[HN Gopher] How Apple overcame its culture of secrecy to create ...
___________________________________________________________________
How Apple overcame its culture of secrecy to create AirPods Pro
Author : retskrad
Score : 192 points
Date : 2022-05-06 12:53 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.fastcompany.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.fastcompany.com)
| wheresmycraisin wrote:
| Once got 2 interviews deep into a job at apple. I still have no
| idea wtf I was interviewing for and completely lost motivation to
| proceed.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| It's aggravating for sure. I've cancelled interviews with them
| before because they couldn't confirm that I was actually
| interviewing for the team and product I knew I was interviewing
| for. The secrecy often crosses the line into silly and even
| disrespectful.
| serenitylater wrote:
| For real, was it their self driving division? The faux
| secrecy in that was astounding. Like everyone knows what is
| going on here just tell that the computer vision machine
| learning job focused on high definition video and LiDAR data
| is for the car, we both know it's for the car.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Got it in one. It was the only division I was interested
| in, they reached out to me, and I made that extremely clear
| upfront. There were already 6 other offers on the table and
| having been through Apple's fairly exhausting process
| before, didn't want to waste time interviewing for a team
| at the wrong level in the stack.
| wheresmycraisin wrote:
| I assumed I was interviewing for the self driving car
| because it was rumored back then, and then the secrecy
| might make sense. Also it's good for my ego lol. Then I
| asked a friend that works for them about it years later and
| she said apple is secretive about any position... I
| could've been interviewing for a help desk position in the
| cafe for all I know.
| lulzifer wrote:
| cosmiccatnap wrote:
| Fascinating how this article got bubbled up after the unfavorable
| versions were posted by the people who were actually there...
| lkj3lkjlkj3 wrote:
| skuhn wrote:
| I worked at Apple relatively briefly, in a lead role on an
| Important Project that required its own form to be disclosed on
| it (besides the general agreement you sign to begin employment).
| A truly toxic work environment that I couldn't get out of fast
| enough once I shipped the project.
|
| All kinds of projects at Apple have their own disclosure forms,
| and you are only given one to sign if it's deemed necessary to
| your work. My responsibilities on this project didn't entitle me
| to be disclosed on it, which led to all manner of hilariously
| frustrating guessing games as I tried to deliver on the
| requirements without actually being told what they were.
| Conversations regularly went like this: "I can't tell you that
| that approach won't satisfy the requirements, but I would think
| twice if I were you." Ultimately I think that I puzzled out what
| was needed and successfully delivered it, but the method was pure
| madness.
|
| This wasn't even some new silver gadget launch, it was an
| infrastructure component to a future product launch down the
| road. Yet everything and anything can be given the top secret
| treatment.
|
| Why is that? Running a disclosure-required project is
| prestigious. Being disclosed on projects is a badge of honor,
| almost even a high score board, and not being disclosed is used
| as a weapon in big or small ways.
|
| Anything that Apple manages to ship (in my experience) is in
| spite of their corporate culture, not because of it.
| flatiron wrote:
| I've been "ultra violet" on a bunch of projects there and it's
| more hassle than it's worth. I too was very happy when I left.
| Even though I met a ton of wonderful and brilliant people the
| company itself is insufferable.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| I'm disclosed on many many projects at the fruit company and I
| don't think there is any prestigiousness. What happened to you
| is super super rare and that's what makes it entertaining to
| read about.
| closedloop129 wrote:
| To me as an outsider, this sounds like the Apple pendent to
| white privilege. I don't really want to doubt your experience
| but how do you know that there is no prestigiousness when you
| seem to be in a position with an abundance of disclosures?
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Maybe there is this prestige somewhere in Apple, like the
| people who work at Apple Park are isolated from the rest of
| us, but I am such a pleb that I never got the memo. Almost
| everyone has to be disclosed on stuff to work at all.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I'm not sure. There was a time certainly, when Jobs was
| alive, where the big bonuses and options grants went to the
| "disclosure circle".
| raverbashing wrote:
| It's ironic when they talk about "office collaboration" and
| "bumping into colleagues" but in reality you can't even talk
| about what you're doing to most (internal) people
| bombcar wrote:
| I take that to mean that "office collaboration" is letting
| people know what they need to know "off the record" and you
| don't want any chat logs showing it.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| Apple seems to have a very strange way of doing things when it
| comes to secrecy.
|
| When I was working for the defense industry, we would just vet
| people more extensively than needed to give us some margins and
| while things were on a need to know basis, you would never have
| been impaired on requirements like that, it's just too costly.
|
| You have be very rich to be that inefficient.
| urthor wrote:
| Keep in mind this attitude makes total sense to hardware
| engineers.
|
| The hardware business is...
|
| Let's just say that the difficulties you face definitely exist
| for hardware engineers.
|
| But, difficulties involving negotiations plus recalcitrant
| South Korean factory owners are WORSE.
|
| In "South Korean factory owner negotiations," secrecy is
| paramount.
|
| Particularly if said South Korean factory owner is the biggest
| supplier of iPhone screens. And also makes an entire line of
| competitor phones to your products.
|
| Apple's CEO, COO and "head of services" all have degrees from
| Duke University and 30 year careers in supply chain management.
| The company is widely regarded as being run by a Gang of 4,
| those 3 plus the general counsel.
|
| From the outside, Apple is very much a hardware company that
| knows nothing about software.
|
| The software is only good because Mac fans join the company and
| slave hard enough to make it that way.
| jlarocco wrote:
| > The software is only good because Mac fans join the company
| and slave hard enough to make it that way.
|
| The software hasn't been good for years now.
| thebigman433 wrote:
| > The software is only good because Mac fans join the company
| and slave hard enough to make it that way.
