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Comment by bredren | Hacker News Reader

It is hard to not compare the breakthrough product release count between Jobs and Cook.

If that is the measure, then we have to bring in Jobs' tenure as not only CEO but company founder that stretched 25 years as CEO, 1976 to 1985 and 1997 to 2011.

Cook only took the reins in 2011, and at that time arguably the company should not have focused on releasing yet more revolutionary products.

iPhone is the most successful consumer product in history, focus was correctly placed in supporting that, building moats around it and positioning the ecosystem to support the next big thing.

One product often left out, which may have started with Jobs, but delivery should be attributed to Cook is the new Apple HQ. The initial impact has crumbled due to Covid WFH.

However, this campus may turn out to be a force multiplier going forward. If so, it is a victory, but not in the minds of consumers.

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> One product often left out, which may have started with Jobs, but delivery should be attributed to Cook is the new Apple HQ. The initial impact has crumbled due to Covid WFH.

> However, this campus may turn out to be a force multiplier going forward. If so, it is a victory, but not in the minds of consumers.

Curious, have you ever actually talked to anyone that worked there? While I have admittedly only talked to a couple folks, they either hated it or were at best indifferent. There reasons ranged from "my commute is now twice as long" to "it's still just a giant suburban office park".

Again, in no way arguing this is some sort of representative sample, so I am curious what Apple employees who work there actually think about it.

Apple Campus 2 is about a superblock away from Apple Campus 1, so unless we’re talking about someone whose 5-minute commute doubled to 10 minutes, no one’s commute doubled in any sense where the comparison is meaningful.

I don't know all the details but I'm pretty sure they consolidated a bunch of offices to Apple HQ when it first opened - for this person it was definitely not a 5 to 10 minute change.

More traffic congestion right by there tho.

I could believe 10-20 minutes from home to the Spaceship, and another 10-20 minutes from the parking lot to your desk in the giant aquarium

Make it 25 if you come in late, are looking for a charger and all the bikes are at the building rather than the lots.

Being rich is incredibly hard.

I don't know whether they've backed off from the open plan office layout for Apple Park[1], but that sounded terrible to me.

Personally I'd almost certainly prefer a real office (even a tiny closet-like one) with a door, maybe in Infinite Loop.

[1] https://www.macworld.com/article/670869/complete-guide-to-ap...

Yeah, no, they were still large glass aquarium-like enclosures for a couple dozen engineers the last time I was there.

That's so ridiculous for a custom designed space. Why not have team offices?!? Something for 6 to 8 people?

I only worked there briefly (I never officially had an office there — Covid times and all that). I don't see it as any different than any of the other Apple campus buildings I worked in (like Infinite Loop) with regard to productivity.

(I've always compared it to some beautiful, modern art gallery — but without any art.)

But to the above degree, I have to say I enjoyed all large Apple work environments (even some of the more far flung ones I worked at like Results Way).

It's because I have enjoyed being able to walk down a hall, up a floor, and chat with The Guy That Works on IOKit Display-support. I am a "social engineer" (not one to socially engineer though if you know what I mean). I truly disliked working from home for extended periods.

They must have some art!?

You’re expected to build it

Yeah Apple’s DRI system means it’s pretty easy to just talk to the guy. No PM nonsense. It’s nice.

DRI - directly responsible individual, for those who didn’t know.

No PM nonsense but there's some NDA nonsense even between internal teams no?

I don't think devs talking directly across teams is unique to Apple, though. Or do you mean that finding "the guy" is much easier because there's an official registry, and you don't have to guess from commit logs etc?

I work at Apple Park and it’s awesome. I love it! Been here 4ish years.

On my current team we share a hall-wide office that seats 4. On my old team I shared a half-hall wide room with another person.

Most people have this 2 person arrangement. Some teams sit in groups of 6-8 together. All of this is Siri.

Teams in other orgs are wildly different. I had a friend in iCloud that was in one of those open office style arrangements. She hated it. She left to Netflix eventually.

I strongly doubt that the campus is any more of a force multiplier than a collection of far cheaper class A office buildings of similar capacity, with similarly serene grass and vegetation connecting them.

And that, dear reader, is how we ended up with hundreds of bland copy-cat Android phones to the iPhone. There's something to be said, mentally, for working somewhere that's inspiring. A shitty office in yet a clone of all the other office parks, buried in office-park-landia of San Jose, is not it. Even a stroll through the secret underground parking lot at Apple is inspiring with all the exotic cars that are owned by early Apple employees, instead of Honda Civics and Toyota Camrys. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I drive a Honda, but they just don't have the same emotional pull.

