15 ms·

Working at Apple (2011)

297 points by sturza 6y ago

throwawaysea 6y ago
I’ve often wondered how Apple manages to keep secrets across such a big organization. It’s fascinating and as an outsider I wonder if it’s because of a (cult like?) culture or because of fear (of legal consequences). It’s a real problem for those who want to showcase their portfolio and experience though, and that seems unfair.
- izacus 6y ago
  I wonder how they avoid all the issues that Google is facing - workplace diversity issues, labor practices and other social justice issues. How does their HR handle those since we never hear about it in public?
  - blargmaster42_8 6y ago
    They do not hire SJW activists to do HR.
  - mschuster91 6y ago
    > How does their HR handle those since we never hear about it in public? Well, we do hear about their issues... when people start rioting (such as with Wistron in India in the last weeks) or jumping out of windows (Foxconn had to install nets to catch suiciders).
    - rapsey 6y ago
      Those are not apple employees.
      - mschuster91 6y ago
        For all intents and purposes, they're only doing work for Apple. Subcontracting out work should not absolve Apple from responsibility.
        rapsey 6y ago
        Apple has rules regarding labor for their subcontractors with penalties if they break them. It is not anything goes by any means. That does not mean some assholes wont try. Placing the blame solely on the back of Apple is absurd. Those factories don't exist in lawless places.
        corty 6y ago
        > Those factories don't exist in lawless places. When it comes to labour rights, they practically do. Thats why it is so cheap to produce there. Thats why apple uses them.
        Bud 6y ago
        The other reason is that Apple has no choice. There's no other place that can produce what Apple needs to produce, in the quantities it needs. At any price. No, please don't try to claim that work could be done in the US. It can't.
        mschuster91 6y ago
        > There's no other place that can produce what Apple needs to produce, in the quantities it needs. At any price. Apple could build and operate the factories themselves.
        legulere 6y ago
        Japan and Germany show that you can have industry in high wage countries. Your factories have to be more automatized though.
        mschuster91 6y ago
        > That does not mean some assholes wont try. At the scale of Wistron and Foxconn we're not talking about "some assholes", we're talking about the companies' leadership. Apple (and other companies) specifically source stuff out to have that "liability shield" while being able to extract as low prices as possible. If their "labor rules" were worth the paper they are written on they'd hire the people themselves.
  - skc 6y ago
    There is an aura around Apple that might make it difficult for anyone to risk being on their bad side.
    - kergonath 6y ago
      I’m not sure about that. The media always like a bit of Apple bashing; I’m sure they would jump at any opportunity. We don’t even have many anonymous stories.
      - webmobdev 6y ago
        > The media always like a bit of Apple bashing; You'd think so, but no - with the media economics being what it is, media outlets have to think 10-20 times before publishing anything negative about corporates because then you potentially lose out on their advertising money.
  - Bud 6y ago
    I imagine it starts with not being nearly as evil as Google. It helps when you don't have as many issues to "handle" in the first place.
    - izacus 6y ago
      What the heck does that even mean when it comes to corporate empoyement? Don't mix marketing with work conditions.
- tailspin2019 6y ago
  > I’ve often wondered how Apple manages to keep secrets across such a big organization. I've worked with Apple extensively over the last 10 years or so, and what I see from the outside looking in is that they are quite a bureaucratic and very siloed organisation that appears much more "typical" compared to other similarly large organisations than you would assume from their shiny exterior. Anyone who knows anything about large organisations knows how bad communication between departments/divisions can be by default. The phrase "the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing" often applies here. So for Apple, this plays somewhat into their hands. The various parts of the organisation are heavily siloed, with strict controls on cross-communication and even global teams involved in say the roll-out following new product launches, only get to hear many of the details (sometimes any of the details) on the day of launch. It's a bit like the difference between Zero-Trust computing and the castle-and-moat paradigm. Apple operates Zero-Trust on strategic details internally. Each department/division is firewalled off from others and communication is heavily managed, orchestrated and most importantly carefully timed, much like their public communication is. This leads them to being very good at keeping secrets within the org. The downside (as you would imagine) is that working with them can be quite a challenge. And I imagine working for them is very tough if you're at the outer edges and in one of the teams that are always "the last to know". Edit: typo
- rvz 6y ago
  It's called signed NDAs. Every secretive company does this.
  - kilroy123 6y ago
    Exactly, only a crazy person would risk the wrath of the Apple lawyer army.
- jrockway 6y ago
  I think they keep the teams isolated from each other. Google never did that until recently, and most of the product leaks seemed to come from random people not working on the product that was leaked. (A great way to kill the company culture, and that's about it. It's not like you're being paid 7 figures to leak some detail about some inconsequential Android app.) When I worked on Google Wallet, I remember most of the leaks coming from people running "strings" on the Android binaries. Stuff that wasn't released would ship in release builds but be turned off by feature flags. The feature flags had, apparently, easy to decipher names. I don't really know how actual names ended up in release builds (they're just enum values on the wire), but there was quite a push to remove some of this stuff before release to keep leaks to a minimum. Lots of tooling created, and I never heard about it again. (I feel like there are some authors that have some trademark method of getting scoops, and when that changes even in the slightest, they disappear into the ether never to be heard from again.) Overall, I found all the secrecy kind of pointless. I spent most of my time at Google working on a project that was an open-source embedded device, and nobody ever wrote articles about upcoming features... even though they could clone the Git repository, read all the code, read all the incredibly-detailed commit messages, run it on their machine, and send us a pull request. My conclusion is that nobody really cared.
- afavour 6y ago
  I knew someone that worked at Apple around the launch of the iPhone. They worked on the macOS (then OSX, I guess) team and said they had very little idea that the iPhone was coming, despite it heavily using OS work they’d done. They were called into a few meetings and asked obscure questions but were never told why. So I guess that helps. But it seems wildly inefficient to me. I guess it helps to have a giant pile of cash.
- discordance 6y ago
  By instilling fear. When I was there, there were many stories of ‘the yellow team’ coming down on you if you were ever under suspicion
- microtherion 6y ago
  Part of it is indeed internal compartmentalization — sharing certain things on a need to know basis. As an example, I was one of two engineers in our team who had done early work making our software little endian ready (possibly without even our manager being informed; I don't recall). But I knew the work was not complete, and no further work was asked from me for more than a year. So when a MacWorld keynote rolled around, I was convinced rumors of an Intel transition could not possibly be true. What I did not know was that for the final stage of the little endian cleansing, the engineering team was further reduced in size, and on our team, the other engineer had been tasked to do the rest of the work without my involvement. Part of it is also regular training. And that training does not just involve sticks (You can and will be fired for leaking) but also carrots — leaks hurt Apple's stock price, and since most people in a position to leak own stock, you'd be taking money out of your own pocket (and your colleagues'). > It’s a real problem for those who want to showcase their portfolio Once a product has shipped, you can generally talk about it to some extent. The article linked here seems to be talking more about research, which is more problematic because it's not really tied to a specific, shipped product.
person_of_color 6y ago
The secret/silo culture at Apple is insane and I can’t believe Steve ever signed off on it.
- mehrdada 6y ago
