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Lessons from Inside Apple: Why Focus is Horrifyingly Scary
- sparknlaunch 14y agoI heard Adam Lashinsky speak on a recent Stanford Uni podcast. Pretty remarkable insights on Apple and Steve Jobs. Jobs turned the place into a pretty unique organisation. Podcast: http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2931 http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2931
- gnarbarian 14y ago>"Arguments at Apple are personal and confrontational. This began at the top, and it is part of the company’s culture." That sounds like a terrible environment.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- Apocryphon 14y agoDoesn't sound too different from Microsoft's alleged "warring project teams" culture.
- philwelch 14y agoMaybe. Outright aggressive is sometimes better than passive-aggressive though, which is what many cultures turn into.
- reedlaw 14y agoIt's sounds incredibly controlling, which would explain the lack of freedom on iOS and Apple's various platforms. It's not enough to own the entire ecosystem, anything outside is not allowed to run on the hardware (at least for iOS devices). Great for investors and Apple's bottom line, but horrible for consumers (e.g. this story: http://niederfamily.blogspot.be/2012/06/silencing-of-maya.html http://niederfamily.blogspot.be/2012/06/silencing-of-maya.ht...)
- fratis 14y agoWhether or not Apple's corporate culture is "controlling" (though I don't really understand why you're conflating 'confrontational' with 'controlling' in the first place) does not directly impact whether policies towards consumers are restrictive. Since the two seem related, I can see why you'd slip into that, but your claim is really a non sequitur. Also, that article is about a patent lawsuit being brought against a third-party software development firm. The plaintiffs probably requested that Apple take down the allegedly infringing app, and they did. Any curator, no matter how strict or liberal their policies, has the freedom to remove potentially patent-infringing content from their marketplace. (Which, for the record, isn't to say I agree that the patent is legitimate. I really hope the small developer wins.)
- reedlaw 14y agoHere's just one example of the controlling nature of Apple from the article: > Andy Miller, who joined Apple as a vice president after Apple bought his mobile advertising company in 2009, asked Jobs if he could join the board of an independent company in a different business than Apple. “What?” Jobs responded. “You’re barely cutting it here,” Jobs said, which Miller understood to be relatively high praise, “and you want to go spend your time helping someone else’s company? I don’t even let Forstall out of the office,” Jobs added, referring to Scott Forstall, Apple’s mobile software chief, a high-ranking and considerably more influential executive than Miller. Needless to say, Miller declined the board membership offer.
- taligent 14y agoWhat's controlling about that ? Expecting a board member at a critical time in Apple's turnaround to dedicate 100% of the time to Apple is hardly controlling. In fact I would deem it common sense.
- reedlaw 14y ago> "I don’t even let Forstall out of the office." Maybe a joke, but one only a very controlling person could make.
- mjwalshe 14y agoNothing wrong with confrontational and arguing your corner but you need to keep it professional and when a decision is made respect the collective.
- imcqueen 14y agoI bet it's refreshing once you get comfortable working there, but in the beginning it has to be a little intimidating.
- raverbashing 14y agolegend says Tony Fadell (iPod creator) threatened to quit when SJ wanted to put a x86 processor on the iPad I believe such an environment can be very important. if you have very good people Also, it's one thing to stand for your idea agressively, other, to just swear at people.
- ralfd 14y agoThis is an interesting point. It is valuable to have this kind of engineer instead of a Yes-man. Steve Jobs was famously difficult. Certainly not the kind of boss I would want. But the turnover in his inner circle was really low. Craig Federighi who on Monday demonstrated the next OS X is a Guy from the old NeXT days. I think Jobs selected people as underlings who were able to stand up to him (sometimes).
- philwelch 14y agoAccording to his biography, he would give an award every year to the employee who stood up to him the best.
