How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong 413
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."
What a silly article (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Handicapped (Score:4, Insightful)
He needs to get towed a few times. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
just like a cult (Score:1, Insightful)
"look at how Steve Jobs' unusual and abrasive management style works. ... Wired.com compiles a list of counterintuitive, suspicious-seeming and downright evil management techniques that actually work."
So in other words, it works just like a cult.
They Be The Opposite (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Evil Works (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:He needs to get towed a few times. (Score:5, Insightful)
To Steve Jobs, the hundred dollar fine he'd pay here for parking in a handicapped spot is akin to my putting a quarter in a parking meter. Chump change not worth worrying about.
Fines should be based on net worth, or at least income. Since they're not, the richer you are the less the law applies to you.
Re:Evil Works (Score:3, Insightful)
And if you don't see the iPhone SDK going anywhere, you don't have much vision. Just sayin.
Differences with Google are oversold (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Meh. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Evil Works (Score:5, Insightful)
that it can work for anyone else. It also may not work for any other
company. It happens to work for Jobs and Apple (apparently).
On a similar note, there are plenty of people that are "google wannabes".
They will pick up on something they've heard about Google's management
style. They will try to implement it and be full of themselves. It ends
up being a big fiasco of course because such people are just kidding
themselves. They don't have the talent to be managers at Google or
Apple.
Re:He needs to get towed a few times. (Score:5, Insightful)
Leadership, not totalitarianism (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Meh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:They don't understand because they are wrong. (Score:4, Insightful)
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!
Re:Evil Works (Score:5, Insightful)
In short, Wired is trying to make Steve Jobs' business management methods into something that can work for everybody, which is complete and utter idiocy. If they'd have any experience with business management, they'd know that. What we have here is a person who is good enough with product development, deal making and personal leadership that he can overcome his absolutely craptastic management skills. Jobs is not a manager, he is a dictator. Just because he is a good one doesn't mean that you become good by emulating him. You need the rest of his skills as well.
I also agree that what works for Google is unlikely to work across the board for others. You create management strategies around the people you have. If you can't do that, you need to hire people who fit your management style. But you cannot impose management strategies on people who don't respond to those strategies. That's just a disaster in the making.
Re:They don't understand because they are wrong. (Score:1, Insightful)
"Package management on free systems is nearly flawless" Gee, the last several times I've tried to install an RPM I've been crushed by bugs (can only install a user package as root) or dependencies that were in no way automatically resolved. Maybe I'm just out of date, but the click-and drag program installation on my mac sure doesn't have those problems.
Re:Meh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Meh. (Score:5, Insightful)
I love Apple design. But that delicious, creamy center is wrapped up in all the corporate avarice, control-mongering (DRM, lawsuits etc), and nastiness that the contemporary corporation is capable of. I think that they are actually worse than Microsoft in this regard.
Re:well, it is silly, but not in the way you think (Score:5, Insightful)
*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.
Re:The simple summary (Score:3, Insightful)
Not everything right, just what matters (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
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?
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.
For those that wish to moderate me troll or flamebait, go right ahead. You are the exact reason why I refuse to stand next to you and instead choose to stand with my back to Apple and to it's users.
Apple is in the console business (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Success isn't deterministic (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:completely ignorant (Score:5, Insightful)
People said the exact same thing about the Intel version of Darwin, yet they did release the Intel versions of Darwin!
Re:They don't understand because they are wrong. (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't attempt to bullshit those of us that have been using office productivity
apps since before the current microsoft office hegemony started. Been there,
done that... many times.
Open Office was respectable alternative to ms office even back when the whole
thing was still a proprietary product owned by Star Division.
in no position to criticize it as a tool for doing "serious work". You might as well start
making clueless remarks about the Linux multi-track recording tools while you are at it.
Re:Handicapped (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:well, it is silly, but not in the way you think (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:completely ignorant (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is supposed to count against Apple... how, exactly?
If the authors of the BSD-licensed software used in Apple products were that concerned about getting every single bit of code contributed back by everyone who touches their software, then -- guess what? -- they would have licensed that code under the GPL instead. They are not only meeting, but actually surpassing, their pseudo-contractual obligations for use of the code.
I'd say the fact that Apple continues to contribute anything back to these projects speaks well of them. Not that the company doesn't have its own faults, of course, but let's give credit where credit is due...