Rather than "inspiring" I think the feeling is "concerned about being hit by" in such places.

I've always found that after a while the wonder at the flash and pomp of some place that seems new and wonderful like that dies down and it's just another place that you do work in.

Much more important is the people you interact with every day, both in person and at a distance. If I had to choose between jobs doing the same work but one was in a closet but interacting with people I like or the apple campus and interacting with people I felt no connection to, I would take the former in a heartbeat.

I don't think I'm an outlier. If indeed I'm not, what does that say for how important and special Apple HQ will end up being in the long run?

What you are referring to is the culture. Obviously people are big part of it but the office is a big driving force of shaping the culture.

Even in an online office! When I had Slack, I felt much more involved with people and the company (500+ employees) culture overall. Ever since they transitioned to Teams, I feel like I only exist within my own team.

A pleasant and aesthetic office, surround by nature, built with sustainability in mind, etc is already a driving force for the type of culture you want instilled in your company.

It will certainly attract a type of people that want to work surrounded by beauty, it’s already paving the way for a common ground of understanding.

It goes much further than just wonder. It’s a feeling that persists. A nice feeling.

No, culture is different. Enjoying the people you work around is not culture, it's having good coworkers. You can have coworkers you don't like but a good culture, and coworkers you do like and a bad culture. Culture is distinct from enjoying who you deal with on a day to day basis. People mistake that all the time though.

Culture does matter for this as well though, as enjoying your coworkers but not the culture may still make the job somewhere you don't want to stick around.

I think physical surroundings may help with the culture some, but they'll always be a much lesser influence than the people and policies in place. What's worse, sometimes companies will think the physical surroundings are much more important than they are, and focus on those instead of fixing the policies destroying their actual work culture. I think most people past their early twenties would much rather have a better set of work policies than a really good view out of an office window. Sometimes that's doubly true because those policies might allow you to spend less time in the office and more time at home, around your real family.

Early 20s engineer here. It’s nice to have a cool view out your window. I can and will trade it for better culture in a heartbeat. I can generally get better views than my employer can provide myself anyways.

Yes, I wasn't trying to say that someone at your age and position can't appreciate it, but that people learn more about themselves and what they actually value as they age and gain experience, so on average younger people will know themselves less than older people, so younger people are more likely (in my opinion) to think some things matter more to them than they actually do.

I feel like engineers and all the math-y sciences, especially male, tend to dismiss very easily aesthetics over functionality.

I was once like that. Until I get over my anxiety and started to hang out more with girls. Especially from the arts and languages side.

The way they choose their environments… where they go to eat out or have a coffee, the clothing they wear, buying flowers, how they setup their home…

Even when I was down, being in their environments just made me feel more cozy. It was heartwarming.

In contrast, most of my engineer friends have either literally a mattress and a desk. Or, they just buy for their house whatever, without any thought in regards to color pallete, textures, shape, etc

Yeah being married definitely opened my eyes.

>In contrast, most of my engineer friends have either literally a mattress and a desk.

You’re describing my first two apartments. I only wound up buying a couch and a coffee table because I wanted to appear somewhat normal in case a woman came by my apartment.

A degree in architecture would give you that.

The combination of design work, history of buildings/art/cities, and socialization with people hyperfocused on their surroundings gives you superpower awareness of great environments at every scale, from silverware to regional planning. It makes travel a joy, no matter where, Paris or Poughkeepsie, it’s all fascinating.

On the downside, there are impossible odds you’ll ever get to actually create any of what you imagine, and the horrors of miserable design, a world full of McMansions and cheap junk, will crap all over your visions of paradise.

I hope you got paid to write that. I switched from an Android to an iPhone recently and it is precisely 0% cooler or "more inspiring" than my old phone. I did it purely because password auto-fill appears to be marginally more reliable.

Not that Apple is a bad company or place to work or anything, but it also isn't some magic zen garden that will imbue all who work there with the power to change the world.

For 90%+ of the people who go to work there, it's a job, and the scenery changing that equation meaningfully seems like wishful thinking. It might be nice, but it's not going to radically alter your output.

> A shitty office in yet a clone of all the other office parks

https://www.macworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Jons-and...

I'm pretty sure (strike that, am certain) the secret sauce is not the office.