  I used to think that way till I saw Google, which is pretty much the opposite, and now I understand it is important to take into account the cons as well as the pros [I'm still more biased towards the G model but less so than before]. In summary, everyone seeing and commenting on everything has two consequences: (1) too much politics and need to potentially justify everything to everyone at the company and their dogs, not just stakeholders, literally everyone in the company, on Memegen, on TGIF, and to the world when stuff inevitably leaks, before the product is ready. This leads to groupthink and no one gets the courage of their conviction. [sometimes this is good and prevents poor products from get to the customer, but usually when that's the case, the team were incompetent and deliberately ignoring prior feedback under the ever-applicable excuse of "you are not the target customer" and could have prevented them if they cared.] (2) when you have a siloed culture, you put the integration job, responsibility, and accountability on the management who coordinate. Therefore you have to be careful who you put in charge and the organization does not scale magically. But once you put the right person in charge, they are accountable and cannot slack off, nor make poor choices forever and expect others underneath them to fix them and expect them to be accountable. The buck stops with the integration point, which is singular. They have to make clear and concrete decisions, leaving less room for spray and pray or blaming stuff on others. Point #2 has synergies with the way Apple is structured: not P&Ls, rather each person is an expert on some aspect of the product and the editing function and discussion on what to build happens very transparently at the top (evidently through heated discussions mediated by Steve who was not afraid of conflicts [contrast with Google execs.]) One person handles software, another handles hardware, another one silicon, etc. and they fight at the top not through proxy wars at the bottom. My sense is this aspect is what Steve "signed-off" on, and the rest naturally followed with that plus product secrecy aspirations (for marketing reasons and due to scar tissues from a past era).
  - russelldjimmy 6y ago
Zenst 6y ago
Would be interesting how Apple installs such an ethos of secretivity - is it loyalty, respect or fear. Maybe a combination of all, and the fear may well be down to the aspect that if you are happy to dish secrets upon a past company then why should this company trust you with our secrets.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tomcam 6y ago
  What a profound question. Annoyed I never asked it myself. Always assumed it was because of Apple’s position in the SV caste system.
- netfortius 6y ago
  You need to remember that Apple is a US based company, country which is by far the most litigious in the world. They (Apple, or any other powerful company, for that matter) can bring you to homelessness just by dragging you through courts.
  - amelius 6y ago
    Yes. But how do you attract scientists if they can't publish their work at conferences, in journals, et c.?
    - ghaff 6y ago
      By paying them lots of money and giving them interesting work. Obviously not everyone will make that trade but many will. There's plenty of work done in many areas of industry and government that aren't especially open and most of them probably don't pay nearly as well as Apple.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - 6y ago
dannyw 6y ago
What if confidentiality agreements had a maximum duration? The author worked at Apple a decade ago. Perhaps their NDA agreements should expire about now. Yes, it can be abused, but it’s kinda like copyright. It’s just like parents having a limited term: it (in theory) catches everyone up to best of X years ago.
- rl3 6y ago
  I think visions can play out far beyond ten years, and their disclosure could potentially further cement existing power structures, such as Apple. Of course, relying upon NDAs in lieu of real trust is trash anyways. Ideally, an [extremely well treated and compensated] team could maintain strict confidence based on ideology alone. Your mission just has to actually change the world for the better in some dramatic way. To play devil's advocate, myself and quite a few other people probably have a keen interest in precisely what the nature and vision of Apple's long-term research was, even a decade ago. People like Bret think far beyond time scales that measure a single decade.
  - H8crilA 6y ago
    NDAs are a joke at larger scale (and pretty much anything important is of larger scale). A lot of Facebook internals are an exact clone of Google's due to poaching.
    - rl3 6y ago
      The perils of unlimited money: culture collapse and technologicical groupthink that stifles true innovation. It's kind of unrealistic to expect a human being to somehow rigorously partition their creative process to respect a myriad of complex legal restrictions. Imagine your profession is to envision the future. Now imagine the companies you've worked for all have very restrictive NDAs. You can't reason out the future very well when pieces of this thought tree have veritable locks on them; their presence alone jarring to creativity itself.
      - donatj 6y ago
garmaine 6y ago
Having met some people that work at Apple... they never stop talking about working at Apple.
- tumblewit 6y ago
  If i was part of something that was used everyday by literally hundreds of millions of people around the world then even I would love to talk about the ones who gave me the opportunity to be part of it.
  - garmaine 6y ago
    I would hope that you have hobbies and interests outside of work.
  - drcross 6y ago
    Your comment made my skin crawl. You're the type of person I desperately avoid at parties.
    - tailspin2019 6y ago
      Perhaps a bit harsh?
    - Bud 6y ago
      I'm sad for you; you clearly haven't ever been a part of anything you really cared about.
      - garmaine 6y ago
        Or maybe he has, but he didn’t let that consume his life entirely.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
    I think many people share this point of view. Personally, this cult of Jobs & co. seems a bit strange to me. We know the guy was not really a nice person. He had many ideas - some of them failed, some of them were a success. But would I like to be a friend of such a person? Honestly, not so much.
mypalmike 6y ago
I'm not sure how this relates to Apple specifically, apart from their reputation for secrecy. What large tech company allows its employees to disclose details of cancelled projects?
- cowsandmilk 6y ago
  I’ve been on cancelled projects that produced patents, which inherently is disclosure if details.
  - mypalmike 6y ago
    Protected disclosure is rather different than random blogging. The latter is often specifically called out in employment contracts as requiring comms sign off.
  - mxfh 6y ago
    Good clue: How many Victors work at apple? https://patents.google.com/?q=(inc.)&inventor=Victor&assignee=apple&before=priority:20120101&after=priority:20060101&oq=(inc.)+inventor:(Victor)+assignee:apple+before:priority:20120101+after:priority:20060101 https://patents.google.com/?q=(inc.)&inventor=Victor&assigne...
- fourthark 6y ago
  And that was the mistake.
- eternalban 6y ago
  Bret thinks the work he did at Apple are his: "my creations". I definitely have a problem with companies claiming the right to your brain 24/7 outside of office, in the proverbial shower, dreaming up an idea entirely unrelated to one's employment. But the very nature of the transaction to work on UI ideas for Apple is that Apple would "own" those ideas. Also, my Firefox browser twice popped up warning about a slow page when I enabled JS for that page, and I finally gave up. And all this, simply to see a basic text with an empty box. So, this will be an unpopular thought, but it is possible that his prototypes were in fact carefully considered and considered non-optimal, for a variety of practical reasons.
topynate 6y ago
This question is about understanding invention in large companies, not as a knock against Bret Victor: His job title had "inventor" in it, and he mentions making many things, but he describes the impact of his inventions in the passive voice: "These concept apps were shown around internally, presumably to inspire the people who did the real work." I gather from this that he didn't see his role as advocacy or promotion of his work, and from "presumably" that he didn't really know what the purpose was of all this showing-round. My question: would he have been able to get into production some of the things he made and cared about, had he engaged in advocacy, or would that have been problematic in Apple's culture?
- raverbashing 6y ago
  It might not even be an issue of advocacy or engagement, it just might have been the right answer to the wrong problem. Or it requires new technology or it wouldn't really be useful Prototyping is nice and thinking about solutions is cool but then comes reality
  - topynate 6y ago
    Sure, you can have a great idea and do everything right with it, but not see it succeed. I'm asking more about the corporate culture at Apple and more generally – is this sort of advocacy encouraged or discouraged, does it improve the chances of a new idea, that sort of thing. I mean Apple has to see a good bit of value in prototyping things and letting people come up with new stuff, or they wouldn't have job positions with the title "inventor", right? Or is that just part of its self-image, and not really encouraged in reality?
- notretarded 6y ago
  Anything he invents becomes IP of Apple in perpetuity. This is smart
- brandall10 6y ago
  Apple historically has a fair bit of separation between design, software, and hardware departments. It would stand to reason that he simply wouldn’t have the ability to advocate for his work outside of his design group.