Re:They made it "SMOOTH!" (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm a PC. Watch me knock this shit out.
I'm a Mac. Please have a cup of tea while we soothe your eyes with the impressive stylings of the Apple art design team.
I appreciate the Apple styling, but it's not the way my mind works. If someone asks me a math question, I'm like, "BAM! 5.125!" I don't see a graphical sequence of numbers dancing in my head. So that's how I like my programs to work-- not participate in water ballet. =P
Jobs' management style (Score:5, Insightful)
For some this approach is extremely effective. For others is intolerable.
Re:Meh. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's very unrealistic. Apple's product design was pretty good in the late nineties too, but nobody wanted to buy their computers back then. Frankly, this was because the computers were slow and the operating system was crap.
Their recent success has had far more to do with the underlying technology than with design or the success of the iPod (although the iPod certainly didn't hurt). The influence of OS X's FreeBSD / NeXTSTEP underpinnings cannot be overstated. Just about every clique and every social group has that technophile whom the others turn to for advice on electronics, and with OS X Apple won many of these people over from the Linux and other Unix camps.
For example, over the last six months I've had three people turn to me for laptop purchasing advice, and I strongly recommended the MacBook to two of them; these two eventually decided to purchase MacBooks. Six or seven years ago I wouldn't have even considered recommending Apple to anybody outside the graphics design and publishing niche. And I know there are many others like me.
Furthermore, with the switch to Intel processors it is now trivial to virtualize Windows applications in OS X, or even to run Windows itself on a Mac, removing most users' single greatest barrier to switching. Really, it's technology, not industrial design, at the heart of Apple's leap in market share.
Douche (Score:3, Insightful)
Everything in the article points to battered employee syndrome.
Re:They don't understand because they are wrong. (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:well, it is silly, but not in the way you think (Score:5, Insightful)
Take a step back and try to understand what you just said.
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 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.
Re:Meh. (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple's "asshole system of management" doesn't rise to that level. For one thing, too many firms have "nice" management for the university-educated white-collar work force, but then turn around and offer betrayal, abuse, exploitation and layoffs to their blue-collar employees. I wouldn't want to work at Apple (unless I was a super-star industrial designer) but that's a culture-thing. A lot of people thrive in that kind of environment.
Apple-as-assholes and Apple-as-evil are somewhat separate thing - the litigious nature of the company has a lot more to do with the latter, particularly its willingness to use lawsuits to squelch free speech in order to control its trade 'secrets.' That's the behavior that could tip Apple to my "do not buy" list someday, as could horrible sourcing practices (which Apple isn't particularly guilty of.) The well-paid, well-educated professionals who get the brunt of Job's bombast have plenty of options and pretty much can handle it: I'm not too worried about them.
Useless negative bile (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:What a silly article (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the author missed a lot. Was pretty far off base in a lot of areas. I have mainly worked large corporations and *none* had anything resembling worker empowerment..
Take this phrase from the article:
"Apple's successes in the years since Jobs' return -- iMac, iPod, iPhone -- suggest an alternate vision to the worker-is-always-right school of management. In Cupertino, innovation doesn't come from coddling employees and collecting whatever froth rises to the surface; it is the product of an intense, hard-fought process, where people's feelings are irrelevant."
Umm.. I have yet to work anywhere where even technical merits win hard-fought processes.
And I have never seen the worker-is-always-right attitude *anywhere*. If you have technically literate management, you *might* get a chance to pitch your side. Mostly not though. Then you run it by 10, or more, people whom all have the ability to veto, but not approve, your proposal.
I would hazard a guess that large corporations tend towards "worker as cogs" as an overall style. Look at the number of people the last few years that have received notices that their jobs were going to India in 4 weeks. Not exactly worker as individual talent there, ya know. Some try to buck the trend, but they are the exception, not the rule. Smaller companies use different styles. Another line form the article said "More than anywhere else I've worked before or since, there's a lot of concern about being fired". Shoot, the author needs to get out more. A lot of larger corporations will lay off entire departments or outsource them. At least at Apple, the implication seems to be that doing a good job means you keep your job. Many people these days are working under far greater concern of being fired and there is no productivity or metrics for them to meet to change that outcome.