|
| What does this even mean? This could easily just say "they
| have good software because the workers care about what they
| are making"
| lapcat wrote:
| > Apple's CEO, COO and "head of services" all have degrees
| from Duke University
|
| Why do you mention this? Duke awards thousands of degrees
| every year. It's a highly ranked university, but the number
| of people in the world with degrees from highly ranked
| universities is massive. It's not rare.
| ohyoutravel wrote:
| The chances of the top three (four?) executives at any
| given giant multinational company all holding degrees from
| the same institution is pretty small. I don't think there
| is an intent to malign Duke, but it is noteworthy.
| lapcat wrote:
| > The chances of the top three (four?) executives at any
| given giant multinational company all holding degrees
| from the same institution is pretty small.
|
| Not really. Colleges are social networks. Alumni favor
| each other. Facebook and Google were both founded at
| colleges.
|
| > I don't think there is an intent to malign Duke
|
| I read it the opposite way, as attempting to say that
| having degrees from Duke somehow makes Apple leadership
| uniquely capable: "all have degrees from Duke University
| and 30 year careers in supply chain management".
|
| > but it is noteworthy.
|
| It's some interesting trivia. But it's not clear why it's
| noteworthy in the context of the discussion of secrecy at
| Apple.
|
| Tim Cook got an MBA at Duke, Jeff Williams got an MBA at
| Duke. Tim Cook was at IBM, Jeff Williams was at IBM. Tim
| Cook joined Apple in operations, Jeff Williams joined
| Apple in operations. Do you think those are all just
| random chance coincidences?
| skuhn wrote:
| I agree that there is an element of logic in the process, but
| I also think that it's being done today to a large extent
| because "this is how we do things at Apple" rather than
| because it fits the needs of that particular project.
|
| To your example, imagine that the full-time Apple employee
| responsible for negotiating with that SK factory owner also
| doesn't know that Apple wants the factory to produce iPhone
| screens. Just go sign a factory that satisfies our hundreds
| of requirements, none of which you know, and by the way we
| need it in a month and everyone else knows what is required
| but they can't / won't tell you.
|
| There is just no way to get the best results when you operate
| that way internally.
| urthor wrote:
| Yes, absolutely.
|
| Keep in mind as well, all corporate policies follow a
| normal distribution.
|
| Most of the time, I find corporations _never_ aim for 90th
| percentile high performance. Perfect is the enemy of cost
| effective.
|
| They want "works pretty well 80% of the time. And the 20%
| that's balls up, make sure it's not so bad."
|
| In your case I suspect the reason is they think "too much
| secrecy" has much less downside than "too little secrecy."
|
| Now, whether that's incompetence or malice, we can never
| know. But those are the gears turning in the head of the
| Director/VP who's classifying these projects.
| skuhn wrote:
| You're exactly right that companies don't want pure
| efficiency, and they shouldn't -- there will always be
| competing priorities to be weighed.
|
| Here's the rub for me, in this particular role at this
| particular time in this particular company: the workload
| was extremely heavy, the deadlines were extremely
| unrealistic, the threat of failure was extreme (up to and
| including terminating the entire org for failure to meet
| objectives), and yet it must be done blindfolded and with
| both hands tied behind our backs.
|
| I'm sure it isn't always like that at Apple, but that was
| toxic and it contributed to all sorts of toxic behaviors
| throughout the org. It's no wonder to me that this
| behavior leads to burnout across the company.
| ianai wrote:
| Have you expanded on the toxicity somewhere? I'm tying to
| understand how an organization like apple can be so toxic
| and successful. Makes a really bad impression to me.
| skuhn wrote:
| Besides my comments here, I haven't spoken about it
| before.
|
| For what it's worth, Apple is hugely siloed and also just
| plain huge. It's entirely possible that the culture in
| other orgs was completely different from what I
| experienced, because it was very hard to interact with
| anyone outside of your org or the current project scope.
|
| How are they so successful despite this culture? In the
| case of the project I worked on, I saw a few reasons for
| success:
|
| 1. Management expressed that failure was not an option,
| so a few people (myself included) out of hundreds pushed
| ourselves beyond the limit to deliver.
|
| 2. Spending a TON of money. I had a different approach to
| Apple's way of controlling costs (they were very much in
| the "buying DRAM for iPhones" mindset), and easily shaved
| millions off of the project. But the inefficiencies
| inherent to the project's timeline and secrecy and other
| stakeholders meant the project came in probably 2-3x more
| expensive than I would have otherwise spent.
|
| 3. Leveraging existing institutional resources. Already
| having a global network and datacenter footprint helped
| immensely on the time to ship, but it also came with a
| ton of bureaucratic baggage.
|
| 4. Being so large that it ultimately didn't matter. While
| the project was essential for a key initiative to
| succeed, and many people (perhaps the entire org) would
| have been let go if it had failed, ultimately the company
| would have been fine if it didn't happen. They probably
| would have just postponed the launch by a year or two and
| had another org handle the project. It's very hard for a
| company Apple's size to have anything be an existential
| threat, so you get a lot of chances.
| urthor wrote:
| 100%. All I'd say is that I've seen it happen at every
| large corporation.
|
| At any one time a project or team gets chewed up and spat
| out.
|
| Corporate one size fits all policies, and the Darwinian
| competition for resources, inevitably creates this.
|
| That's just the story of corporate life in a nutshell.
| Shit goes wrong, you gotta get ready & job hop at the
| first sign of trouble.
| foobarian wrote:
| My impression as outsider privy only to public information
| was that this culture was seeded by Steve Jobs, who
| disliked leaks, partly because he liked their product
| announcements to be glamorous and surprising. I do know
| that company culture can be very sticky so not surprised
| this would persist to this day.
| asdff wrote:
| How much of an advantage are you really getting here? The
| first day they are sold samsung has the airpod torn apart and
| rendered on a computer screen with all specs known. There are
| no big secrets here, these aren't warheads. It didn't take
| long for the gas stations around me to start selling knock
| off airpods along side the knock off lightning cables. If you
| get it early vs not, its not going to make a big difference.