kubanczyk 6y ago
I recommend http://worrydream.com/#!/quotes http://worrydream.com/#!/quotes by the same author. I think I accumulated more time re-reading it than any other (single) web page over the years.
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  Cool quotes. That site looks like the old sites that we could generate from mac.com.
  - pasiaj 6y ago
    Sure, but I recommend you take a closer look. His articles, for me at least, are the most influential ones on how I think about creation and solving hard problems. Here's a couple Up & Down the Ladder of Abstraction http://worrydream.com/LadderOfAbstraction/ http://worrydream.com/LadderOfAbstraction/ Inventing on Principle: https://vimeo.com/36579366 https://vimeo.com/36579366
    - ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
      Damn straight. Good stuff. I have some reading to do...
      - macintux 6y ago
        He gives some amazing talks, too. The Future of Programming is well worth a watch. https://vimeo.com/71278954 https://vimeo.com/71278954
- jeffreygoesto 6y ago
  The first quote is spot on for the people living in the eastern block in the 70s and 80s. Almost no money but very much everyday creativity. At least from what I remember from my relatives there...
- hliyan 6y ago
  This is an excellent collection, even though I don't agree with every quote I've read so far. The author has done a really good job in distilling long forms into points that like-minded individuals will find interesting. That's an immense amount of labor saved.
tnsittpsif 6y ago
Something seems off, am getting a "403 - Forbidden" while visiting the page. Anybody else get it too or am I the only one? This is while on Firefox Developer Edition on a Windows 10 PC.
jpgvm 6y ago
Yes, exactly.
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
I remember that Guy Kawasaki once wrote that “Working for Apple is like being paid to go to Disneyland.” That was quite some time ago. I’ll bet it no longer applies. Happy Christmas, to those that celebrate it!
- bartvk 6y ago
  For the decently paid people, that may still be true. I'm not so sure for the common retail folks, or the freelancers that Apple used to hire to categorize and correct Siri recordings.
- phendrenad2 6y ago
  This is a common outsider view, and one that BigTechCorp's actively encourage. Outsiders don't see the long hours, stressful deadlines, office politics, they just see the colorful beanbag couches and free catered meals.
  - aikinai 6y ago
    But Apple doesn’t have beanbag couches or free catered meals.
    - swiftcoder 6y ago
      Nor does Amazon, but people still line up to work in AWS. The compensation, the perception of working on something really big and important... it's a hell of a drug.
      - woofie11 6y ago
        My impression is Amazon is mostly for people who don't land Google/Twitter/Facebook. The quality curves mostly overlap (interview processes are noisy), but historically, Google has grabbed the very top -- the people who get offers everywhere. I think that's Facebook/Twitter now. I know fairly few really top people at Amazon -- the one-sided employment agreement, and harsh work conditions don't quite have the same appeal as work-life balance, fancy perks, and all the other stuff that comes with Facebook/Google/Twitter. Compensation's similar, though, and about double what one would get outside of FAANG.
amelius 6y ago
I've noticed that we never see people who work at Apple here in the comments section of HN and I wonder what the reason could be. Perhaps Apple forbids employees to post here? Perhaps they have even blocked the domain? Or perhaps Apple employees have no interest in HN because they simply have no entrepreneurial aspirations?
- lnsru 6y ago
  I don’t work for Apple, I work for another big Corp. We have very very strict social media policy. Couple people get fired each year for posting sensitive information on their LinkedIn. I guess, Apple has even stricter policy regarding their (even personal) opinions.
  - ksec 6y ago
    >Apple has even stricter policy regarding their (even personal) opinions Which is increasingly important in the current political climate. Apple doesn't want their employees to be associated with any political views.
    - xdavidliu 6y ago
      that reminds me of the well-known saying by Michael Jordan: "Republicans buy Macbook Pros too."
      - webmobdev 6y ago
        Apart from the gay CEO, shouldn't the Republicans be worshiping Apple? It's a trillion dollar company that has figured out a way to make software companies and developers to PAY THEM to create software on their platform (for the "privilege" of adding even more value to it), and then force themselves in between these developers and the users to further gauge out even more money from both its users and developers. A really fine example of capitalism (academically speaking).
        6y ago
deleted 6y ago
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fenomas 6y ago
A good friend of mine worked at Apple in a mid-to-senior role for about two years; when he joined he told me not to ask him anything so I didn't. Shortly after he left we were having a drink, and I say: "Just tell me this, did you like it there?" He thought for a fair bit and eventually said "no comment".
- mam2 6y ago
  Most useless comment ever lmfao ><.
- academi 6y ago
  Mastery of something to serve or help and seeing good things happen from that is one of the things that bring happiness to me. Often, I’ve blamed my employers for being miserable, but I realize now that they can contribute to happiness or unhappiness but they aren’t the primary reason for frustration or unhappiness. My health, primarily my mental health, affects how I act and how I interpret things. Even the best people that aren’t mentally unwell can be unhappy. However, being unhappy most of the time is mental illness, whether it’s because of what seems like an unreasonably difficult environment or one that’s seemingly reasonable. Some may bounce out of it and others can’t seem to, but being stuck in a mode of “I had promise and they killed it” doesn’t help anyone. In this case maybe the “no comment” was a joke, maybe it was a bad fit, but those that aren’t unhappy most of the time should get help.
  - dman 6y ago
    Lot of insight in this comment. Thanks for writing it!
  - the_arun 6y ago
    Last line > but those that aren’t unhappy most of the time should get help. I think you meant "but those that aren’t happy most of the time should get help".
- eplanit 6y ago
  To be honest, that doesn't sound like a "good" friend to me. Doesn't trust you enough to share not only any work details, but not even an opinion either? Maybe too much self-importance?
phendrenad2 6y ago
This is the same as working anywhere. It's best to maintain a strict work/private split. All company files, screenshots of company work, and the like go back to the company when I leave. If I want to re-create, from scratch, some of that work (and put enough of a spin on it to not run afoul of any patents or copyrights the company holds), and show it off, that's acceptable of course.
jprupp 6y ago
I am very grateful for my job to be writing free software. Everything is made available for the world to use or change without strings attached. It feels like I am leaving some sort of legacy, no matter how small, and that makes my existence a lot more meaningful. Did you exchange a walking part in a war for a lead role in a cage? –Pink Floyd
- michaelcampbell 6y ago
  I always thought that was "walk-on part".
  - ratww 6y ago
    You are correct, it is.
  - yourapostasy 6y ago
    It is [1]. For those not catching the reference, it is a line from Pink Floyd's song Wish You Were Here. [1] https://www.songfacts.com/lyrics/pink-floyd/wish-you-were-here https://www.songfacts.com/lyrics/pink-floyd/wish-you-were-he...
- tomcam 6y ago
  Of course we need to hear how you get to work on free software!
  - _delibash_ 6y ago
    and why shouldn't we?
    - xdavidliu 6y ago
      parent reminds me of a quote from David Graeber's "Bullshit Jobs" "Real, productive workers are relentlessly squeezed and exploited. The remainder are divided between a terrorised stratum of the, universally reviled, unemployed and a larger stratum who are basically paid to do nothing, in positions designed to make them identify with the perspectives and sensibilities of the ruling class (managers, administrators, etc.)—and particularly its financial avatars—but, at the same time, foster a simmering resentment against anyone whose work has clear and undeniable social value."
newbie578 6y ago
Every new article like this confirm the common thesis that Apple is more like a cult than a company. I cannot fathom people preferring to work there over Google or Facebook, however everyone does have different ethics and pov’s.
jpxw 6y ago
Interestingly (for UK readers), Dominic Cummings is obsessed with Bret Victor (the author of this article).
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Care to elaborate more?
tobr 6y ago
I have some vague recollection that Bret Victor was involved with the design of the Touch Bar. Is this something that has been confirmed?
- flixic 6y ago
  I think he tweeted about it when TouchBar was announced (3 years ago?) Found the tweet: https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/791767756928462848?s=21 https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/791767756928462848?s=2... (Tweeted on the day TouchBar was announced)