- its_so_on 14y agoIt's a terrible environment, but I bet being a supreme court Justice is also a terrible environment. It also brings out profound conclusions and vision. When Apple says that battery-life is important in mobile devices, they mean it. If Samsung says it, maybe a year later they will turn around and bring out an eight-core phone that you can play a game on for forty-five minutes before having to plug it in again. Apple isn't just opinionated: it's opinionated on hugely difficult technical issues that don't even exist in the wild yet. (As when they release a new category.) You only get that through violent discourse with egos on the line. edit: a similar thing happens at Google, but not when it comes to ergonomics or user interfaces and usability with the same hardware devices Apple makes, but instead when it comes to solving certain problems on a massive scale. The result is that Google can't really release a laptop that's as usable as a Macbook in the same domain, and for everyone, and Apple can't really solve the ops issues that it would take to bring out a Google Search competitor. There is huge amount of discourse (of a radically different nature) at both companies.
- fpgeek 14y ago> When Apple says that battery-life is important in mobile devices, they mean it No, they don't. They mean battery life is important in mobile devices as long as it doesn't get in the way of making them thin (among other things). After all, the modern smartphone with the best battery life is the Droid RAZR MAXX (soon to be dethroned by its international sibling the Motorola RAZR MAXX, which doesn't have the battery-life handicap of an LTE radio).
- its_so_on 14y agoApple would never release a laptop with a 1.5 hour battery (wifi web browsing). an unimaginable number of such laptops are brought out by every major brand other than Apple. (likewise apple has its standards in a phone, which is not the standard you cite, but not 45 minutes either.). Apple is opinionated on every part of the user interface and design, on usability and ease-of-use. They then go on to put their money where their mouth is, and practice what they preach. (For the most part.) It's very hard to find design decisions at Apple that seem to have 0 thought or discussion behind them. This is the norm at other companies.
- exDM69 14y agoDear god, I would not want to work in this company. I want a job, not a religion.
- rkwz 14y ago"Focus is scary. It means not hedging your bets. It means going all-in. If you’re not scared, you’re not focused."
- alexro 14y ago>> If you’re not scared, you’re not focused I think it's a faulty claim. Doesn't work like this in many fields: science, martial arts, medicine (particularly neurosurgery), etc.
- rkwz 14y agoIt was said in the context of startups/business. Say that you'd like to work on two projects - A and B. Atleast one of them needs to succeed or you'll go bankrupt(or something). Now, most people will probably think that if they divide their attention between both projects, they have a higher chance of bringing in some money. The thinking here is "Even if A doesn't take off, B might still bring in some money". So, B is the cushion against failure of A (or vice-versa). But this plan lacks focus - You cannot fully focus on A or B. Removing either improves focus but it also removes the cushion. That's what he means by getting "scared".
- hef19898 14y agoI prefer the martial arts focus. Like in follow through what ever you are currently doing by 100% but be ready to do something different when you done with that. And if what you are currently doing brings you into a good position to do something different no matter if it worked or not it's even better!
- alexro 14y agoThe wording doesn't work for me. Say, I own 2 homes and I want to sell 1 to pay debt. I understand that this is my future home and I won't get the other one back. Especially if the places are in different countries. Do I get scared? If not, can I stay focused? They go overboard with this 'go bankrupt' argument to scare themselves to fight. It is the same as if the surgeons would start thinking 'Oh God, this patient is gonna die if I make a mistake' all the time. I don't see how this can help the patients.
- kristovaher 14y agoGosh, some websites still have not realized that they can have mobile visitors.
- jyap 14y agoDude it works fine on mobile. It's a Tumblr page.
- simonh 14y agoAt my last company we had one project everyone knew was in crisis, but it was 'strategic' and mandated from on high. At one meeting the product manager wanted to focus us on the highest priority issues - it turned out to be a list of more than 10 poorly defined issues. Great job, great people, but management wanted everything and they wanted it now. Nine months later and I've just finished my probation period at a small, scrappy startup with a very specific market niche. Focus is really hard and it has to be driven by leadership from the top.