| People who want to be in the apple ecosystem will buy the
| airpods anyway and people who don't care about that will buy
| whatever alternative is on the market, probably whats on sale
| at the time when they look.
| twolettername wrote:
| I imagine the brand recognition of being the innovator here
| (whether or not they really _have_ innovated on anything, I
| won 't judge that here) is a bigger factor in the market
| than it appears at first. At the very least, that lasting,
| prestigious reputation of being a global innovator fits the
| bill for the type of "personality" that the corporation
| exhibits and must tickle something's fancy there, and at
| most it causes a skew in the market towards Apple whereupon
| they can charge their exorbitant prices per unit because
| they did it first.
|
| Something that's telling of my conjecture is the use of the
| phrase, "knock off airpods" in your comment - I imagine
| that came about subconsciously, and yet such a phrase seems
| to have a powerful effect on every other product that comes
| after.
|
| e: formatting, I get markdown rules mixed up with HN's!
| bigfudge wrote:
| I don't think apple can charge higher prices because
| they're first. If anything it's because they are
| consistently good. Or just consistent.
| hammock wrote:
| It's not about preventing knockoffs, apple is not built on
| first mover advantage.
|
| It's about protecting price on contracts for supplies that
| are locked in well before launch. When AirPods launch apple
| has contracts lined up already for production of many
| thousands of them if not millions.
| _sigint_ wrote:
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > Keep in mind this attitude makes total sense to hardware
| engineers.
|
| > The hardware business is...
|
| > Let's just say that the difficulties you face definitely
| exist for hardware engineers.
|
| I've worked in hardware and I've worked with multiple Korean
| CMs and I'm still struggling to understand what you're trying
| to say. I don't agree that this makes "total sense".
|
| Instead of being intentionally vague, can you please just
| describe what you're trying to explain without the "Let's
| just say..." and other totally unnecessary secrecy? This
| entire thread is about how toxic and unproductive it is when
| people use unnecessary secrecy and vagueness, so it's kind of
| ironic to read comments using unnecessary vagueness.
| esrauch wrote:
| I don't see the comment you replied to as being that vague:
| that are claiming that the information asymmetry with the
| hardware manufacturers/suppliers (including Samsung) in
| terms of things like price negotiations and "what's the
| next big thing" is more valuable than the downsides of
| internal engineer productivity.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| Seems like very Tim Cook thing to do. But the cost on
| innovation... doesn't really matter to him.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Maybe? They didn't claim anything at all. I didn't see
| anything in that comment about price negotiations.
| Frankly I'm as confused as the grandparent as to what was
| being said.
| urthor wrote:
| I'd say the reason I was keeping it ambiguous is that I
| wasn't really making a point about hardware or price
| negotiations specifically. I'm not a hardware person at
| all.
|
| I was maybe close to making a point that with supply
| chains, there's many reasons that might justify that kind
| of secrecy.
|
| Really I just want to create empathy about non-software
| engineering reasons for secrecy.
|
| Not ram home a particular hypothesis about a corporation
| I've never worked for. I have a habit of thinking from
| the perspective of corporate titans.
|
| re: price negotiations which is my jam (3-D Negotiation
| and Never Split the Difference are excellent bedtime
| reading).
|
| Keep in mind secrecy is often not JUST about withholding
| information to negotiate the best price. Sometimes the
| information is something the other person in the
| negotiation would also like you to keep secret.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| ' I have a habit of thinking from the perspective of
| corporate titans.'
|
| Thats sounds a bit presumtious, have you ever validated
| how accurate that perspective is? Maybe the perspective
| you imagine is totally different from reality.
| urthor wrote:
| Well I don't think I'm right haha. I haven't met these
| people and asked them exactly what they were thinking.
|
| But I honestly think we're very biased towards assuming
| our senior corporate leaders are foolish and misguided.
|
| Saying "assuming a corporation made a smart decision, why
| did xxx make that decision?" is usually a very fruitful
| line of thought.
| lapcat wrote:
| > I honestly think we're very biased towards assuming our
| senior corporate leaders are foolish and misguided.
|
| I honestly think we're very biased towards assuming our
| senior corporate leaders are gods and not fallible
| mortals.
|
| All humans make mistakes. Very bad mistakes. Even very
| smart people. Depending on circumstances and level of
| power, some people suffer the consequences of their
| mistakes, and others don't.
|
| One common mistake of leaders is to surround themselves
| with "yes men" who never criticize them or tell them the
| truth. Leaders can become very detached from reality, but
| their power allows them to survive and even thrive in a
| state of reality detachment. And these leaders always
| have people who will defend them no matter what and paint
| them as infallible geniuses because of their power, which
| is part of what contributes to never suffering the
| consequences of mistakes.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > corporate leaders are foolish and misguided.
|
| > corporation made a smart decision
|
| The bankers who traded subprime mortgages and fucked off
| with their gains made an excellent decision. The
| corporations didn't, because they are not real, they
| don't make decisions.
|
| Just because something is in the interest of a senior
| leader, does not mean it's in the interest of the whole
| company.
| mmcnl wrote:
| I totally didn't get that all. But could be me.
| deanCommie wrote:
| The "open secret factoid" that OP is dancing around is that
| Samsung makes screens for iPhones, and is also obviously
| Apple's biggest competitor as the default "Premiere Android
| phone" brand.
|
| I don't really see what this detail has to do with OP's
| point about hardware engineer logic/gang of four/etc
| baybal2 wrote:
| I regularly work for companies working for Apple, have a
| number of ex-coworkers who worked, or went to work to
| Apple.
|
| Lose tongues are everywhere, and Apple can't seem to keep
| anything secret in its China RnD unit.
