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Apple Went Rotten After Steve Jobs' Death, Former Engineer Claims (siliconvalley.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Bay Area Newsgroup:
Apple turned against customers and its own employees after the death of co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs, a fired Apple engineer claims in a lawsuit. "No corporate responsibility exists at Apple since Mr. Jobs' death," Darren Eastman alleged in a lawsuit over his termination and patents related to his work at the Cupertino tech giant... Eastman, who is representing himself in court, started working as an engineer for Apple in 2006, largely because Jobs was interested in his idea for a low-cost Mac for education, and wanted him hired straight out of graduate school, Eastman said in the filing. Eastman claims to have invented the "Find my iPhone" function. When Jobs headed Apple, he told Eastman to notify him of any unresolved problems with the company's products, and employees in general were expected to raise such concerns, Eastman said in a lawsuit filed Thursday in Santa Clara County Superior Court.
That changed after Jobs died in 2011, he claimed. "Many talented employees who've given part of their life for Apple were now regularly being disciplined and terminated for reporting issues they were expected to (report) during Mr. Jobs tenure," Eastman alleged in the filing. "Cronyism and a dedicated effort to ignore quality issues in current and future products became the most important projects to perpetuate the goal of ignoring the law and minimizing tax. Complying with the law and paying what's honestly required is taboo at Apple, with judicial orders and paying tax (of any kind) representing the principal frustration of Apple's executives... Notifying Mr. Cook about issues (previously welcomed by Mr. Jobs) produces either no response, or, a threatening one later by your direct manager," Eastman claimed.... "There's no accountability, with attempts at doing the right thing met with swift retaliation."
Eastman even claims one Apple employee was fired for reporting toxic mold in the building, and alleges that employees were intentionally fired just before their stock options were vesting. In fact, his entire lawsuit is over just $165,000 worth of Apple common stock, plus $326,400 in damages, $32,640 in interest -- and resolution of an alleged patent-ownership issue.
Apple "declined to comment on the claims made in the lawsuit."
That changed after Jobs died in 2011, he claimed. "Many talented employees who've given part of their life for Apple were now regularly being disciplined and terminated for reporting issues they were expected to (report) during Mr. Jobs tenure," Eastman alleged in the filing. "Cronyism and a dedicated effort to ignore quality issues in current and future products became the most important projects to perpetuate the goal of ignoring the law and minimizing tax. Complying with the law and paying what's honestly required is taboo at Apple, with judicial orders and paying tax (of any kind) representing the principal frustration of Apple's executives... Notifying Mr. Cook about issues (previously welcomed by Mr. Jobs) produces either no response, or, a threatening one later by your direct manager," Eastman claimed.... "There's no accountability, with attempts at doing the right thing met with swift retaliation."
Eastman even claims one Apple employee was fired for reporting toxic mold in the building, and alleges that employees were intentionally fired just before their stock options were vesting. In fact, his entire lawsuit is over just $165,000 worth of Apple common stock, plus $326,400 in damages, $32,640 in interest -- and resolution of an alleged patent-ownership issue.
Apple "declined to comment on the claims made in the lawsuit."
Mr. Jobs is dead son...WE the board of directors NOW run Apple. Get use to it. Now, it is ALL about profit and stock price, NOT producing the best product available.
Companies are usually started by people who actually care about the company. Once they leave they are replaced by managers and MBA and accounting types who are in it to make money for themselves. I won't pretend that company founders aren't interested in making money too, but they usually want more out of it. Just look at Apple and Microsoft: not much going on once the founders left. The companies still make mountains of money though, because that is the focus.
