise. Thanks."

sriramk 16y ago
Because he isn't lying. Stuff comes up all the time. He was being polite and I'm betting he genuinely wanted to get to it. I'm sympathetic because I've done this often - told someone I'll get back to them and then been absolutely drowned in work. I always hold out hope I'll get back to to it but I never do. I feel like the Apple engineer is being penalized for being polite. A lot of people would have just said "Thanks but we're busy". It looks like he genuinely wanted to look at it but never got around to it. The OP demonstrated some bad behavior by jumping multiple levels and CCing Jobs. When someone does that to me and CCs my management chain, he or she rarely gets the help they want - they've ticked me off and my management chain is going to trust me to deal with things. The OP mentions that he posted this just to show how bad Apple's corporate culture was. Though I doubt that's why this was posted, I actually thought this showed some good culture from Apple. The CEO CCes someone down the stack and then trusts his call. That's what you want your management to do. Across all this, I can't believe the OP thought he was looking at a possible acquisition by AAPL. At best, Patrick Gates was demonstrating polite engineer interest. The OP needs to learn to take a hint and how to deal with email communication.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  "Because he isn't lying. Stuff comes up all the time. He was being polite and I'm betting he genuinely wanted to get to it. I'm sympathetic because I've done this often - told someone I'll get back to them and then been absolutely drowned in work. I always hold out hope I'll get back to to it but I never do." I find it hard to believe that you can't spend 30s to shoot a quick email. I think you "think" you're being polite, but you're not. Leading someone on for weeks isn't being polite. That girl who you wanted to date, who leads on for a year, but always has other plans when you go to pick her up isn't being polite. She may think she is, but really she's being selfish. "Thanks but we're busy" is the right thing to say if you're busy. And if you get busy later say, "Hey, we just got busy, gonna need to put this on hold. Don't know for how long". Took me about 5s to write. Respect the time of other people as much as you respect your own time (because apparently your time is so valuable that you can't break 30s to send an email). That's being polite.
  - sriramk 16y ago
    First of all, this isn't the same as being asked out by someone. This is one email among thousands of others, code review requests, bug reports and what else. Sure it has a bit of a higher priority since Jobs wanted you to look at it but it doesn't look like Jobs was particularly interested either. Also, the OP should know that this stuff happens all the time. And people who want a response send a polite ping request and would say that "If I don't hear back, I'll go ahead with <foo>" or "I'll assume <foo>". The OP didn't do that and went straight to the top which was a terrible move again. At best, someone trying to be polite. At worst, someone being drowned in work and not communicating how busy they are (and being sick in the middle too). Extrapolating and calling that some sign of corporate bad culture is bad form.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    I agree with everything you wrote, except that I think it was not polite. It's not how I handle things. And speaking of bug reports, I used to run a team and when I started they'd get customer reports and then say "Won't Fix" and delete the report. One of the first things I did was to make sure every customer got a reply. Sometimes it was just "Sorry, this bug isn't going to get fixed this release." The satisfaction from our enthusiast base shot through the ceiling. Again, I agree with a lot of what you say. The OP didn't handle it well. But with that said, the engineer still wasn't being polite. I don't think he was a jerk. As you note, it is common for people in our field to simply not respond. But it's not how I do thing Edit: This response is in reference to the post below me.