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Comment by prat | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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