Keyframe 6y ago
Or audio world can do what video and vfx world did, you know - move away from Apple platform altogether.
sharken 6y ago
So on one hand you get to do some cool stuff for one of the most successful companies in the world. On the other hand you cannot talk about anything you do at all, as if the time spent there does not exist. Personally I'd rather spend my time at a company that allows for some discussion.
- egsmi 6y ago
  > On the other hand you cannot talk about anything you do at all ... to people outside of Apple. Apple has 137,000 employees in 25 countries. I’m sure you’ll find someone to discuss your work with.
  - mrwh 6y ago
    Yes, this. I could talk about the things I've worked on at [big company], but really, no one outside of [big company] would find it interesting anyway (and not all that many inside [big company] to be honest).
  - underdeserver 6y ago
    Rumor has it Apple is very siloed internally as well, so likely you can't talk to other employees outside your team either.
  - Spoom 6y ago
    I haven't worked there, but isn't Apple famously siloed, even internally? My impression was that there were many areas that could not tell even other Apple employees what they were working on.
  - nrp 6y ago
    Actually, Apple is siloed internally as well. I worked there for a little over three years and had friends there in other departments with whom we could mutually not share what we were working on. It both makes for a worse working culture and causes issues in practice as people relearn the same lessons and reinvent the same solutions in different areas.
canikow 6y ago
canikow#9989 hacker news
aborsy 6y ago
But what prevents the employees of these secretive companies from posting anonymously here or elsewhere?
- bladegash 6y ago
  Probably a combination of integrity, honoring one’s commitments, and fear of the consequences they would face if they are caught.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  They do occasionally. I assume the reason why you don’t see it is because people are {scared, loyal} enough to not do it much.
Apocryphon 6y ago
How the author left- Goodbye Apple, great machine. Grind and polish, smooth and shine. I couldn't catch your match with mine. But I will always say I tried, and if a hundred fires died, perhaps the embers smolder on, to be remembered when I'm gone. http://worrydream.com/Departure/ http://worrydream.com/Departure/
vishnugupta 6y ago
> Q - Oh, okay, I thought you had made some sort of mistake. > A - Yes, exactly. I suppose working at Apple was that mistake?
LockAndLol 6y ago
"What can you tell us about what you did in your last job? Can't say. "What were the biggest challenges at your last job?" Can't say. "Can you describe a situation in your last job that taught you about professionalism?" Can't say. "OK, did you like your last job?" Can't say. ---- So you could've done absolutely nothing of value or done something amazing, but the simple fact that you worked at a multinational company is supposed to make you stand out positively.
tug0fwar 6y ago
I went there with JS disabled and was very confused–it just showed a list of links. Not pleasant. Edit: With JS enabled, the design just amazed me
burntoutfire 6y ago
How do people get the next job after Apple? Let's say someone has worked there for a good couple of years - are they not allowed to share anything about that period in the job interviews or on Linkedin?
- tmpz22 6y ago
  That sounds like an intentional feature for Apple.
- bitwize 6y ago
  They say "I worked at Apple".
  - burntoutfire 6y ago
    Probably not enough to get a better position in another FAANG.
    - bitwize 6y ago
      If you can brandish a business card that says "User Interface Inventor" or something equally high level at the best technology company in the world, you can pretty much write your own ticket at any of the other FANGs, which are also-rans in comparison.
      - burntoutfire 6y ago
        It opens avenues for abuse though - for example, you can say that you were the UX lead on something big, while omitting that it was an internal HR app or something else where UX is an afterthought. Even better, you can claim that you were in fact a senior product manager of let's say iCloud and who can say otherwise (it's not easily verifiable on Linkedin or in any other way).
        saagarjha 6y ago
        They can call your previous employer and confirm your claims, you know.
soulchild37 6y ago
So the tradition of hijacking web browser history navigation (back and forward), started from Apple?
cbsks 6y ago
I interviewed at Apple and talked with 8 engineers. Some had been working there for 6 years and none of them could tell me anything that they had worked on. They couldn’t even tell me if anything they had worked on had shipped. Sounded like a really interesting place to work, but if you can’t tell anyone about it, does it matter?
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  There are normal engineers at Apple that can and do tell people about what they’re working on like anyone else would. https://webkit.org/blog/5852/introducing-the-b3-jit-compiler/ https://webkit.org/blog/5852/introducing-the-b3-jit-compiler...
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    I wouldn't call that "like anyone else would". Those blog posts are planned in advance and get approval before being put online, as they are essentially considered to be official statements from the WebKit team.
    - webble1 6y ago
      the number of people involved with this blog post is likely no less than 100 people across 15 teams.
      - saagarjha 6y ago
        No.
      - coldtea 6y ago
        100 people is more than Apple has working across 3-4 major products, so no. They work in much smaller teams. What you describe is some IBM carricature of the 1980s.
- endtime 6y ago
  > Sounded like a really interesting place to work, but if you can’t tell anyone about it, does it matter? ...yes? I like working on interesting stuff so that my days aren't boring.
suyash 6y ago
I've also heard they are very strict on what employees can and can't do in their free time. Most of the stuff is not allowed even though it's completely separate from day job from what I've heard, which keeps me away from applying at Apple.
kbcuk 6y ago
It's the same guy who designed Alesis Micron! The best and the funniest synth there is, still have it, and I don't even play keys. TIL.
forgotmypw17 6y ago
For the no-js peeps: I was at Apple from August 2007 to November 2010. My job was to play with experimental hardware platforms and input technologies, and come up with new user-interface and application concepts for them. I would then design and prototype apps to demo these ideas. These concept apps were shown around internally, presumably to inspire the people who did the real work. A few things I became known for include pervasively direct-manipulation interfaces (where users do their thing by moving and gesturing with meaningful objects, instead of relying on verb buttons and other indirect controls), new forms of creative tools and new ways of learning information, and being easily frustrated with the realities of corporate research. I made many, many things. The ones I cared deeply about mostly didn't catch on. I would love to show you these things -- maybe they'll inspire you instead. In the box below, I have put all of my creations that I can show publicly: FAQ: Q - But that box is empty! It's an empty box! A - Yes, exactly. Q - Oh, okay, I thought you had made some sort of mistake. A - Yes, exactly.
dang 6y ago
Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2535606 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2535606
acwan93 6y ago
(Former Apple engineer) It’s funny, a friend of mine who’s been jumping around tech companies and recently joined a (non-Apple) FAANG had told me that I was taking the Apple secrecy way too seriously. It’s kind of a unspoken rule at Apple that you just don’t talk about what you worked on while you’re there, and I just normalized that kind of behavior at future ventures for better or for worse. Every former employee I’ve spoken to agreed. HR had (and I’m sure they still do) meetings almost annually showing that leaking has serious implications, from factory checkpoints (even though we’re in SWE) to prevent parts from being leaked to post-mortems on how various HW and SW leaks that end up on MacRumors.
sneak 6y ago
Lots of comments in this thread talk about the secrecy culture at Apple, as if it's an outlier in tech. We still don't know how Glacier works.
jarmitage 6y ago
Ironically, perhaps we have Apple to thank for Bret Victor (the author) going on to make all of his work post-Apple public domain, including the non-profit https://dynamicland.org https://dynamicland.org
MaintenanceMode 6y ago
I worked at Apple in the late 90s, they wouldn't even tell me what I'd be doing during the extensive interview process. There was so much secrecy. After all the paperwork was signed, I met with the team (on a Saturday) and found out what it was and that I'd be working 7 days a week, 14 to 16 hours a day for the foreseeable future. I wasn't disappointed, but it was a really strange way to start a job.
stretchwithme 6y ago
I worked on several contracts at Apple. Since the secrecy supports Apple's success, I don't see the secrecy as an issue. It all helps pull off that "one more thing" moment.