This has been pretty obvious from the outside, but it's nice to have confirmation from the inside. Innovation at Apple is dead. 'Pro' products have become a synonym for Expensive, while lacking the features pro users came to depend on. There are a number of things Jobs would not have tolerated: 1) Dongles. He would have fired anyone who tried to replace all the ports on a pro laptop and suggested users buy dongles. 2) Grinding out new products and releases on a deadline, quality be damned. He had no problems dragging out a release date until a product was perfect. 3) Micro-iterations flogged as innovation. Can anyone here imagine Steve Jobs wiggling a mouse and proclaiming that the pointer getting bigger was an Innovation only Apple could bring you? I've been an Apple user since the 80's, and a 'fanboi' since the early 2000's, but I may be typing this post on the last Mac I'll ever buy if Apple doesn't get their heads out of their arses. Sadly, with the way they are raking in money hand over fist, their current approach is being vindicated by the market and the Apple we once loved is never going to re-emerge.
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Of the two Steves that founded the company, Steve Jobs was the one who lacked ethics. This idiot idolized the wrong Steve. You would think, since he claims to be an engineer, that he would choose to idolize a fellow engineer and not an amoral salesman.
Going from a monomaniacal, obsessive, detail crazed, micro managing leader to a bunch of financially obsessive, stockholder pleasing managers will always be a painful transition.
If you look at corporate culture at Apple, it probably was best in the Apple II days. Macs seemed to introduce a different mindset and approach to the way they did business.
The first time Jobs left (was forced out) Apple, things went south pretty quickly.
Now Apple seems to be milking the dead cow, with no real innovation, just small improvemets on products that seem to be aging poorly.
Anybody else remember Apple's product lines in the early 90s? What a fucking disaster. What did Jobs do when he came back? Slashed and simplified them. Made it easy to figure out which product you needed.
You can see that happening again now that Jobs is gone. Each product has more and more variations with stupid model numbers.
Enjoy the gravy train while it lasts. I'm writing this on the last MacBook I will ever own (mid 2014 pro) and still have an iPhone 6s I will use until it dies. After that, I'm moving away from Apple products.
The cult remembers two Apples. Apple with Steve and Apple without. One nearly killed itself, one did far better.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
Apple is broken and can't be fixed, the problem is soldered in its core and 3rd party repairs won't work.
It is at-will employment in California. The guy was fired for going over his manager's head. It is not discrimination. There is no case, evidently demonstrated by no blood-sucking lawyers is willing to take up his case.
And since when an employee can have a legitimate claim on patents they worked on for the employer.
Sounds like a delusional and entitled brat.
To be fair Steve was a lot of the product overall, he built and then re-saved the company at least twice. Nobody said people good at some things can't also be assholes, or misguided in other ways. He was that exactly.
A flawed human asshole with some good ideas. Still, for a Hiter worshipping whiner like p51d to jump on this story like it's just "time for apple bashing again" just seems patently obvious, again. Apple is seen as "leftist" by idiots.
They're the biggest company in this country, which runs on money. Capitalism. Trade. IP lawsuits, NDA's, spies, poachers, hoarders, board fights, more lawsuits.. it's as American as having a toad penis and being a traitor, at least.
Dumb. Lawyers exists because they are the "engineers" of the law, and know how it works (inside and out). It is ridiculous to try to do a job where you have zero experience.
- As for Apple, it never surprised me their corporate culture would return to the Apple of Pre-Steve Jobs (pre-1997). The old Apple Board drove themselves to the same bankruptcy that killed Commodore and Atari in 1994/96 respectively, and now that board is back in power.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Apple loved dongles *long* before Jobs passed away, he OKd tons of dongles, he also was responsible for deprecating tons of ports and such, which were met with the exact criticism you have now (âoeremoved a pro feature!!!???!!â). And as far as ergonomics goes, some of us remember the hockey puck mouse among other things... Iâ(TM)m a big Apple fan, and I like their products, but anyone who thinks those partixular things are new, or not something Jobs would have done needs to have their memory checked (I will say, however, that i doubt Jobâ(TM)s would have been ok with the port bifrication they have now where lightning headphones cant be used on macs)
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
Welp, regardless of whether or not the case has merit, he's screwed on many levels:
1) "Eastman, who is representing himself in court"
2) Apple has more lawyers on staff than many companies have it total employees.
