Hacker News Reader

Comment by pohl | Hacker News Reader

What's more interesting to me is how they avoid unintended leaks. I've been told of a keycard system that knows if two different people are working on different components of a product, and won't let them into a particular room with each other at the same time, lest they put 2 and 2 together...like, for example, if one person is working on a touch screen and another is working with cell phone transmitters.

View on HN

I spent five years at Apple, worked on a few secret projects, and never heard of this system. How could you make sure they didn't meet in the elevator or cafeteria?

There is an impressive infrastructure of areas restricted by keycards though.

I'm glad to get another source on this. The other one could have been having some fun yanking my chain.

This has all the hallmarks of being a perfect bogus rumor. Apple is notoriously secretive so it can't be denied, no matter how stupid the idea would be in practice. It's also outlandishly juicy which means makes people want to tell it.

That's a very strange/sad way of working. At work, I have always known the end product toward which I am building. I can't imagine working with so many firewalls.

OTOH given Apple's track record, employees can probably just tell themselves, "Whatever I'm working on, someone smarter than me is overseeing it. I'm sure it will be awesome."

That's got to be more encouraging than knowing exactly what you're working on and despairing as a result.

If being treated like a child works for you, that's great. It doesn't for me.

If those rumours are true, Apple must be an incredibly stifling and frustrating place to work for smart, creative people.

I agree with you. I'm just saying it could be worse.

Presumably people who work at Apple are skilled enough to have lots of options and stay because they're happy with the way the company is run.

  Apple must be an incredibly stifling and frustrating place to work for smart, 
  creative people.

I agree. And yet, they keep producing all this innovative stuff. It's a paradox, to me.

I would bet then either the rumors are not true or it's more nuanced than we know. Apple seems to produce good software quickly. How would that be possible with a company full of miserable developers? We don't hear much, or anything, about big employee churn rates at Apple either.

Similarly, being treated like a child must be incredibly stifling and frustrating for smart, creative children.

It depends how often it happens. If it's only for a small portion of employees for a small percentage of the time - say, several months every five years, when your team is involved in the launch of a brand new product line - then it would be a lot more bearable than if it were a constant requirement for everybody.

Reminds me of the old analogy of the blind men and the elephant.

It is interesting that people would accept such working conditions voluntarily.

Reminds me of the movie 'the cube'.

Yes, exactly! (I love that movie) I had a similar reaction when I first heard this, but I could also see myself enjoying working on a mobile multitouch interface prototype circa 2005 without necessarily knowing that it would be used in a phone. I'm sure there are some pretty cool upsides.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com