297 points by sturza 6y ago

I’ve often wondered how Apple manages to keep secrets across such a big organization. It’s fascinating and as an outsider I wonder if it’s because of a (cult like?) culture or because of fear (of legal consequences). It’s a real problem for those who want to showcase their portfolio and experience though, and that seems unfair.

izacus 6y ago
I wonder how they avoid all the issues that Google is facing - workplace diversity issues, labor practices and other social justice issues. How does their HR handle those since we never hear about it in public?
- blargmaster42_8 6y ago
  They do not hire SJW activists to do HR.
- mschuster91 6y ago
  > How does their HR handle those since we never hear about it in public? Well, we do hear about their issues... when people start rioting (such as with Wistron in India in the last weeks) or jumping out of windows (Foxconn had to install nets to catch suiciders).
  - rapsey 6y ago
    Those are not apple employees.
    - mschuster91 6y ago
      For all intents and purposes, they're only doing work for Apple. Subcontracting out work should not absolve Apple from responsibility.
      - rapsey 6y ago
        Apple has rules regarding labor for their subcontractors with penalties if they break them. It is not anything goes by any means. That does not mean some assholes wont try. Placing the blame solely on the back of Apple is absurd. Those factories don't exist in lawless places.
        corty 6y ago
        > Those factories don't exist in lawless places. When it comes to labour rights, they practically do. Thats why it is so cheap to produce there. Thats why apple uses them.
        Bud 6y ago
        The other reason is that Apple has no choice. There's no other place that can produce what Apple needs to produce, in the quantities it needs. At any price. No, please don't try to claim that work could be done in the US. It can't.
        mschuster91 6y ago
        > There's no other place that can produce what Apple needs to produce, in the quantities it needs. At any price. Apple could build and operate the factories themselves.
        legulere 6y ago
        Japan and Germany show that you can have industry in high wage countries. Your factories have to be more automatized though.
        mschuster91 6y ago
        > That does not mean some assholes wont try. At the scale of Wistron and Foxconn we're not talking about "some assholes", we're talking about the companies' leadership. Apple (and other companies) specifically source stuff out to have that "liability shield" while being able to extract as low prices as possible. If their "labor rules" were worth the paper they are written on they'd hire the people themselves.
- skc 6y ago
  There is an aura around Apple that might make it difficult for anyone to risk being on their bad side.
  - kergonath 6y ago
    I’m not sure about that. The media always like a bit of Apple bashing; I’m sure they would jump at any opportunity. We don’t even have many anonymous stories.
    - webmobdev 6y ago
      > The media always like a bit of Apple bashing; You'd think so, but no - with the media economics being what it is, media outlets have to think 10-20 times before publishing anything negative about corporates because then you potentially lose out on their advertising money.
- Bud 6y ago
  I imagine it starts with not being nearly as evil as Google. It helps when you don't have as many issues to "handle" in the first place.
  - izacus 6y ago
    What the heck does that even mean when it comes to corporate empoyement? Don't mix marketing with work conditions.
tailspin2019 6y ago
> I’ve often wondered how Apple manages to keep secrets across such a big organization. I've worked with Apple extensively over the last 10 years or so, and what I see from the outside looking in is that they are quite a bureaucratic and very siloed organisation that appears much more "typical" compared to other similarly large organisations than you would assume from their shiny exterior. Anyone who knows anything about large organisations knows how bad communication between departments/divisions can be by default. The phrase "the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing" often applies here. So for Apple, this plays somewhat into their hands. The various parts of the organisation are heavily siloed, with strict controls on cross-communication and even global teams involved in say the roll-out following new product launches, only get to hear many of the details (sometimes any of the details) on the day of launch. It's a bit like the difference between Zero-Trust computing and the castle-and-moat paradigm. Apple operates Zero-Trust on strategic details internally. Each department/division is firewalled off from others and communication is heavily managed, orchestrated and most importantly carefully timed, much like their public communication is. This leads them to being very good at keeping secrets within the org. The downside (as you would imagine) is that working with them can be quite a challenge. And I imagine working for them is very tough if you're at the outer edges and in one of the teams that are always "the last to know". Edit: typo
rvz 6y ago
It's called signed NDAs. Every secretive company does this.
- kilroy123 6y ago
  Exactly, only a crazy person would risk the wrath of the Apple lawyer army.
jrockway 6y ago
I think they keep the teams isolated from each other. Google never did that until recently, and most of the product leaks seemed to come from random people not working on the product that was leaked. (A great way to kill the company culture, and that's about it. It's not like you're being paid 7 figures to leak some detail about some inconsequential Android app.) When I worked on Google Wallet, I remember most of the leaks coming from people running "strings" on the Android binaries. Stuff that wasn't released would ship in release builds but be turned off by feature flags. The feature flags had, apparently, easy to decipher names. I don't really know how actual names ended up in release builds (they're just enum values on the wire), but there was quite a push to remove some of this stuff before release to keep leaks to a minimum. Lots of tooling created, and I never heard about it again. (I feel like there are some authors that have some trademark method of getting scoops, and when that changes even in the slightest, they disappear into the ether never to be heard from again.) Overall, I found all the secrecy kind of pointless. I spent most of my time at Google working on a project that was an open-source embedded device, and nobody ever wrote articles about upcoming features... even though they could clone the Git repository, read all the code, read all the incredibly-detailed commit messages, run it on their machine, and send us a pull request. My conclusion is that nobody really cared.
afavour 6y ago
I knew someone that worked at Apple around the launch of the iPhone. They worked on the macOS (then OSX, I guess) team and said they had very little idea that the iPhone was coming, despite it heavily using OS work they’d done. They were called into a few meetings and asked obscure questions but were never told why. So I guess that helps. But it seems wildly inefficient to me. I guess it helps to have a giant pile of cash.
discordance 6y ago
By instilling fear. When I was there, there were many stories of ‘the yellow team’ coming down on you if you were ever under suspicion
microtherion 6y ago
Part of it is indeed internal compartmentalization — sharing certain things on a need to know basis. As an example, I was one of two engineers in our team who had done early work making our software little endian ready (possibly without even our manager being informed; I don't recall). But I knew the work was not complete, and no further work was asked from me for more than a year. So when a MacWorld keynote rolled around, I was convinced rumors of an Intel transition could not possibly be true. What I did not know was that for the final stage of the little endian cleansing, the engineering team was further reduced in size, and on our team, the other engineer had been tasked to do the rest of the work without my involvement. Part of it is also regular training. And that training does not just involve sticks (You can and will be fired for leaking) but also carrots — leaks hurt Apple's stock price, and since most people in a position to leak own stock, you'd be taking money out of your own pocket (and your colleagues'). > It’s a real problem for those who want to showcase their portfolio Once a product has shipped, you can generally talk about it to some extent. The article linked here seems to be talking more about research, which is more problematic because it's not really tied to a specific, shipped product.

person_of_color 6y ago

The secret/silo culture at Apple is insane and I can’t believe Steve ever signed off on it.