3) Even if he somehow had a strong enough argument to compensate, they'll win just by drawing the case out indefinitely so that he can't afford to keep pursuing it.
I notice the complaintant is talking about a bunch of different unrelated things. It's clear to me that he's mad, and he's mad at Apple, but he seems pretty unclear about what he is mad about.
In my experience, a pissed-off person who is whining about this and that and "they did this to me" and "they're assholes" and "they won't let me keep complaining about the products all the time" and on and on shouldn't be taken too seriously until they calm down and you figure out what exactly they are actually mad about.
Like when he didn't like you in the elevator? The same one who demeaned and cursed people? The same one who had his little circle of trust and once Cook broke it the iphone and every other product at apple improved within a year, sales went back up and the stock shot up?
Right now, they are reversing that trend. There are increasing numbers of variants for their phones and tablets, and I doubt Jobs would be happy with it.
Seen this any number of times during my own tenure there. This guy was fired. He didn't leave voluntarily. Nevertheless it's clear he cares very deeply about the fate of the company he no longer works for, and is no longer welcome at. He wants the company to continue pushing towards the vision he had when he was hired there: Things "just work", surprising new must-have combinations of technology appearing every couple of years, and a clearly obsessive perfectionism behind every product design, and release, and support life cycle.
He believes he still fights for those values, and therefore the company higher-ups are corrupt idiots for firing him, and now since he knows he will never be coming back he is instead embarking on a personal crusade to draw attention to the corruption - the departure from the vision - he perceives at every level.
The company is crawling with people like him. Obsessively perfectionist live-to-work people who believe in the flattest, most democratic corporate structure possible, because that's the best way to gather and act on feedback. And they're not wrong. But they're also not perfect _people_. And chances are this guy was fired for something much more prosaic than a grand conspiracy of shareholders. He was probably fired for being an insufferable dick and annoying too many people for too long.
Take your massive paychecks and your massive stock holdings and go sit on the beach for a while doing nothing, and cool off, man, then go snag a job at almost literally any other tech company on Earth since you have Apple on your resume now. And quit your bitchin'.
Apple's success came from emulating the visionary design choices Jobs made.
They are currently building all their products in emulation of his last visionary design choice: "Get thinner and thinner until you can't do your job anymore."
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The example of dismissing people just before their retirement fully vests has been common practice for many decades. It's despicable, and "There oughta be a law."
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[...] Eastman, who is representing himself in court [...]
Dumbass.
It doesn’t sound like this guy’s a lawyer, and even those who are lawyers know better than to represent themselves in court, (that’s a bad look,) know they are less likely, statistically-speaking, to be successful in their case, and this guy is going up against a trillion+ dollar company with a fucking ARMY of lawyers, all by himself.
I don’t know if he’s got tapes and hidden video of these guys having corporate meetings that include satanic rituals, pledging allegiance to ISIS, filming child pornography and then EATING the flesh of the babies they just raped, using a cut-up American flag as bibs, napkins and tablecloth, and then wiping their assess with copies of the US Constritution and the Bible, or if he thinks he’s King Leonidas, Spartacus, and “Braveheart’s” William Wallace all rolled into one, with a little King David on top, but he fucking better be... because otherwise, he’s going to end up washing cars in Apple’s parking lot, AND paying Apple for the privilege by the time they're done with him.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
Many companies are run by sociopaths. However, sociopathy is neither necessary nor sufficient. Hitching your wagon to an asshole is not a guarantee of success, but it is likely to make you miserable.
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Agreed. Steve's obsessions ran counter to pure profit. He was more about doing something different to get that profit, not avoiding things to do so. The company culture seems to have shifted the way Walmart's reputed did after Sam died. A lot of Costco folks are figuring the same will happen when Jim dies.
I have worked for bought out companies and companies that had leadership changes that were internal and transitional -- they are completely different cases.
