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How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong
An anonymous reader writes "Wired has a look at how the good and bad of Apple, their Yin and Yang, have come together to form a company that actually works. The piece looks at Steve Jobs' unusual and abrasive management style, otherwise known as 'Management Techniques From the Dark Side'. It's essentially a list of counterintuitive, suspicious-seeming and downright evil management techniques that work - for them."
I read the first of five pages of the article, and decided it's not worth further click-throughs.
The author tries to come up with ways that Apple is evil, but really winds up taking jabs primarily at Steve Jobs. As a newfound mac user, I don't give a crap about Jobs, I care about using a computer that matches my needs and does what I want. For me that's Mac. And for most of the other 6-7% of the Mac marketshare it's a pretty similar situation.
make world, not war
Given that most managerial types are ignorant tools whose rise to power is typically fuelled by a mediocre knowledge of PowerPoint and Project, its a no brainer that to succeed, be agile, and come up with good products, you simply do everything that 'traditional' techniques says to avoid.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
Jobs needs to make a few trips to the impound lot to bail out his car. He would probably create his own reserved parking place, but at least that would put an end to the myth of the egalitarian parking lot policy.
Much of the success of Apple has nothing to do with Apple itself or Steve Jobs. Instead, Apple allows people to directly reject Microsoft. Linux satisfies this anti-Microsoft position as well, but Apple actually markets itself and has the financial backing to push this branding.
With that said, Apple helps keep Microsoft out of even more legal hot water, for example, by directly backing Apple. It's a CYA tactic on the legal front.
Bottom line: Don't just drink the Kool-Aid on the Apple story without taking 1-2 steps back to look at the marketplace, cultures, and end users.
How to Download YouTube Videos
I think the point of the article is that evil works, if evil is also very good at what it does.
The whole point in allowing many different people to tackle a problem is to eliminate single-point-of-failure. If one company's product blows, we can choose another's. This is very important, both to the consumer, and to the market as a whole.
But when one company is the best at what they do, people stop thinking about choice. If apple makes the best mp3player/music store, why go anywhere else? If their operating system is so good, who cares if it only runs on their hardware... as long as their hardware is great, too?
Unfortunately, even evil geniuses sometimes fail. For instance, the iPhone SDK... I honestly don't see that going anywhere, unless the current license agreement is modified to something less draconian.
Thomas Galvin
Read the entire article on one page... *
;-)
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-04/bz_apple?currentPage=all
So much better than flipping, flipping, flipping through pages and waiting for reloads. It's the print version, so you can use it that way too -- long article so print and read offline.
* = Assumes you plan on actually reading the article.
How to Download YouTube Videos
No joke, I wish my mod points hadn't expired. This really is some twisted shit. This seems par for the course lately from Wired. They have been publishing absolute garbage lately. Air Force blocks blocks and other sites and suddenlty something that is an industry best practice for security becomes censorship?
I also noticed that the people bitching about Jobs were "former" employees. Well holy shit...someone who left or was fired is going to bitch about their former boss for some media facetime? This is a 5 page article?!
And maybe I didn't read enough, but "micromanaging" has nothing to do with demanding exacting detail from the output. Anyone who calls that micromanaging has NEVER been micromanaged and its an insult to anyone who has suffered through a real micromanaging boss.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
The author seems blissfully unaware of Apple's free software use. GCC, Darwin, Khtml and what not punch a few large holes in their central thesis.
Google runs its servers on Linux, but with propietary tweaks. The Google search ranking algorithm is at least as secret at Apple's product roadmap, and they are no more forthcoming with their product roadmap than Apple is (remember all the random answers and stonewalling that met questions about Google's plans on a mobile phone prior to the Android announcement).
To be a large, public, consumer company you have to keep some things secret for a variety of reasons. You don't want to telegraph strategy to your competitors. You want to release things with a splash to earn unpaid media coverage. You don't want to be held legally liable for stock price movements based on R&D projects that might never get released. etc.