mehrdada 6y ago
I used to think that way till I saw Google, which is pretty much the opposite, and now I understand it is important to take into account the cons as well as the pros [I'm still more biased towards the G model but less so than before]. In summary, everyone seeing and commenting on everything has two consequences: (1) too much politics and need to potentially justify everything to everyone at the company and their dogs, not just stakeholders, literally everyone in the company, on Memegen, on TGIF, and to the world when stuff inevitably leaks, before the product is ready. This leads to groupthink and no one gets the courage of their conviction. [sometimes this is good and prevents poor products from get to the customer, but usually when that's the case, the team were incompetent and deliberately ignoring prior feedback under the ever-applicable excuse of "you are not the target customer" and could have prevented them if they cared.] (2) when you have a siloed culture, you put the integration job, responsibility, and accountability on the management who coordinate. Therefore you have to be careful who you put in charge and the organization does not scale magically. But once you put the right person in charge, they are accountable and cannot slack off, nor make poor choices forever and expect others underneath them to fix them and expect them to be accountable. The buck stops with the integration point, which is singular. They have to make clear and concrete decisions, leaving less room for spray and pray or blaming stuff on others. Point #2 has synergies with the way Apple is structured: not P&Ls, rather each person is an expert on some aspect of the product and the editing function and discussion on what to build happens very transparently at the top (evidently through heated discussions mediated by Steve who was not afraid of conflicts [contrast with Google execs.]) One person handles software, another handles hardware, another one silicon, etc. and they fight at the top not through proxy wars at the bottom. My sense is this aspect is what Steve "signed-off" on, and the rest naturally followed with that plus product secrecy aspirations (for marketing reasons and due to scar tissues from a past era).
- russelldjimmy 6y ago

Zenst 6y ago

Would be interesting how Apple installs such an ethos of secretivity - is it loyalty, respect or fear. Maybe a combination of all, and the fear may well be down to the aspect that if you are happy to dish secrets upon a past company then why should this company trust you with our secrets.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tomcam 6y ago
What a profound question. Annoyed I never asked it myself. Always assumed it was because of Apple’s position in the SV caste system.
netfortius 6y ago
You need to remember that Apple is a US based company, country which is by far the most litigious in the world. They (Apple, or any other powerful company, for that matter) can bring you to homelessness just by dragging you through courts.
- amelius 6y ago
  Yes. But how do you attract scientists if they can't publish their work at conferences, in journals, et c.?
  - ghaff 6y ago
    By paying them lots of money and giving them interesting work. Obviously not everyone will make that trade but many will. There's plenty of work done in many areas of industry and government that aren't especially open and most of them probably don't pay nearly as well as Apple.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - 6y ago

dannyw 6y ago

What if confidentiality agreements had a maximum duration? The author worked at Apple a decade ago. Perhaps their NDA agreements should expire about now. Yes, it can be abused, but it’s kinda like copyright. It’s just like parents having a limited term: it (in theory) catches everyone up to best of X years ago.

rl3 6y ago
I think visions can play out far beyond ten years, and their disclosure could potentially further cement existing power structures, such as Apple. Of course, relying upon NDAs in lieu of real trust is trash anyways. Ideally, an [extremely well treated and compensated] team could maintain strict confidence based on ideology alone. Your mission just has to actually change the world for the better in some dramatic way. To play devil's advocate, myself and quite a few other people probably have a keen interest in precisely what the nature and vision of Apple's long-term research was, even a decade ago. People like Bret think far beyond time scales that measure a single decade.
- H8crilA 6y ago
  NDAs are a joke at larger scale (and pretty much anything important is of larger scale). A lot of Facebook internals are an exact clone of Google's due to poaching.
  - rl3 6y ago
    The perils of unlimited money: culture collapse and technologicical groupthink that stifles true innovation. It's kind of unrealistic to expect a human being to somehow rigorously partition their creative process to respect a myriad of complex legal restrictions. Imagine your profession is to envision the future. Now imagine the companies you've worked for all have very restrictive NDAs. You can't reason out the future very well when pieces of this thought tree have veritable locks on them; their presence alone jarring to creativity itself.
    - donatj 6y ago

garmaine 6y ago

Having met some people that work at Apple... they never stop talking about working at Apple.

tumblewit 6y ago
If i was part of something that was used everyday by literally hundreds of millions of people around the world then even I would love to talk about the ones who gave me the opportunity to be part of it.
- garmaine 6y ago
  I would hope that you have hobbies and interests outside of work.
- drcross 6y ago
  Your comment made my skin crawl. You're the type of person I desperately avoid at parties.
  - tailspin2019 6y ago
    Perhaps a bit harsh?
  - Bud 6y ago
    I'm sad for you; you clearly haven't ever been a part of anything you really cared about.
    - garmaine 6y ago
      Or maybe he has, but he didn’t let that consume his life entirely.
- dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
  I think many people share this point of view. Personally, this cult of Jobs & co. seems a bit strange to me. We know the guy was not really a nice person. He had many ideas - some of them failed, some of them were a success. But would I like to be a friend of such a person? Honestly, not so much.

mypalmike 6y ago

I'm not sure how this relates to Apple specifically, apart from their reputation for secrecy. What large tech company allows its employees to disclose details of cancelled projects?

cowsandmilk 6y ago
I’ve been on cancelled projects that produced patents, which inherently is disclosure if details.
- mypalmike 6y ago
  Protected disclosure is rather different than random blogging. The latter is often specifically called out in employment contracts as requiring comms sign off.
- mxfh 6y ago
  Good clue: How many Victors work at apple? https://patents.google.com/?q=(inc.)&inventor=Victor&assignee=apple&before=priority:20120101&after=priority:20060101&oq=(inc.)+inventor:(Victor)+assignee:apple+before:priority:20120101+after:priority:20060101 https://patents.google.com/?q=(inc.)&inventor=Victor&assigne...
fourthark 6y ago
And that was the mistake.
eternalban 6y ago
Bret thinks the work he did at Apple are his: "my creations". I definitely have a problem with companies claiming the right to your brain 24/7 outside of office, in the proverbial shower, dreaming up an idea entirely unrelated to one's employment. But the very nature of the transaction to work on UI ideas for Apple is that Apple would "own" those ideas. Also, my Firefox browser twice popped up warning about a slow page when I enabled JS for that page, and I finally gave up. And all this, simply to see a basic text with an empty box. So, this will be an unpopular thought, but it is possible that his prototypes were in fact carefully considered and considered non-optimal, for a variety of practical reasons.

topynate 6y ago

This question is about understanding invention in large companies, not as a knock against Bret Victor: His job title had "inventor" in it, and he mentions making many things, but he describes the impact of his inventions in the passive voice: "These concept apps were shown around internally, presumably to inspire the people who did the real work." I gather from this that he didn't see his role as advocacy or promotion of his work, and from "presumably" that he didn't really know what the purpose was of all this showing-round. My question: would he have been able to get into production some of the things he made and cared about, had he engaged in advocacy, or would that have been problematic in Apple's culture?

raverbashing 6y ago
It might not even be an issue of advocacy or engagement, it just might have been the right answer to the wrong problem. Or it requires new technology or it wouldn't really be useful Prototyping is nice and thinking about solutions is cool but then comes reality
- topynate 6y ago
  Sure, you can have a great idea and do everything right with it, but not see it succeed. I'm asking more about the corporate culture at Apple and more generally – is this sort of advocacy encouraged or discouraged, does it improve the chances of a new idea, that sort of thing. I mean Apple has to see a good bit of value in prototyping things and letting people come up with new stuff, or they wouldn't have job positions with the title "inventor", right? Or is that just part of its self-image, and not really encouraged in reality?
notretarded 6y ago
Anything he invents becomes IP of Apple in perpetuity. This is smart
brandall10 6y ago
Apple historically has a fair bit of separation between design, software, and hardware departments. It would stand to reason that he simply wouldn’t have the ability to advocate for his work outside of his design group.

kubanczyk 6y ago

I recommend http://worrydream.com/#!/quotes http://worrydream.com/#!/quotes by the same author. I think I accumulated more time re-reading it than any other (single) web page over the years.

