4 ms·

I agree with you and a lot of the things people who are responding are saying but the one thing that keeps popping in my head is that Apple who is disrupting in

by djmips 6y ago

I agree with you and a lot of the things people who are responding are saying but the one thing that keeps popping in my head is that Apple who is disrupting in this case isn't exactly the lightweight scrappy contender as put forth in the parables and anecdotes. If the hypothesis is true for Intel why is giant Apple not suffering from the same mercenary middle management / toxic political BS?

rossdavidh 6y ago
I'm sure they have it, but it occurs to me that they did go through a near-death experience that might have caused some of the worst baggage to abandon ship, and for a while afterwards they probably knew that it was possible for even a company as big as Apple to go under. Now that it's been a while, it wouldn't totally shock me if they ended up drifting Intel's way eventually.
bobthepanda 6y ago
Apple historically has concentrated leadership to a T (see: the Steve Jobs mythos) I don't recall hearing anything about Intel being nearly as centralized. Steve Jobs apparently demolished internal units, with the following outcome: > As was the case with Jobs before him, CEO Tim Cook occupies the only position on the organizational chart where the design, engineering, operations, marketing, and retail of any of Apple’s main products meet. In effect, besides the CEO, the company operates with no conventional general managers: people who control an entire process from product development through sales and are judged according to a P&L statement. https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-organized-for-innovation https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-organized-for-innovatio...
BurningFrog 6y ago
Apple probably has similar problems, but this particular sub-organization is healthy for now. Maybe because it's newer and hasn't rotted yet.
jack_riminton 6y ago
Explained somewhat by the nature of the innovators dilemma and the products they're making: - x86 chips for PC were Intel's cash cow so doing anything to disrupt that revenue stream would be fought against - Apple's cash cow is the phone itself so they don't particularly have any dogmatic loyalty to one type of chip as long as the phone sells Now if there were a technology to come up agains the iPhone (glasses anyone?) they'd probably face the same conundrum; disrupt themselves or be disrupted?
- Doctor_Fegg 6y ago
  They did, famously, deliberately kill their own iPod market by introducing the iPhone.
  - jack_riminton 6y ago
    Very true good point
  - mapgrep 6y ago
    That was completely conventional and expected per the innovators dilemma - they moved to a higher margin product with more features. iPhone was innovative and impressive for many reasons but it did not short circuit innovators dilemma.
ThrowawayR2 6y ago
While Steve Jobs was alive, he served as Apple's lodestone and BDFL. It's only been 9 years since his passing, so any rot that might exist probably wouldn't have grown enough (taking into account their culture of secrecy as well) to be externally visible.
simonh 6y ago
Apple is very differently organised from most big corporations, it has whats known as a functional organisational structure. Marketing, operations, software engineering, hardware engineering, etc. Most corporations are organised around product groups, but what happens when the mobile products group comes up with a new device and wants to sell it to corporate clients? The enterprise products division might not like that. Imagine if Apple had a Mac division selling laptops, they might not have been happy about the Phone division coming out with the iPad and keyboard cases.
- Baeocystin 6y ago
  To be fair, I think many of their Mac-related problems over the past few years are a result of no one being able to defend the line internally, too. Management is a difficult problem.
  - simonh 6y ago
    I think this is a misunderstanding. The problems with the Mac have not been due to neglect, but due to very aggressive forward looking and innovative advancements of the platform some of which just failed. You don’t develop all new low profile keyboard technology, an original touch sensitive display interface system, a new hinge mechanism, a custom integrated security and image processing chip (T2), and a unique 5k display system through neglect. The problem is some of these advancements were simply misconceived. It wasn’t lack of interest or investment, it was poor execution of some of the new developments. Steve Jobs used to say that being better necessarily meant being different, but being different means taking risks and sometimes they don’t pay off.
    - Baeocystin 6y ago
      Perhaps we just have a different opinion, and that's OK. I don't work at Apple, so I have no deeper insight, other than to me, it looks like the Mac branch has been flailing with no clear direction for some time now. They may have the money to try things, but there no one steering the ship, so to speak.
    - 6y ago

by djmips 6y ago

rossdavidh 6y ago

I'm sure they have it, but it occurs to me that they did go through a near-death experience that might have caused some of the worst baggage to abandon ship, and for a while afterwards they probably knew that it was possible for even a company as big as Apple to go under. Now that it's been a while, it wouldn't totally shock me if they ended up drifting Intel's way eventually.

bobthepanda 6y ago

Apple historically has concentrated leadership to a T (see: the Steve Jobs mythos) I don't recall hearing anything about Intel being nearly as centralized. Steve Jobs apparently demolished internal units, with the following outcome: > As was the case with Jobs before him, CEO Tim Cook occupies the only position on the organizational chart where the design, engineering, operations, marketing, and retail of any of Apple’s main products meet. In effect, besides the CEO, the company operates with no conventional general managers: people who control an entire process from product development through sales and are judged according to a P&L statement. https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-organized-for-innovation https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-organized-for-innovatio...

BurningFrog 6y ago

Apple probably has similar problems, but this particular sub-organization is healthy for now. Maybe because it's newer and hasn't rotted yet.

jack_riminton 6y ago

Explained somewhat by the nature of the innovators dilemma and the products they're making: - x86 chips for PC were Intel's cash cow so doing anything to disrupt that revenue stream would be fought against - Apple's cash cow is the phone itself so they don't particularly have any dogmatic loyalty to one type of chip as long as the phone sells Now if there were a technology to come up agains the iPhone (glasses anyone?) they'd probably face the same conundrum; disrupt themselves or be disrupted?

Doctor_Fegg 6y ago
They did, famously, deliberately kill their own iPod market by introducing the iPhone.
- jack_riminton 6y ago
  Very true good point
- mapgrep 6y ago
  That was completely conventional and expected per the innovators dilemma - they moved to a higher margin product with more features. iPhone was innovative and impressive for many reasons but it did not short circuit innovators dilemma.

ThrowawayR2 6y ago

While Steve Jobs was alive, he served as Apple's lodestone and BDFL. It's only been 9 years since his passing, so any rot that might exist probably wouldn't have grown enough (taking into account their culture of secrecy as well) to be externally visible.

simonh 6y ago

Apple is very differently organised from most big corporations, it has whats known as a functional organisational structure. Marketing, operations, software engineering, hardware engineering, etc. Most corporations are organised around product groups, but what happens when the mobile products group comes up with a new device and wants to sell it to corporate clients? The enterprise products division might not like that. Imagine if Apple had a Mac division selling laptops, they might not have been happy about the Phone division coming out with the iPad and keyboard cases.

Baeocystin 6y ago
To be fair, I think many of their Mac-related problems over the past few years are a result of no one being able to defend the line internally, too. Management is a difficult problem.
- simonh 6y ago
  I think this is a misunderstanding. The problems with the Mac have not been due to neglect, but due to very aggressive forward looking and innovative advancements of the platform some of which just failed. You don’t develop all new low profile keyboard technology, an original touch sensitive display interface system, a new hinge mechanism, a custom integrated security and image processing chip (T2), and a unique 5k display system through neglect. The problem is some of these advancements were simply misconceived. It wasn’t lack of interest or investment, it was poor execution of some of the new developments. Steve Jobs used to say that being better necessarily meant being different, but being different means taking risks and sometimes they don’t pay off.
  - Baeocystin 6y ago
    Perhaps we just have a different opinion, and that's OK. I don't work at Apple, so I have no deeper insight, other than to me, it looks like the Mac branch has been flailing with no clear direction for some time now. They may have the money to try things, but there no one steering the ship, so to speak.
  - 6y ago