|
| Shenzhen is a city of 17M on the paper, but very few people
| are working in Hardware now. It's a very small industry. I
| feel I know more than half of all companies on somebody's
| resume. Most of 30-40 years olds in the industry were
| already working for 10+ years.
|
| Btw Most of AirPods RnD was done in China, not California.
|
| I would also add that hardware unit side in Apple is said
| to be very conservative, and a mirror image of their
| software team. At least in China, they hold a lifelong
| negative score system, where -30 is you are out under any
| conditions, and 15 minutes late counts as -3. They also use
| USB sticks to move files around, and work on offline
| computers to prevent leaks. Also, WinXP everywhere.
| kanbara wrote:
| lots of stuff isn't disclosed that isn't important. sure some
| things may be secret or require that not everyone can be added
| but that's the same as top secret projects.
|
| it's not toxic in and of itself. i think there are a lot of
| toxic teams but not every team and not every org are that way.
| if you can't get disclosed on something that you manage then
| you have some toxic issues but i wouldn't shit on the entire
| concept because of that, i would question why the org and
| company are that way as a whole and fix the root issues
| buildbot wrote:
| Don't most most big tech companies have these? At Microsoft it
| is pretty common for most people to be in a few "tents"
| (project specific NDAs). What is more rare are agreements
| _outside_ the in place system...
| changoplatanero wrote:
| At fb/google the code for almost all projects is in one giant
| open repo that any engineer can browse.
| amir734jj wrote:
| But good luck figuring out how that code works. Disclosure
| I work at Microsoft and I work with ropes with millions of
| lines of code.
| underwater wrote:
| FB is eons ahead of Microsoft in this regard. Their
| homogenous development experience eliminates tonnes of
| learning curve and busywork that you get with thousands
| of unique repos, build pipelines and and environments.
| jrockway wrote:
| I think the best skill I learned at Google was figuring
| out how other people's code works. You read the
| documentation, and then you make some RPC. It doesn't
| work as documented. You go read the other service's logs
| and see an error message, but it doesn't make any sense.
| You search the codebase for that error message. You find
| that the super deprecated do not include field is
| mandatory; it's sent to some other service that thinks
| it's important. 10 minutes later, you fix your code, the
| RPC works, and you're on to the next thing. No meetings,
| no calls, no emails, no time zone coordination, no bugs
| languishing in some queue that you're not even sure it's
| the right one... just a solution!
|
| I was really surprised how uncommon this is outside of
| Google. People will hit an issue with a library, file a
| bug, and just sit there blocked without ever opening up
| the malfunctioning code and reading through it. Why turn
| a one player game into a multiplayer game unless you
| really have to? Reading code is what you do for a living!
|
| Like anything, it's a skill that you need to develop, but
| it's one that will make you really productive.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| People do do this. The problem is the docs never get
| fixed and everyone needs to do what you just did. Great
| if you have essentially infinite money; otherwise bad.
| kqr wrote:
| I find this difference also between people who grew up on
| open source vs proprietary software.
|
| I'm nervous about running in production software I can't
| open up and look at how it works under the hood. I often
| use that ability to understand my systems better.
|
| Some people just don't care about that. They're used to
| paying a support agreement and opening a ticket or
| calling a support rep instead. I will never get it but
| clearly that's how some people like to, or are at least
| used to, operate.
| frays wrote:
| This is a great insight, thanks for sharing.
|
| I wonder how developers at companies like Apple and
| Microsoft are able to be productive with hidden code.
| jrockway wrote:
| So I guess the other side of the coin is that some people
| are very good at managing their vendors, internally or
| externally. This is another useful skill to learn. I'm
| not that good at it, but it's good to have both options
| in your toolbox.
| ikiris wrote:
| almost all, and code isn't the only thing that exists.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Microsoft is in the process of getting rid of tenting for the
| vast number of projects and making the bar very high to
| require it.
|
| As the OP says, tenting / disclosure is often used as a
| weapon to avoid having to get feedback on projects etc.
| marcinzm wrote:
| >Anything that Apple manages to ship (in my experience) is in
| spite of their corporate culture, not because of it.
|
| You can say this about probably every large company out there
| and yet in the end they deliver. The saying "when a measure
| becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure" applies to
| corporate cultures as well imho. Once the target becomes to
| optimize against the culture then the culture ceases to be a
| good culture.
|
| In some ways I can see secrecy diluting the usual backstabbing
| politics of larger corporations since different groups lack as
| much information with which to wage such politics against each
| other.
| menzoic wrote:
| I wonder if Zero Knowledge Proofs can help this situation
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof
| charcircuit wrote:
| Why would it?
| lelandfe wrote:
| Original article: https://www.fastcompany.com/90748492/apple-
| airpods-pro-creat...
|
| First half of the article: "Teams were innovating for months in
| silos only to finally converge in the eleventh hour before
| launch, ending up in five- or six-hour-long daily meetings,
| causing tremendous friction and burnout. People were frustrated."
|
| Second half of the article: "regular cross-staff sessions,
| transparency, and shared voice" created the AirPods Pro
|
| Frankly, pretty skimpy on the details - ironic considering the
| topic.
| wmf wrote:
| I wonder how much cross-team collaboration was required for
| AirPods Pro? Do they have some kind of iOS or hardware
| integration that regular AirPods don't?
| judge2020 wrote:
| I know there are sometimes developer betas that accidentally
| include pre-production hardware info and strings[0], or
| features that would have no use outside of rumored products,
| eg WebXR[1], so they exist in iOS. I imagine a bad merge can
| get internal features into public builds, but they seem to be
| incredibly rare.
|
| 0: https://www.idropnews.com/news/homepod-setup-process-
| leaked-...
|
| 1: https://igamesnews.com/mobile/ios-15-4-leaks-possible-
| apple-...
| Tao332 wrote:
| It's pretty funny that they had to break through this insane
| cultural wall just to make yet another pair of headphones I
| don't want. I don't really think of "more headphones, but
| better somehow" as innovation.