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
Cool quotes. That site looks like the old sites that we could generate from mac.com.
- pasiaj 6y ago
  Sure, but I recommend you take a closer look. His articles, for me at least, are the most influential ones on how I think about creation and solving hard problems. Here's a couple Up & Down the Ladder of Abstraction http://worrydream.com/LadderOfAbstraction/ http://worrydream.com/LadderOfAbstraction/ Inventing on Principle: https://vimeo.com/36579366 https://vimeo.com/36579366
  - ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
    Damn straight. Good stuff. I have some reading to do...
    - macintux 6y ago
      He gives some amazing talks, too. The Future of Programming is well worth a watch. https://vimeo.com/71278954 https://vimeo.com/71278954
jeffreygoesto 6y ago
The first quote is spot on for the people living in the eastern block in the 70s and 80s. Almost no money but very much everyday creativity. At least from what I remember from my relatives there...
hliyan 6y ago
This is an excellent collection, even though I don't agree with every quote I've read so far. The author has done a really good job in distilling long forms into points that like-minded individuals will find interesting. That's an immense amount of labor saved.

tnsittpsif 6y ago

Something seems off, am getting a "403 - Forbidden" while visiting the page. Anybody else get it too or am I the only one? This is while on Firefox Developer Edition on a Windows 10 PC.

jpgvm 6y ago

Yes, exactly.

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago

I remember that Guy Kawasaki once wrote that “Working for Apple is like being paid to go to Disneyland.” That was quite some time ago. I’ll bet it no longer applies. Happy Christmas, to those that celebrate it!

bartvk 6y ago
For the decently paid people, that may still be true. I'm not so sure for the common retail folks, or the freelancers that Apple used to hire to categorize and correct Siri recordings.
phendrenad2 6y ago
This is a common outsider view, and one that BigTechCorp's actively encourage. Outsiders don't see the long hours, stressful deadlines, office politics, they just see the colorful beanbag couches and free catered meals.
- aikinai 6y ago
  But Apple doesn’t have beanbag couches or free catered meals.
  - swiftcoder 6y ago
    Nor does Amazon, but people still line up to work in AWS. The compensation, the perception of working on something really big and important... it's a hell of a drug.
    - woofie11 6y ago
      My impression is Amazon is mostly for people who don't land Google/Twitter/Facebook. The quality curves mostly overlap (interview processes are noisy), but historically, Google has grabbed the very top -- the people who get offers everywhere. I think that's Facebook/Twitter now. I know fairly few really top people at Amazon -- the one-sided employment agreement, and harsh work conditions don't quite have the same appeal as work-life balance, fancy perks, and all the other stuff that comes with Facebook/Google/Twitter. Compensation's similar, though, and about double what one would get outside of FAANG.

amelius 6y ago

I've noticed that we never see people who work at Apple here in the comments section of HN and I wonder what the reason could be. Perhaps Apple forbids employees to post here? Perhaps they have even blocked the domain? Or perhaps Apple employees have no interest in HN because they simply have no entrepreneurial aspirations?

lnsru 6y ago
I don’t work for Apple, I work for another big Corp. We have very very strict social media policy. Couple people get fired each year for posting sensitive information on their LinkedIn. I guess, Apple has even stricter policy regarding their (even personal) opinions.
- ksec 6y ago
  >Apple has even stricter policy regarding their (even personal) opinions Which is increasingly important in the current political climate. Apple doesn't want their employees to be associated with any political views.
  - xdavidliu 6y ago
    that reminds me of the well-known saying by Michael Jordan: "Republicans buy Macbook Pros too."
    - webmobdev 6y ago
      Apart from the gay CEO, shouldn't the Republicans be worshiping Apple? It's a trillion dollar company that has figured out a way to make software companies and developers to PAY THEM to create software on their platform (for the "privilege" of adding even more value to it), and then force themselves in between these developers and the users to further gauge out even more money from both its users and developers. A really fine example of capitalism (academically speaking).
      - 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

fenomas 6y ago

A good friend of mine worked at Apple in a mid-to-senior role for about two years; when he joined he told me not to ask him anything so I didn't. Shortly after he left we were having a drink, and I say: "Just tell me this, did you like it there?" He thought for a fair bit and eventually said "no comment".

mam2 6y ago
Most useless comment ever lmfao ><.
academi 6y ago
Mastery of something to serve or help and seeing good things happen from that is one of the things that bring happiness to me. Often, I’ve blamed my employers for being miserable, but I realize now that they can contribute to happiness or unhappiness but they aren’t the primary reason for frustration or unhappiness. My health, primarily my mental health, affects how I act and how I interpret things. Even the best people that aren’t mentally unwell can be unhappy. However, being unhappy most of the time is mental illness, whether it’s because of what seems like an unreasonably difficult environment or one that’s seemingly reasonable. Some may bounce out of it and others can’t seem to, but being stuck in a mode of “I had promise and they killed it” doesn’t help anyone. In this case maybe the “no comment” was a joke, maybe it was a bad fit, but those that aren’t unhappy most of the time should get help.
- dman 6y ago
  Lot of insight in this comment. Thanks for writing it!
- the_arun 6y ago
  Last line > but those that aren’t unhappy most of the time should get help. I think you meant "but those that aren’t happy most of the time should get help".
eplanit 6y ago
To be honest, that doesn't sound like a "good" friend to me. Doesn't trust you enough to share not only any work details, but not even an opinion either? Maybe too much self-importance?

phendrenad2 6y ago

This is the same as working anywhere. It's best to maintain a strict work/private split. All company files, screenshots of company work, and the like go back to the company when I leave. If I want to re-create, from scratch, some of that work (and put enough of a spin on it to not run afoul of any patents or copyrights the company holds), and show it off, that's acceptable of course.

jprupp 6y ago

I am very grateful for my job to be writing free software. Everything is made available for the world to use or change without strings attached. It feels like I am leaving some sort of legacy, no matter how small, and that makes my existence a lot more meaningful. Did you exchange a walking part in a war for a lead role in a cage? –Pink Floyd

michaelcampbell 6y ago
I always thought that was "walk-on part".
- ratww 6y ago
  You are correct, it is.
- yourapostasy 6y ago
  It is [1]. For those not catching the reference, it is a line from Pink Floyd's song Wish You Were Here. [1] https://www.songfacts.com/lyrics/pink-floyd/wish-you-were-here https://www.songfacts.com/lyrics/pink-floyd/wish-you-were-he...
tomcam 6y ago
Of course we need to hear how you get to work on free software!
- _delibash_ 6y ago
  and why shouldn't we?
  - xdavidliu 6y ago
    parent reminds me of a quote from David Graeber's "Bullshit Jobs" "Real, productive workers are relentlessly squeezed and exploited. The remainder are divided between a terrorised stratum of the, universally reviled, unemployed and a larger stratum who are basically paid to do nothing, in positions designed to make them identify with the perspectives and sensibilities of the ruling class (managers, administrators, etc.)—and particularly its financial avatars—but, at the same time, foster a simmering resentment against anyone whose work has clear and undeniable social value."

newbie578 6y ago

Every new article like this confirm the common thesis that Apple is more like a cult than a company. I cannot fathom people preferring to work there over Google or Facebook, however everyone does have different ethics and pov’s.

jpxw 6y ago

Interestingly (for UK readers), Dominic Cummings is obsessed with Bret Victor (the author of this article).

raverbashing 6y ago
Care to elaborate more?

tobr 6y ago

I have some vague recollection that Bret Victor was involved with the design of the Touch Bar. Is this something that has been confirmed?

flixic 6y ago
I think he tweeted about it when TouchBar was announced (3 years ago?) Found the tweet: https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/791767756928462848?s=21 https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/791767756928462848?s=2... (Tweeted on the day TouchBar was announced)

Keyframe 6y ago

Or audio world can do what video and vfx world did, you know - move away from Apple platform altogether.