Jobs is good at what he does. He spots future development and goes for it. That isn't a management skill. That talent at the level of a CEO would work under most management styles. And, his vision works because he does not have anyone to veto his proposals. You stick Jobs 2-3 management layers down in any large corporation and you would have all the problems of dealing with someone with his management style, but most of his ideas would be shot down by people who either did not like him, or his ideas.
Basically.. "Jobs is Jobs. You aren't." should be the lessons here. He's a CEO. You aren't.
Re:What a silly article (Score:4, Insightful)
EULA aside, anyone can build a mac clone that will run OS X. All it takes is to buy compatible components, which are only slightly less ubiquitous than win-compatible stuff, and a functional Apple logic board (or, if you're really resourceful, just the ROMs from it). Mac lovers of modest means have been doing it from the beginning, same as PC users. Sure is amazing how so many people who've never owned a Mac know all the drawbacks.
Someone sure has drunk some kool-aid...
Re:What a silly article - Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Meh. (Score:5, Insightful)
But again, this sequence does nothing for proving that this success is due to Jobs' aggressive, dictatorial style. It is equally plausible that Jobs made some small positive change such has hiring some bright engineers upon his arrival. Or maybe made a decision that all products should be sleek and devoid of buttons and sharp edges and come in pretty colors. Either of those decisions could account for their success, both could be effective despite micromanagement or abusive management. One could argue that you should imagine how much better the products from these people would have been had Jobs had a different attitude. That, as the original respondent said, apple is succeeding despite Jobs.
I have worked for aggressive, dictatorial people before. I am fully convinced that, while they might be able to establish a stable of employees with parental-appeasement issues that work hard and produce to gain the appreciation of an authority figure, there is nothing that will be produced that couldn't be with a fair, comfortable management environment.
Should Jobs get the praise for whatever decision he made that did make apple a success? Of course. Should his management style be adopted by others? No. Not until it's proven that it was the reason for success. I don't believe that proof has been provided and there are far too many other companies such as Google that demonstrate that success is not tied to an abusive management style and thus provide a counter-example sufficient to suggest looking towards other reasons for apple's success.
Re:What a silly article (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What a silly article (Score:5, Insightful)
This meme is annoyingly false.
I am an old-school Unix sysadmin and developer, who went Mac back at 10.1 because it is the exact *opposite* of what you claim. All the hard-core Unix nerds were early adopters back then, because we didn't give a fuck about backwards compatibility issues with OS9, and all the Unixy goodness seemed to be fully supported, with a few Apple quirks that for the most part seemed like really good ideas once you got used to them. The standard unix development suite was included, preconfigured for you by Apple. Most Gnu apps seemed to work with little more than a recompile. X-windows was included out of the box. Apache is preconfigured and running in the basic system. Same with CUPS. As delivered by Apple, your laptop was a running LAMP server (AAMP? MAMP?). (These days the dev tools are a separate free download, but that wasn't the case in earlier versions.) Industry-standard file formats were all built in, and often (eg. with PDF) to a degree that puts all other OSes to shame. It even ran those annoying Microsoft apps for those situations when people insist on sending you proprietary files. The Apple apps, proprietary or not, are a mere footnote to all of the above. You can treat them as a nice little bonus, or you can drag them to the trash. Your call.
The only reason you're stuck with Apple, is that nobody else does all this in one box.
Re:What a silly article (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What a silly article (Score:2, Insightful)
Nobody else DID this in one box. A lot has changed since 10.1, including Linux distros. Remove the word "Apple" from your post and I would swear you're describing Ubuntu.
Re:What a silly article (Score:4, Insightful)
I run various Linux distros professionally, so I'm well aware of what is possible with Ubuntu. But it's still several years behind (on the desktop), because like all modern Linuxes, it is targeting Microsoft, not Apple, and Microsoft is typically 5-10 years behind the state of the art so it's a slow-moving target. (Linux was a better OS when it was targeting the major Unixes, but that's just my perspective as a Unix guy.) And none of Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, or various other major software houses make their major apps available for Ubuntu. The fact that a skilled nerd can make some of these apps work under Ubuntu is no more interesting than the fact that a skilled nerd can run OSX on his Dell.
Re:What a silly article (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What a silly article - Mod Parent Up (Score:3, Insightful)