Apple is very closed and secretive about some things, but quite open about others. Like Google their core OS kernel is open source. Like Google they employ commonly available technologies--http, MP3, H264, AAC, Unix, USB, ATA, 802.11, etc.--but put them together in unique ways to create new products.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Where modern management philosophies are mainly about touchy-feelie crap and corporate culture is trending toward openness, Apple stands out as a company where management is aggressive and dictatorial and corporate culture is supremely secretive.
If you want to call that "Evil" I suppose you can. I think, however, that design by committee only produces piles of steaming crap. There is definitely something to be said for a guy who has vision, and the force of personality to see it through.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Another company that used to work that way was Palm. Their flagship pilot was built to be something that the CEO would to carry around with him. There is a well-known story about him getting a block of wood cut which would fit in his jacket pocket and giving it to the designers as a maximum size for the device.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
They may produce products that people want, but that doesn't mean working there is a good experience. I'm guessing that there's alot of voluntary Kool-Aid drinking done by the employees to coninve themselves that the hostile working environment is what it takes to succeed. Also, see "stockholm syndrome" for the workplace.
Jobs may be a dick, but he's also a natural leader, which is always more important.
I'm not a fan of Apple, nor of Mr. Jobs, but he has some serious leadership skills. The fact that he's also a dick is not a factor in his success. Apparently his leadership can outshine his dickishness.
Fortunately Mr. Jobs decided to start a computer company instead of a religious cult in Guyana. Who knows what Jim Jones' "Kool-Ade OS" might have been like had he chosen a different path.
I've worked for an Apple supplier, and it's a bit creepy to have someone take mug shot of you because "Mr. Jobs wants to know what you look like." Not as creepy as getting a phone call at home late at night because they want hand-holding, but creepy.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Say what you like about Steve Jobs. But he has _taste_.
:).
;).
If CxOs are thinking of being the "the red-faced, tyrannical boss" they better not forget that important point. They're not going to do much good if they do the tyrannical part without the taste part. In fact to emulate Apple I bet the tyrannical part is optional, the taste part isn't[1]. And the taste part is _hard_ to emulate.
Jobs knows the difference between good and great. Whereas most CxOs (or people in general) can't even seem to tell the difference between good and bad
The typical committee might take weeks to tell you whether a piece of chocolate tastes good or not, much less even get around to the way it _looks_.
The Techs? Many of the good ones might come with great _technical_ architectures and designs - but when the customer looks at it and tries to use it, it IS a piece of crap from their PoV.
So even if the Techs at Apple don't like his abusive micromanagement, I bet they _respect_ it because Steve Jobs has taste.
They can be confident that even if he's deciding on the "curve of a monitor's corners":
1) The decision is based on making an "insanely great"[2] product (not a crony richer, or more powerful)
2) He is 90% likely to be right about what the market will like.
3) If he yells at you, it's not _just_ because he's an asshole, deep down you know know he is right - that what you just showed him is only suitable as "blah stuff" from Dell...
Many (not all) techs can accept assholes who are right most of the time.
Thing is I wonder whether it's a bit like abused spouse syndrome for them
[1] That said, I think a lot of people with taste AND an obsessive eye for detail tend to get very upset when stuff misses the mark.
[2] Yes I know their products aren't really insanely great.
Right. Pushed from on high. In other words, designed by committee.
No, it's because they actually make cool stuff. The lightest girl in a roomful of fat chicks is still a fat chick.
If by "consistently" you meant "rarely," then I totally agree.
Hahaha. OK, I just got you were being satirical. Well done!
For years I've felt that Steve Jobs is kind of like Willy Wonka. You remember what happens when you cross Willy Wonka? Next thing you know, you're a freakin' snozzberry.
*nod* Most good software I've ever seen was designed to solve the specific needs of a very few people, often needs the software author h(im/er)self had. I think the focus group method is practically guaranteed to lead to mediocre or poor designs. There is nothing specific it's really trying to do, and it's hard to get enthusiastic over something and do a really good job on it when no individual seems all that excited over it.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
i respectfully disagree, IMO Apple utilizes all the tools at their disposal, and that includes focus groups, sociometrics, psychodrama, datamining. It's too important to leave to chance, there is too much at stake ($$) alot is riding on these secretive decisions. The competition is doing this.