When one company is bought out the changes often are more jarring -- especially when one company buying out another company has a different culture. You are merging two companies -- and potentially changing leadership at the same time (leadership that does not know everyone). Leadership transitions from owner/creator to the next generation (of a mature company - which Apple is) from inside the company -- tends to be a slow change. This person is trying to make it look like it is Jeckyll and Hyde -- sounds to me more of a person that felt entitled just because, and is trying to take his revenge and get a little money at the same time. The only thing he will do is destroy his own reputation and marketability.
What kind of rotten does he mean? The kind that happens to the tune of a bazillion dollars in market value? Or the kind where you can bloat your current lineup of signature key products (iPhone) beyond recognition and still be growing faster than competition because even your shoddy 5 years of product lifespan still is the best in the market? Or does he mean being as rotten as a premium fashion brand with an uptick of 200+$ per product sold just for the kicks of it? Or with being so aloof with fashion branding that you can completely ignore the key audience of tech opinion leaders and still be unbeatable?
I just met someone who asked me (a seasoned professional) to pose for a team photo not with my ThinkPad but with a MacBook because that would look more professional (no joke).
Perhaps he means the kind of rotten where you are the only company that has any hope of sustaining a viable smartwatch lineup that is already at least 2 years ahead of the competition and *gaining*.
The cold hard truth is we've gone past essential computing now and Apple can screw around as much as they want, it's very hard for them to fail, no matter how rotten some disgruntled employee thinks they are.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Steve Jobs challenged the Pepsi Co guy to come work for Apple by saying 'Do you want to sell sugar water to kids for the rest of your life.'
Shortly after Jobs returned to Apple, a big part of the bizness turned into selling 'tunes' to people. I remember the irony when they started putting 'get a free iTune' bottlecaps on pop bottles.
I'm sure they have a 'We are the greatest' bravado on campus that never dies down. There's enough richness to spread around to dampen any dissonance. For now.
Although his strategy kept Apple popular and famous. It maintained a long-term profit by ways of reputation of perfect, innovative products and being a leader. Now Apple may be bringing more cash in quarter-to-quarter, but it is falling behind. The newest iPhone is objectively worse than Samsung's flagship, and more expensive. It's been years since they last released any truly innovative class of devices - iPod, iPad, iPhone were all something completely new, disruptive. Now Apple just releases upgrades - and loses followers. Soon it will go the way of Amiga.
Quarterly profits have completely overshadowed their vision for a decade ahead.
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You lot are disgusting. Land of the free indeed.
I once worked as a low-level engineer at a company with what I believed to be a similarly "rotten culture". You have three options: (1) find a job at a better company, (2) start your own company, or (3) change careers / retire. There is no justice in this world and as a low level engineer, you are not in a position to change corporate culture. My advice is to smile, be a model employee and very quietly work behind the scenes on your exit strategy. When you leave, take the minimum notice, be professional and don't burn any bridges. Forgo any snarky comments, shake your bosses hand and thank him or her for the opportunity to work there. Leave with your respect and reputation intact. The bottom line is that nobody has to work at Apple or at any other company. You are the master of your own fate. Just remember that when your company starts treating you like you have to work there and decides to see how much they can screw you over.
The problem was Sculley greenlighting completely nonsensical platforms like that television/computer abortion which didn't even attempt to leverage a bridge between them. Sculley's idea of progress was some nebulous information finding assistant that looked and acted like a Microsoft project doomed to be forgotten after one launch. John wasn't a bad guy but in the long run Steve made a mistake taking him into Apple.
"Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on
Is Apple still the powerhouse it once was? Can they really stay at the top by not respecting their customers? Surely they know that the customer always comes first. I can't stand these big companies thinking they're too above their customers, I don't think Jobs was perfect, but he surely was a crowd pleaser, when not getting sacked from his own creation. I was browsing this news article earlier on: https://www.meanwebhost.com/fo... and really got my blood boiling. When will these giant companies start looking after their customers properly.