- hef19898 14y agoMy guess is that when things really get critical it is easier for some people not ot focus on them. And not because focus is scary but what you will see when you focus is. These are the moments where you see if your management consists of (war) leaders or administrators. I say leader for lack of a better word for it. What I have seen is that there are some people that are really good in tough, critical situations and others in the routine day-to-day situations. It's more than just rare that you have both abilities in one person. Maybe that's why some tribal culture have different leaders for war and peace time.
- yters 14y agoYes, the military does this too. It is called situational leadership.
- tudorw 14y agoSounds like a massive exercise in ball waving ego' nonsense, I am pretty sure this is not how real progress is made... It's not as if anything Apple did was truly original (suit on), they are great finishers but I believe true innovation comes from co-operation.
- taligent 14y agoI fail to see how turning around a company from nearly bankruptcy to the largest in the industry isn't progress.
- tudorw 14y agoI meant progress as in 'the idea that the world can become increasingly better in terms of science, technology, modernization, liberty, democracy, quality of life, etc.'
- Angostura 14y agoAs a matter of interest; what do you think the phone market would look like today if the iPhone hadn't come out. And what about the iTunes Store? Do you think you'd be able to buy a single track from album, yet?
- tudorw 14y agoyes
- xtractinator 14y agoThis is how Apple users think, and this article is a prime example of the hyperbole and posturing that is Apple.
- freehunter 14y agoThought: what would we gain from a phone market without the iPhone? You'd be able to buy a phone with a stylus if you wanted (some people do want one) and a phone you can use with gloves or wet hands. Keyboards would be more common (rather than being a very small niche). There might be more mainstream hardware variety, rather than flagship phones all looking exactly alike. We might have seen true pocket computers (this is the road Palm and Windows Mobile were going down) instead of pocket devices. We might not have a concept of "jailbreaking", because smartphones prior to the iPhone were generally not restricted so. As for the iTunes store, ever heard of Rhapsody? It launched in 2001. iTunes store was launched in 2003.
- kabdib 14y ago“High-performance teams should be at each other’s throats” is how one person with relationships with multiple Apple executives summarized the culture. “You don’t get to the right trade-off without each person advocating aggressively for his position.” How ironic -- when I was at Apple in the 90s, our meetings were scattered creampuff things and this is how I imagined Microsoft would be. Now that I'm at Microsoft it's the other way around . . . :-)
- zem 14y agoit's interesting how company cultures evolve. i work for google and have a friend at microsoft, and remarked to him once that our team meetings tend to have the underlying theme of "how can we make the user go 'whoa! they did that?!'". he noted that his team meetings tended to be more along the lines of "how can we crush the competition" (not in a monopolistic sense, just a very competitive view of technology). he actually felt that that constant sense of competition made microsoft a more interesting place to work at than google, whereas i really love how google wants to get things right rather than just better than anyone else (that's a side effect). both of us agreed that we would never work at apple, but i can see people of the right temperament thriving in that culture of obsessive secrecy and constant urgency.
- Evbn 14y agoNot working on Android or G+. I infer. Not fixing that typo, because my Android keyboard is insurmountably glitch.
- zem 14y agono, working on search. i agree the android and g+ teams have a somewhat different focus, if only because they're attacking entrenched market leaders rather than getting to lead the market.
- brown9-2 14y agoI hope people don't read things like this as advice for things they could recreate at their own companies. There are lots of others way to be successful without being outright mean or vindictive.
- moocow01 14y agoI honestly am surprised that there are so many intelligent people who are willing to put up with this sort of environment. I really like Apple products but I'd be out the door in a flat second if I was working there and experienced the kind of culture described. Life is too short.
- chestercheetaz 14y agoApple is a primal predator of a corporation. It's lean, aggressive, and doesn't take any crap. It writes it's own rules, because they can. And it's working for them. You can complain about how "hard" this is, but this is the type of drive and operational organization you need to become the consumer tech powerhouse they've become today.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]