This is nonsense. The place where the iPhone was invented, and iterated upon for many successful years, was the Infinite Loop campus, which is pretty much a clone of all the other office parks. Initially, when the iPhone was invented, developers had their own individual offices there, with closeable doors, which was nice.

Apple Park: it kinda sucks to actually work at Apple Park. It’s a goldfish bowl. It’s impossible to focus. But, yes, it looks really nice. It’s very pretty, that is undeniable.

Also, Teslas and Mercedes aren’t exotic or rare. They just cost a bit more than most Hondas. And the rare, occasional actual exotic doesn’t inspire new features, better design, or QA polish, they just indicate someone’s a pretentious ass with more money than sense. Remember that Steve drove a fairly pedestrian Mercedes.

Jobs drove a Mercedes SL55 AMG into work, sticker price $121k for the 2003 model.

Here's a forum post saying they were selling for $160k at dealerships https://mbworld.org/forums/sl-class-r230/25583-how-much-2003...

Really not a "pedestrian" Mercedes, at the time it would have been in the upper tier of their price range. The current-day SL AMG model starts at $178k.

And he leased a new one every 6 months.

> Also, Teslas and Mercedes aren’t exotic or rare.

Tell me you live in a rich neighborhood without telling me you do.

Wait until you see my asset allocation.

Well, a Mercedes he replaced every 6 months just so he didn’t have to suffer the indignity of a number plate.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/10/how-s...

> This is nonsense. ... Apple Park: it kinda sucks to actually work at Apple Park. It’s a goldfish bowl. It’s impossible to focus. But, yes, it looks really nice. It’s very pretty, that is undeniable.

Sometimes what people think they want isn't what they actually want once they experience it. People unhappy and surrounded by drab office space might pine for a beautiful setting to work in, but I suspect most of them will find that it wasn't the lack of beauty making them unhappy and that a change of scenery doesn't do nearly enough to rectify the problem.

The only thing that damn building is good for is showing off, and my peon friends aren't even allowed to being visitors in

This sounds like fan fiction. I do my best work distraction free. Seeing expensive cars... have you met engineers? We are the biggest collection of cheapasses on the planet!

Some are. Some are really into cars.

That was one of my favorite parts of Stargate. Every so often you got to see what the team drove when episodes took place on Earth. Most went for generic trucks or SUVs. Carter (engineer, scientist, colonel, destroyer of worlds) would always show up in some fancy ride from Amanda Tapping's collection.

That doesn't really ring true. iPhones are the baseline and Android has that plus the cheap models plus all the whacky weird and wonderful. iPhone has good build quality and reliability - it's the Toyota Corolla. But if there had been no Android then there would be no large screen iPhones, maybe no push on the camera specs. If Apple make a foldable it'll be because they saw Android do it and waited until they could do it better.

No, the iPhone is the Lexus.

No one can build a generic human chicken coop that’s more inspiring than a space you create for yourself. Office space is soul crushing because it has nothing of your soul in it. It’s just human chattel storage.

I worked in Apple Park. I now work on Android from a suburban office park. Believe me, the cars are the same, and completely irrelevant to anything you’re talking about.

What's it like to go from working at Apple to now working on Android?

It’s definitely an interesting jump. Also probably worth noting I do completely different things now than I did there. I can’t say I have super deep insight into either because it hasn’t been too long but IMO a lot is similar (particularly around yearly release cycles, working on an OS, etc.) and some parts are different. A lot of Android stuff gets built on well in advance in public, there are OEMs and update cycles to deal with, etc. There are some places iOS really shines (performance tooling, internal direction, concern for quality on certain things) and others where Android does (excellent CI and build system, better documentation).

Thanks for the reply and frankness

I'm sure other phone companies have plenty of highly creative people who could out-do the iPhone if management decided to make it happen. Do you think Microsoft just spontaneously developed the people who worked on the Surface once Microsoft decided to show OEMs how it was done? Even the manager behind it was already there in 2004.

Lack of environmental enrichment is not what gets in the way of innovation.

The landscaping is really very, very, nice. If you have the opportunity for a tour, you should see it.

But, no, it’s not a force multiplier vs a more pedestrian setting.

> iPhone is the most successful consumer product in history,

I'd say it's probably Coca-Cola?

Brother you’ve got to get off that kool-aid, this just isn’t healthy.

Which part would you disagree with?

The Apple Park part is delusional. It's just a big corporate office, yet they're ascribing some magical powers to it.

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