If Big Media is the Harvester of Eyes, does that make Apple an arms dealer?
Darwin is not very open-source, and they use WebKit which was developed off of KHTML.
Dell is Texan, but Intel was created in and is still HQ'ed in Silicon Valley, with origins in Fairchild Semiconductor, a seminal Silicon Valley firm. It's about as Silicon Valley as you can get.
Don't compare Apple with Dell. Compare it with Sony or Nintendo. Those companies are equally closed and secretive. Akio Morita (1921-1999) was Sony's founder and the equivalent of Steve Jobs. Sony hasn't been doing too well since Morita died.
Not really.
the iPod is not their saviour product. The problem is very few people get exposed to the Apple line. I recently let a big customer borrow my apple TV for a week. He's a huge Microsoft fan and has Media center PC's in every room.
When I went to his house yesterday to install a new 58" set in his bedroom and asked if I can pick up my apple Tv he said. "How many of those do you have in stock?" He is buying 12 of them for his home replacing the media center PC's as the appleTv product kicks the ever living crap out of windows Media center.
The fact you can "rent" a HD movie for $4.99 was his biggest love of the device. His wife loves that she can "buy" lost right away as well.
If Apple had more exposure to people so they can actually TRY their stuff, they would kill Microsoft and everyone else overnight.
Problem is, Apple doesnt have a "try it for a week for free" program, and your experience at the apple store is sanitized at best.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I don't use the word "organic" because you can't explain what it means. But everyone understands SMOOTH! I use a 24" iMac in a Windows office. People come to me for tasks, and I perform them before their eyes using tools which make it look SMOOTH. It makes me look like I'm magic(al). Exposé, Spaces, Stacks, CoverFlow all make the same tasks that Windows does look SMOOTH. I also run Parallels for IE6 testing, RDC to reach my server, and if I get wicked, I BOOT CAMP into VISTA!!!
Plus I have a machine that is running the same chips and the same apps (Word, InDesign, PShop) as they are, and it's smoother, faster, quieter, larger, thermally cooler and looks great dominating my desk. Take a look at Dell's "The One" and see precisely why Apple succeeded.
The CEO who forced Jobs out wrote an autobiography and mentioned all of the mistakes Jobs wanted to make, how they were such terrible ideas. Jobs gets back into the company years later and does those very things and now Apple is an immense success again. It amazes me how sound logic and reason can sometimes be so wrong. "Stick to the knitting" is usually good advice because businesses typically go to shit when they try to expand into markets they know nothing about and refuse to hire people who do know the market to manage those divisions. My last died doing the same kind of stuff, the boss has a dozen side projects on his plate and he's ignoring the business' main money-making division.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
They do seem to learn from their mistakes though. The cube was too expensive and so it's turned into the mac mini. Maybe the Air will fail but there will probably be a sequel that will learn from the mistakes of the Air.
Quite possibly the reason only former employees ever comment is because the current ones are terrified of their boss.
For some this approach is extremely effective. For others is intolerable.
Indeed. There's a lot that just doesn't follow in the article, for example: "It's hard to see how any of this would have happened had Jobs hewed to the standard touchy-feely philosophies of Silicon Valley. Apple creates must-have products the old-fashioned way: by locking the doors and sweating and bleeding until something emerges perfectly formed. It's hard to see the Mac OS and the iPhone coming out of the same design-by-committee process that produced Microsoft Vista or Dell's Pocket DJ music player."
Microsoft is notorious for driving employees hard. There's a plethora of books like "Microserfs"... there's nothing "touchy-feely" about them. And Bill Gates was also notorious for micromanaging development... often to the final product's detriment. And don't forget, the Macintosh itself started out as an underground project that Jobs opposed at first.
Jobs has good points and bad points. Success doesn't mean that you have to assume the bad points are suddenly good.