| zebnyc wrote:
| My conversatons with my brother who works at Apple goes something
| like this. Me: "What are you working on?" Him: "All I can tell
| you is that I am working on a project which will launch later
| this year and you hear about it in the news."
| ant6n wrote:
| Won't he tell u what projects he did in the past?
| [deleted]
| ip26 wrote:
| Is that supposed to be surprising? I don't tell people about
| unannounced projects I work on either.
| gkop wrote:
| There's a middle ground. We make fun of "stealth mode" start
| ups and non-technical idea people demanding an NDA for a
| coffee chat, we should pick on the big companies too, when
| they take themselves too seriously (Eg. non-Apple companies
| copying Apple's way of working, without recognizing what
| works for Apple is unique, it's got an outlier track record
| over its 46 years).
|
| And, maybe you're not as close with your brother as
| grandparent. Some siblings are very close.
| signaru wrote:
| I once worked under a research grant where the leader is trying
| to impress by delivering more than promised, i.e. doing a related
| side project that is not part of the original plan. Upon learning
| about this "secret" side project, this didn't please the grant
| giving agency so the side project was made "official" while
| funding remained the same. An increase in official deliverables
| without an increase in funding and staff was just a recipe for
| burn-out. Worse, the engineers that had to toil in the side
| project did not get as much recognition or networking as those in
| the official deliverable, as it was not the priority among the
| collaborators. On the other hand, the leader only had to demand
| more from engineers to appear prolific to the eyes of the public.
| selfhifive wrote:
| I don't see how they can come up with software hardware
| integration and optimisation by working in silos that converge at
| the eleventh hour. In fact the closed ecosystem criterion would
| mean lots of internal dependency and more communication.
| selimnairb wrote:
| For the past five years I have wondered: what is an "HR business
| partner"? This seems like a recent (ca. 2015? earlier?) euphemism
| for HR goon, or at more charitably an HR fixer. Is this indeed a
| new term for an existing job, or a new role? Where dig this term
| come from? SHRM? B-school academics?
| fleddr wrote:
| Some HR departments gets so large and fluffy that a significant
| amount of employees do "HR for HR". Internal stuff that is
| completely disconnected from the rest of the business.
|
| Those that sometimes actually do talk to the business are
| called "HR business partners".
| namdnay wrote:
| HR business partner is assigned to a specific
| department/division/whatever of the company to be their "HR
| person". If you're in that division you talk to your HR BP,
| they're the one who will do the yearly baselining exercise with
| the managing director etc. So basically the public face of HR
| for that division
|
| As opposed to the people working on company-wide stuff like
| salary guidelines, rulebooks, "the way we work" brochures,
| recruitment, etc
| siva7 wrote:
| Have wondered the same and it seems just to be a new modern
| title for someone who works in HR.
| [deleted]
| 88913527 wrote:
| > Secrecy is a value it held dear, to preserve the "surprise and
| delight" for customers.
|
| I think the last time I felt this way about an Apple Event was
| the launch of the iPad. Not only are they burning out engineers,
| they're optimizing for a value that isn't part of their secret
| sauce anymore. I expect innovation, but not surprise. An N'th
| generation anything just won't have the same zing as it did the
| first few times.
| [deleted]
| infogulch wrote:
| Imagine the counterfactual: an Apple engineering blog that
| routinely publishes in depth articles describing the awesome
| challenges that their engineering teams are overcoming in an
| org as vertically integrated as Apple. That would make me more
| hype about their products than anything.
| fsflover wrote:
| This is how Purism works.
| Sirened wrote:
| Apple (at least their security org) has done this before with
| their talks at Blackhat [1] where they've detailed pieces of
| their boot chain and interesting challenges they solved while
| building Find My's offline location feature
|
| [1]: https://youtu.be/3byNNUReyvE
| dewey wrote:
| They have something for ML: https://machinelearning.apple.com
| openknot wrote:
| I would personally be very interested in such a blog, but so
| would Apple's competitors. I've read that being too open
| about methods can let competitors catch up to once-unique
| advantages quickly, especially as it lets them design a
| roadmap of future features to work on.
|
| Suppose Apple had an engineering blog that released a roadmap
| about the M1 chips before their release. Then, Apple's
| laptops might not have such a massive lead on Intel/AMD
| processors today, as laptop manufacturers may have invested
| more in ARM processors by seeing them as viable due to
| Apple's work.
| infogulch wrote:
| Oh please. There's no need for any engineering blog to
| publish a company's 2 year product roadmap slides moments
| after presenting them to leadership, or ever. There are
| surely a bazillion problems solved every year at much finer
| detail than would be useful as a decision tree for
| competitors. How about OS engineering? Apps? Physical
| manufacturing? Logistics engineering? CAD design? _At the
| level of detail._ None of these things if covered at a
| small enough scope would provide competitors an undue
| advantage, but each would _definitely_ inspire a young or
| aspiring engineer to up their game. Maybe they can just
| hoard the best talent with money to keep them away from
| competitors, but how much future and potential talent are
| they leaving on the table by forcing their engineers to
| bottle up their innate human desire to share their wisdom?
| It 's a short-sighted local minima, they can do better.
| minimaxir wrote:
| A software engineering blog would make more sense; it's
| what WWDC essentially is, anyways.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >Then, Apple's laptops might not have such a massive lead
| on Intel/AMD processors today
|
| That's giving Intel a heck of a lot of credit. Intel is a
| massive ship moving along at full speed. They aren't the
| most agile of companies to say the least. Intel's x86 giant
| hammer convinces themselves that everything is an x86 nail.
| How else do you explain the fact that they are so woefully
| behind in the times? Apple and Intel worked together in
| CPUs before. Intel knows what Apple wants/needs, and
| refuses to give it to them. I seriously can't imagine that
| Apple and Intel never met about how the Intel chip just
| wasn't advancing, yet Intel plodded on anyways.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Except...
|
| Whilst I acknowledge that the M1 macs are pretty good,
| Intel power pcs on everyone else's desks that work just
| fine for the standard Microsoft Office workload. Intel
| are not miles behind, they are just not ahead. In the
| world of Enterprise Applications x86s compatibility with
| legacy code is going to be important to many large
| organisations.
|
| Meanwhile Apple with probably pull support for Rosetta2
| in a couple of years (like last time), but Photoshop and
| Logic will keep working and the most users won't care.
|
| So whilst Intel have not innovated at the speed us
| techies would have liked, x86 is here to stay in the non-
| apple world.
| m_mueller wrote:
| > Intel power pcs
|
| Had to do a double take there...