sharken 6y ago

So on one hand you get to do some cool stuff for one of the most successful companies in the world. On the other hand you cannot talk about anything you do at all, as if the time spent there does not exist. Personally I'd rather spend my time at a company that allows for some discussion.

egsmi 6y ago
> On the other hand you cannot talk about anything you do at all ... to people outside of Apple. Apple has 137,000 employees in 25 countries. I’m sure you’ll find someone to discuss your work with.
- mrwh 6y ago
  Yes, this. I could talk about the things I've worked on at [big company], but really, no one outside of [big company] would find it interesting anyway (and not all that many inside [big company] to be honest).
- underdeserver 6y ago
  Rumor has it Apple is very siloed internally as well, so likely you can't talk to other employees outside your team either.
- Spoom 6y ago
  I haven't worked there, but isn't Apple famously siloed, even internally? My impression was that there were many areas that could not tell even other Apple employees what they were working on.
- nrp 6y ago
  Actually, Apple is siloed internally as well. I worked there for a little over three years and had friends there in other departments with whom we could mutually not share what we were working on. It both makes for a worse working culture and causes issues in practice as people relearn the same lessons and reinvent the same solutions in different areas.

canikow 6y ago

canikow#9989 hacker news

aborsy 6y ago

But what prevents the employees of these secretive companies from posting anonymously here or elsewhere?

bladegash 6y ago
Probably a combination of integrity, honoring one’s commitments, and fear of the consequences they would face if they are caught.
saagarjha 6y ago
They do occasionally. I assume the reason why you don’t see it is because people are {scared, loyal} enough to not do it much.

Apocryphon 6y ago

How the author left- Goodbye Apple, great machine. Grind and polish, smooth and shine. I couldn't catch your match with mine. But I will always say I tried, and if a hundred fires died, perhaps the embers smolder on, to be remembered when I'm gone. http://worrydream.com/Departure/ http://worrydream.com/Departure/

vishnugupta 6y ago

> Q - Oh, okay, I thought you had made some sort of mistake. > A - Yes, exactly. I suppose working at Apple was that mistake?

LockAndLol 6y ago

"What can you tell us about what you did in your last job? Can't say. "What were the biggest challenges at your last job?" Can't say. "Can you describe a situation in your last job that taught you about professionalism?" Can't say. "OK, did you like your last job?" Can't say. ---- So you could've done absolutely nothing of value or done something amazing, but the simple fact that you worked at a multinational company is supposed to make you stand out positively.

tug0fwar 6y ago

I went there with JS disabled and was very confused–it just showed a list of links. Not pleasant. Edit: With JS enabled, the design just amazed me

burntoutfire 6y ago

How do people get the next job after Apple? Let's say someone has worked there for a good couple of years - are they not allowed to share anything about that period in the job interviews or on Linkedin?

tmpz22 6y ago
That sounds like an intentional feature for Apple.
bitwize 6y ago
They say "I worked at Apple".
- burntoutfire 6y ago
  Probably not enough to get a better position in another FAANG.
  - bitwize 6y ago
    If you can brandish a business card that says "User Interface Inventor" or something equally high level at the best technology company in the world, you can pretty much write your own ticket at any of the other FANGs, which are also-rans in comparison.
    - burntoutfire 6y ago
      It opens avenues for abuse though - for example, you can say that you were the UX lead on something big, while omitting that it was an internal HR app or something else where UX is an afterthought. Even better, you can claim that you were in fact a senior product manager of let's say iCloud and who can say otherwise (it's not easily verifiable on Linkedin or in any other way).
      - saagarjha 6y ago
        They can call your previous employer and confirm your claims, you know.

soulchild37 6y ago

So the tradition of hijacking web browser history navigation (back and forward), started from Apple?

cbsks 6y ago

I interviewed at Apple and talked with 8 engineers. Some had been working there for 6 years and none of them could tell me anything that they had worked on. They couldn’t even tell me if anything they had worked on had shipped. Sounded like a really interesting place to work, but if you can’t tell anyone about it, does it matter?

chrisseaton 6y ago
There are normal engineers at Apple that can and do tell people about what they’re working on like anyone else would. https://webkit.org/blog/5852/introducing-the-b3-jit-compiler/ https://webkit.org/blog/5852/introducing-the-b3-jit-compiler...
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I wouldn't call that "like anyone else would". Those blog posts are planned in advance and get approval before being put online, as they are essentially considered to be official statements from the WebKit team.
  - webble1 6y ago
    the number of people involved with this blog post is likely no less than 100 people across 15 teams.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      No.
    - coldtea 6y ago
      100 people is more than Apple has working across 3-4 major products, so no. They work in much smaller teams. What you describe is some IBM carricature of the 1980s.
endtime 6y ago
> Sounded like a really interesting place to work, but if you can’t tell anyone about it, does it matter? ...yes? I like working on interesting stuff so that my days aren't boring.

suyash 6y ago

I've also heard they are very strict on what employees can and can't do in their free time. Most of the stuff is not allowed even though it's completely separate from day job from what I've heard, which keeps me away from applying at Apple.

kbcuk 6y ago

It's the same guy who designed Alesis Micron! The best and the funniest synth there is, still have it, and I don't even play keys. TIL.

forgotmypw17 6y ago

For the no-js peeps: I was at Apple from August 2007 to November 2010. My job was to play with experimental hardware platforms and input technologies, and come up with new user-interface and application concepts for them. I would then design and prototype apps to demo these ideas. These concept apps were shown around internally, presumably to inspire the people who did the real work. A few things I became known for include pervasively direct-manipulation interfaces (where users do their thing by moving and gesturing with meaningful objects, instead of relying on verb buttons and other indirect controls), new forms of creative tools and new ways of learning information, and being easily frustrated with the realities of corporate research. I made many, many things. The ones I cared deeply about mostly didn't catch on. I would love to show you these things -- maybe they'll inspire you instead. In the box below, I have put all of my creations that I can show publicly: FAQ: Q - But that box is empty! It's an empty box! A - Yes, exactly. Q - Oh, okay, I thought you had made some sort of mistake. A - Yes, exactly.

dang 6y ago

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2535606 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2535606

acwan93 6y ago

(Former Apple engineer) It’s funny, a friend of mine who’s been jumping around tech companies and recently joined a (non-Apple) FAANG had told me that I was taking the Apple secrecy way too seriously. It’s kind of a unspoken rule at Apple that you just don’t talk about what you worked on while you’re there, and I just normalized that kind of behavior at future ventures for better or for worse. Every former employee I’ve spoken to agreed. HR had (and I’m sure they still do) meetings almost annually showing that leaking has serious implications, from factory checkpoints (even though we’re in SWE) to prevent parts from being leaked to post-mortems on how various HW and SW leaks that end up on MacRumors.

sneak 6y ago

Lots of comments in this thread talk about the secrecy culture at Apple, as if it's an outlier in tech. We still don't know how Glacier works.

jarmitage 6y ago

Ironically, perhaps we have Apple to thank for Bret Victor (the author) going on to make all of his work post-Apple public domain, including the non-profit https://dynamicland.org https://dynamicland.org

MaintenanceMode 6y ago

I worked at Apple in the late 90s, they wouldn't even tell me what I'd be doing during the extensive interview process. There was so much secrecy. After all the paperwork was signed, I met with the team (on a Saturday) and found out what it was and that I'd be working 7 days a week, 14 to 16 hours a day for the foreseeable future. I wasn't disappointed, but it was a really strange way to start a job.

stretchwithme 6y ago

I worked on several contracts at Apple. Since the secrecy supports Apple's success, I don't see the secrecy as an issue. It all helps pull off that "one more thing" moment.