So jobs is a douchebag, but because he succeeds, that makes it okay? No, just because you're a visionary (which I'm not even sure he is) doesn't make it okay to be a dick. Notice how they talked to a lot of former employees? No current employees? Just like talking to an abuser's former spouse, but not the current.
Everything in the article points to battered employee syndrome.
"Teach a man to build a fire, and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life."
Just playing Devil's Advocate here, as I pretty much have a bunch of different rigs with a bunch of different specs and recognize that each one has it's place:
1. Computers and devices are proprietary: Yeah, sure, but they're catering to a niche market of generally untechy types. They are a boutique computer brand and should be faulted no more than Ferrari for not making an all-purpose station wagon.
2. Difficult to repair and upgrade: Again, niche untechy types. Repair is as easy as taking the rig to a local Apple store; their warranties generally last as long as they claim the machine will be good for (read "no need for upgrades"). They pretty much tell you when you buy a computer "this'll be pretty good for about 4 years or so," and then you think about buying a new one. As for simple stuff, like adding RAM and upgrading software, Macs are generally super easy to upgrade.
3. Significantly overpriced for their specs: Actually, my Mac (a 24-inch iMac) runs Vista better than all of the entry-priced Dells, and is cheaper than the higher end ones (yeah, I know I'm stupidly using Vista as a benchmark here, but you get what I'm getting at). 4. Pain-in-the-ass to develop for: This is only because the market share is so small. Supply and demand are at work here. There's nothing inherently difficult about developing for Macs, but as long as their's no big market for it, there's nothing to pay the developers with.
5. Locked down tight: Nontechy types generally don't care about the innards of their OS, and again, that's who the core audience is for these machines.
Apple didn't really have to try hard to "convince" anyone of anything when it comes to their machines. They make pretty, and pretty usable, devices for people who are looking for exactly that. And you know what? They're doing a pretty awesome job.
Eek!
Take a step back and try to understand what you just said.
Most good software I've ever seen was designed to solve the specific needs of a very few people, often needs the software author h(im/er)self had.Why is this true? I would suggest that the software is good because both the developer and the customer are the same person. There is no need to argue or communicate because you are the same person in both roles.
I think the focus group method is practically guaranteed to lead to mediocre or poor designs.I would say poor requirements engineering will lead to poor designs; you cannot design something for which you don't completely understand. To make things worst, most customers do not understand engineering and sometimes they may not even know exactly what it is they want. But they will insist that they need something to solve their problem.
It is practically impossible to get the requirements right the first time. I have found that the only way to remain on track is to continuously verify the resulting implementation against the customers. But this is an expensive process and everyone has been trying to find ways to make this process cheaper or use alternative methods. Apple it seems has an expert customer who happens to also be the CEO. Therefore verifying the design and implementation is actually fairly cheap (or required) for them.
Of course, to this day, the apple bashers continue to come out and deny a few facts in their attempt to bash apple. I like apply products and I'd say I'm an apple fan, but to me there's no denying Apple isn't perfect, their products aren't perfect, and as a person, Steve Jobs is mostly an asshole. But lets get our facts straight first.
/.ers consistently do is "If the product isn't for everyone, or it isn't for me, it sucks." The marketroids cause this negative reaction in some geeks that makes them think they are saying "this phone is obviously for everyone." It's not. Would apple love it if everyone on earth eventually bought an iPhone? Yes, but lets be realistic, even Steve doesn't think that. The iPhone, iMac and iPod aren't for everyone. It's okay to not like it, but it's not logical to say the only reason people buy it is because they are sucked into the marketing and forced to use a crappy product.
Apple has succeeded primarily because they have some brilliant marketing folks working for them. While I personally cannot STAND Apple ads (and any ad targeted towards my age group in general, the 18-34s) they obviously have done something right.
There is no denying apple has good marketing. However, no amount of good marketing can turn out this good of a result in their sales. Apple has to follow up with a good product too, and they do. Their products get consistently high marks from any number of magazines and they have fewer problems, relative to most of their competitors. What
In just a few short years, Apple has built a tremendous following of rabid fanboys/girls. While I don't subscribe to the fanboy-ish attitude, and while Apple fanboys seem to be the worst of the kind, there is no denying what the company has achieved. They have created a product line seen as being "on the cutting edge of trends", and doing so means big sales and big money.