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > So whilst Intel have not innovated at the speed us
| techies would have liked, x86 is here to stay in the non-
| apple world.
|
| Not necessarily! A lot of office needs boil down to the
| Office 365 suite, Adobe and the SAP GUI - all of which
| now have native M1 variants. The only thing that's needed
| is someone other than Apple and Qualcomm actually putting
| out a desktop-worthy ARM CPU so that Microsoft can
| provide Windows-on-ARM for everyone (there are rumors of
| a secret deal between MS/QC that is bound to expire soon-
| ish). Once the price point gets low enough for corporate
| beancounters to buy a ton of ARM Windows devices for
| paper pushers, they will do so - and by that point, Intel
| is _doomed_. AMD is eating their lunch in the server
| market, and Intel doesn 't have anything that can compete
| with ARM on power-per-watt and price.
| Applejinx wrote:
| What if Apple ended up supplying older M1 designs, not
| cutting edge but efficient on batteries and forced down
| to a really low price... to Google, for making
| chromebooks with? Bottom end craptops not even being
| handled by Apple anymore but still running an older
| generation of M1 cpus, with the lesser but still
| substantial benefits and the battery life?
|
| On the extreme low end it's not only about Windows.
| Chromebooks are a thing. Eventually M1 chromebooks and
| Apple leveraging the fact that now they're a CPU
| designer? After they do some more upgrades to their own
| tech for their own purposes?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Who would be manufacturing these older M1 chips after
| Apple is currently having the later generations? Apple's
| current needs would mean TSMC capacity will be focused on
| these newer chips. It's not like there's a new fab with
| each generation of chips.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Office 365 for mac is not the same as office for Windows
| though. If you are a power user that might matter to you.
|
| Then there are the applications not available on
| mac...Project, Power BI...
|
| I know because amongst my estate is an rdp server for mac
| users to use some niche excel features and to use PowerBI
| desktop.
| jdgoesmarching wrote:
| "Surprise and delight" is just the PR line, the point is having
| more control over the marketing and positioning of a product on
| launch. We could debate whether that's worth the R&D
| inefficiency, but Apple hasn't exactly failed by deferring to
| their marketing folks over the years.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Exactly
|
| Most of the stuff is "officially leaked* to some places before
| the new releases anyway
|
| When was the last time people were surprised by what they saw?
| I think it was on the iphone unveiling.
| Gigachad wrote:
| There is enough bullshit in the leaks to make it still a
| surprise on the day. Almost all of the truth gets leaked
| beforehand but it only makes up 40% of the leaks published.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| The point is that Apple wants to stay in control of the
| messaging, which is still the case with these "leaks".
| frutiger wrote:
| > When was the last time people were surprised by what they
| saw?
|
| The performance per watt and rollout schedule of Apple
| Silicon?
| kstenerud wrote:
| Who besides industry geeks actually cared about that?
|
| ipod was innovative for the common man.
|
| iphone was innovative for the common man.
|
| ipad was innovative for the common man.
|
| The rest? Meh.
|
| Nowadays it's just an upgrade treadmill, consisting of "To
| re-pair my old watch I first need to update to the latest
| watch software (even though it worked fine before I
| unpaired it). But to update the watch software I need to
| update my phone software to a higher version than it
| supports, so now I need a new phone, which now won't work
| with my computer unless I update that, but it doesn't
| support the latest OS so now I need to buy a new
| computer..." For want of a nail.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| Apple Watch, Apple Pencil, AirTag, AirPods...
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| They made a pencil?
|
| Huh. And I guess stalkers quickly embraced the AirTag.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Apple Pencil = Apple Drawing Stylus, with Tilt, Pressure,
| and Interesting Choices About Friction And Power
| Management. I'm an artist and more and more of my fellow
| artists are using Procreate or Clip Studio on an iPad as
| their main tool for serious work now that there's a
| decent stylus.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| You list off 3 products that changed the world.
|
| And then say "meh"
|
| I just don't understand some people.
|
| Apple's contributions to modern computing, from GUI work,
| to WebKit, to AirPods is game changing.
| bushbaba wrote:
| AirPods were the first Bluetooth headset that just worked
| and made you want to ditch the cord.
| tintedfireglass wrote:
| We had Bluetooth earpods in the early 2010s used by a lot
| of people. What's innovative in releasing the same
| product but for two ears something revolutionary.
| Capacitive touch is revolutionary, a Bluetooth earpiece
| is not
| uuyi wrote:
| One that actually works properly and doesn't sound like
| ass is revolutionary. That's where apple win.
| tintedfireglass wrote:
| I feel it's a "good product" not a "revolutionary" one
| uuyi wrote:
| That's all I want
| snom380 wrote:
| My wife doesn't care about CPU architectures, but she was
| astonished that her new MacBook Pro didn't get hot on her
| lap, and how she could work through the day on one
| charge. Then she was astonished by the sound quality of
| the speakers. It's not a revolution but people care about
| the end result of those incremental innovations.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > An N'th generation anything just won't have the same zing as
| it did the first few times.
|
| I agree, but the new MacBooks have had a fair bit of excitement
| around them. So maybe you just have to make several duds first?
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| I stopped giving a shit about MacBooks when they started
| limiting RAM to 16G, and put in that stupid bar thing instead
| of function keys.
|
| If anyone was excited about the new MacBook, I'm guessing
| it's because they're already deep into Apple as a brand.
|
| Me, I just want a computer that works, has decent specs* and
| doesn't treat me like an imbecile, or refuse to ship Bash >3
| because the legal team got antsy about GPLv3. (I just loooove
| when I'm writing shell scripts that might be used by
| coworkers running Macs and I need to make sure that I either
| limit myself to sh functionality, or Bash 3 functionality)
|
| Which is why I've been running Linux laptops since then.
|
| *And no, 16G is not enough, but I've had many fans try to
| explain to me why it was.
| awestroke wrote:
| Time to lift your head out of the sand then. Macbook Pro
| now comes in 32GB RAM flavors, with fn keys instead of the
| touch bar, and zsh by default
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| Zsh isn't Bash. And Bash version compatibility is
| important when 75% of your team develop on Linux, but the
| other 25% on Mac.
|
| I mean, I use Fish, but when I'm writing shell scripts
| for others, it's Bash, because it's a common default. But
| now I'm limited to Bash 3.
|
| But I'm glad that they got rid of that stupid bar, and
| let you get a laptop with 32G of RAM now. So kind of
| Apple!
| nicoburns wrote:
| Why not just install a newer version of bash? It's
| trivial to do so with homebrew. I'm sure your team has
| other dependencies that must be installed in order to run
| your software.
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| Because a shell script is supposed to be a lowest common
| denominator. Run this, and it'll ensure you have Maven,
| it'll ensure you have Java 11+, then it'll build the
| thing and run the thing.
|
| And now I'm needing to sniff your OS, detect whether or
| not Homebrew is installed, install it if not, then
| install Bash >3, then run the actual meat of the script.
|
| All because of Apple's lawyers being scared of GPLv3.
|
| At this point, I may as well insist that you install
| pyenv and Poetry and deliver it as a Python package.
| jen20 wrote:
| Bash is not a common denominator anywhere except Linux.
| Just write what you want as POSIX shell and it will work
| in a lot of places.
|
| You already have to deal with platform-specific
| differences even (nay - especially!) across Linux with
| things like apt vs yum vs dnf vs pacman vs Nix. One more
| is really a non-issue.
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| Yeah, fair enough, I'm just bitter after my shiny new
| associative array failed and I had roll back to a worse
| option.
| kevinday wrote:
| Bash really isn't a standard outside of most Linux
| distributions, you're going to find the same issue
| anywhere that isn't Linux.
|
| OpenBSD uses pdksh, Busybox/NetBSD/Minix use ash, there
| are some linux distros that use zsh, OpenSolaris is ksh,
| etc.
| dangus wrote:
| Your bash scripts won't work on Windows, either. If we
| are here talking about bash being a "common default"
| maybe we shouldn't leave out the operating system that
| has about a 90% global marketshare.
|
| If your development team doesn't have the time and
| resources to support a multi-platform development
| environment, they shouldn't do so.
|
| Apple didn't change their business model, the GPL changed
| their license, and it's a license that's simply not
| compatible with any closed-source software business. Does
| your employer let you integrate GPL v3 code into your
| products?
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| > Your bash scripts won't work on Windows
|
| Well neither would the code we're developing either so,
| not really a problem.
|
| > Does your employer let you integrate GPL v3 code into
| your products?
|
| Oh, most definitely. But then none of our products are
| closed-source, so we're an outlier, admittedly.
| [deleted]
| nicoburns wrote:
| Indeed there's actually a 64gb variant
| outside1234 wrote:
| 64GB even too
| lajamerr wrote:
| People have been calling for/or expected Apple to switch to
| ARM/make their own chip for years and years before they
| actually switched. At that point people were just surprised
| to see Apple actually do something.
| alimov wrote:
| Maybe people in tech, but this doesn't apply to (I'd like
| to say- Most of) their regular users
| kstenerud wrote:
| Most of their regular users don't even know what Arm or
| Intel is, let alone cares about it. A macbook is a
| macbook. The fact that it's faster is lost on most people
| as well, since their daily use consists of opening the
| browser or video conferencing or (if they have a PC)
| gaming.
|
| Computers have plateaued for their current use case. The
| only innovation that will make a difference in the near
| future is AI.
| wincy wrote:
| I was a PC gamer but primarily use Macs for work. But I
| bought the MacBook Air and aside from one game (Elden
| Ring) every game I usually play works on the MacBook Air,
| some with Rosetta and some with native ARM support.
| Applejinx wrote:
| Heh. "Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the game
| selection?"
|
| I'm an Apple guy, I just thought it was funny. And my
| Airpod Pro observation isn't on how great they were at
| creating it, rather 'can you please help me get mine to
| switch back out of mono mode, after I put them in my ears
| one at a time and inadvertently convinced 'em that life
| is mono now?' (mind you, I kind of know: they freak out
| if asked to play 96k content and you get a mono low-res
| version)
| DoughnutHole wrote:
| The m1 gains are more impactful than just speed, namely
| battery life and thermals. The fact that I can get a full
| workday or more depending on load, all without a loud fan
| screaming at me all day honestly makes this the first
| laptop I've owned that works as a genuinely fully
| portable workstation. It's basically eliminated charge
| anxiety. It's not a complete game changer or anything
| like the original iPhone, but it's a pretty massive
| upgrade over the machines of 2 years ago.
|
| And "regular people" definitely care about battery life
| in a laptop - it's probably the most important parameter
| for someone who genuinely needs a laptop over a desktop.