They ARE on the cutting edge of trends. That's what good business and marketing does. It's not bad to be out there either. They saw the emergence of digital music, and saw how the music companies were pooh poohing it, saw the small showing of the things like the Rio, and then said "well damn lets do one ourselves and lets do it the way we think it should be done." And they did. Before that, the market was nothing, they defined the market and then owned it. They aren't first to market, but they are first to make something that will appeal to lots of people and catch their attention, and at the same make something that did it's job well.
The question I wonder about is, how long can Apple keep this up? What will they do to keep adding to their empire? They have been hugely successful with the "trendy" types, but what about people like me, the so called "social outcasts"? What about the folks that choose to be anti-trend not because they want to be different, but because they don't like the stigma that goes along with it? What about those for who advertising like what Apple does makes them want to use the products even LESS?
It's interesting how you label yourself a social outcast as if it some how lends weight to your argument. If you are chosing to join a trend because you are trendy, you're dumb. If you are chosing to buck a trend because you are a social outcast, you're dumb. There's a third option, called sensible people. They pick the right device for the job at hand. Many times this will be apple, and many times this will be someone else. These people are smart.
If Apple wants to truly expand their size and market penetration, they need to figure out how to convince folks like myself to move over to them. I hate the image that goes along with pulling a MacBook Air out of a manila folder...and I hate that being a part of the Apple community means sharing space with people who go apeshit when you make a single observation about the negative aspects that Apple's products sometimes have.
Obviously you haven't seen Apple's financials lately.. If you don
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Look at this: Last year, Amazon.com began selling DRM-free songs that can be played on any MP3 player. [...] Not Apple. Want to hear your iTunes songs on the go? You're locked into playing them on your iPod.
Amazon's DRM-free downloads started last September.
Apple's DRM-free downloads started last April.
Did the author of this piece do ANY research?
Not just lately, who could forget the September 1998 issue of Wired, wherein they interviewed several "experts" and concluded that due to the Y2K bugs society as we know it would cease to exist? Yes, that was the very last issue I actually read, but sadly their crap still gets reproduced all over the place. Wired is the Inquirer for the semi-computer-literate crowd and has been for about a decade now. The fact that the Inquirer has the largest circulation of any publication in the world is clearly not lost on them.
Caveat Utilitor
It helps if you imagine John Hodgman's voice reading the Wired article.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Darwin is not very open-source
The Darwin source code is made available under the APSL, which is OSI-approved.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
allowing mp3 on the iPod, and then lock you into the formats they want you to like
Near as I can tell, after using iTunes since 2002 and an iPod since 2005, there is no such thing as lock-in on the platform. The only pain I've ever felt was using up machine authorizations on stuff bought from the iTunes store, and I quickly fixed that problem by freely stopping my purchases and freely taking my business somewhere else. Later Apple themselves fixed that problem by offering DRM-free material, which is great, but my buying habits have migrated elsewhere and there's no punishment from Apple.
The iTunes store certainly encourages purchase of a large class of their material in a locked format. But there's no punishment for operating outside of that, and it's really not even particularly difficult to unlock the DRM'd stuff.
Tweet, tweet.
You should be happy both Wonkas were goatse-less instead of complaining.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
Just because someone is an asshole does not mean they are a bad boss. Some of my best bosses have been complete assholes at times, and typically for damned good reasons. There is a difference between being a total hardass and being a malicious prick. Personally I hate working for the "really nice" boss. They will never tell you when you are doing something wrong, they rarely give clear guidance on exactly what your place in the big picture is, they almost NEVER will confront slack asses that are dragging workcenters down, and worst of all, they make terrible shit umbrellas. You need a boss that is willing to fight for you, and a "really nice" boss may never fight with you, but he will probably never fight for you either. Now a malicious prick...a malicious prick is worse than an asshole any day!
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.