| alimov wrote:
| Yeah battery life and fan noise have been so much better
| on the M1 16" than on the intel 16", it's unbelievable.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I seem to recall that these specific ARM comments were made
| on the day the announcement was released that Apple was
| buying the company.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| They made some earbuds, how brave.
| halotrope wrote:
| Lets take a moment to appreciate that obnoxious auto-playing
| video that covers half the screen on mobile. Bonus points for it
| staying there when scrolling. I am really wondering what it will
| take to make the web more like wikipedia and less like a casino.
| visarga wrote:
| > I am really wondering what it will take to make the web more
| like wikipedia and less like a casino.
|
| Don't hold your breath for them to do anything, but a "reader
| mode" browser extension can help on your side.
| rob_c wrote:
| one of the least recyclable/servicable products in history, can
| we all agree that this side of the device needs _serious_
| attention.
| Erikun wrote:
| What is an "HR Business Partner"?
| rm445 wrote:
| It's a job title in HR with a certain level of seniority. It
| doesn't imply that the business is organised as a partnership.
|
| It's a dumb title, but very common. I think the root cause is a
| lack of a general job title for a senior contributor in that
| field. With the debasement of the word engineer, I'm just glad
| they're not called senior HR engineer.
| namdnay wrote:
| It's not just that, it's also the fact that they are assigned
| to a part of the business, as opposed to internal/company
| wide stuff (like the global compensation guidelines, or
| organizing graduate recruitment drives)
| TomVDB wrote:
| One thing I love about my company is that most information is not
| siloed. There are product lines that I have no business known
| about, but I have access anyway.
|
| It's not only exciting to know what's cooking in ankthwr group's
| kitchen, it's also great when experts from other teams volunteer
| to help when you're stuck on a problem that's their domain.
|
| In larger companies, knowing what others are working on makes it
| a lot easier to find experts at something. And I've never
| experienced any of them being reluctant to share due to fear of
| disclosing information about the products they're working on.
|
| I don't think I'd feel at home at Apple.
| awelkjlkrg wrote:
| vlovich123 wrote:
| > He said it was so bad that engineers didn't even know who they
| could and couldn't talk to about their work.
|
| This sounds off. When I worked there 7 years ago there was an
| internal website where you punch in the person's name and it
| tells you about all the mutual disclosures you have. I would
| expect it's integrated into Directory by now.
|
| Also, I don't recall AirPods development as being particularly
| more open considering I was in the same rough org and the only
| reason I heard about it in advance of launch was because I
| happened to be in an exec review where it was being demoed along
| with other forward looking products. I guess that could be
| considered "more open" but that wasn't an experience many
| engineers got.
| kanbara wrote:
| not in directory, but slack, meetings, and all sorts of shit
| integrate. you can see anyone who has disclosures you have and
| also use the site. it's not a big deal, and you don't want
| everyone to have access to every project. idk why people think
| it's difficult
| mwattsun wrote:
| It'd be interesting to see a comparison of Apple's "Strictly
| controlled interface between groups on a need to know basis" and
| Amazon's "All teams will henceforth expose their data and
| functionality through service interfaces. Teams must communicate
| with each other through these interfaces."
|
| I'm guessing most companies have a more leaky abstraction
| approach
|
| https://gist.github.com/kislayverma/d48b84db1ac5d737715e8319...
| otterley wrote:
| The two are orthogonal. Amazon's culture of building and
| intercommunicating with service interfaces doesn't mean there
| aren't secret projects in the works. For example, new AWS
| services are often introduced at re:Invent to the surprise and
| delight of both customers and employees.
| Fede_V wrote:
| I know that Apple is incredibly secretive about their launches,
| and I'm not surprised that carries over to their internal
| culture, but, I'm incredibly skeptical of stories told from the
| point of view of an HR person that has every single incentive to
| hype up their revolutionary new process that unleashed
| productivity and improved morale.
|
| Every single time I read a similar story and I had first or
| second hand knowledge of how things actually played out, the role
| of the person telling the story was massively stretched out.
| Dardania wrote:
| Agreed. Also, to cite AirPods Pro as breaking the mould on a
| secrecy culture...it was pretty obvious that the airpod product
| would develop to have noise cancelling. The stakes for secrecy
| were much lower.
| teekert wrote:
| I just can't read this with that uncloseable ad about an electric
| snowmobile at the top (Firefox, iOS). It's truly one of the most
| annoying ads I ever saw.
| Animats wrote:
| There is technical debt associated with operating at a high level
| of secrecy. I used to work in a place that did classified work
| for the three-letter agencies. The teams working on the most
| classified projects tended to stagnate. They had advanced
| technology in narrow areas, but had fallen behind commercial
| technology across the board. They were still building
| minicomputer-based systems a decade later than they should have
| been. And they'd get stuck in dead-end niche technologies.
|
| As a rule of thumb for bidding purposes, we assumed that
| classifying a project doubled the cost.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| I had a taste of that experience when I was an intern. Interned
| for a government contractor that did some classified work. Like
| you said, thing go so slowly on this do projects, and in
| government contracting in general, that now I have a line in my
| LinkedIn bio saying I am open to any role as long as it's not
| with the Government or a Government Contractor.
| zebnyc wrote:
| Sounds like a nice retirement plan, if you can get it and can
| stand it
| rjsw wrote:
| > As a rule of thumb for bidding purposes, we assumed that
| classifying a project doubled the cost.
|
| There is a similar statement in the "Skunk Works" book.
| openknot wrote:
| From Hacker News's guidelines, the preferred original source that
| the linked 9to5Mac quotes heavily from is from Fast Company:
| https://www.fastcompany.com/90748492/apple-airpods-pro-creat...
|
| However, I suspect that a submission with the original source's
| headline would have led to less engagement (as it is "How Apple
| overcame its culture of secrecy to create AirPods Pro," as
| opposed to " Apple's secrecy created engineer burnout").
| [deleted]
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-05-08 23:02 UTC)