(I really hope I don’t offend any Apple people saying this)
My impression, which comes from meeting a handful of Apple employees and several friends who took jobs and later left, is that the culture of Apple is that of “show up, do good work, cash the paycheck, and go home to your family.”
It is not one of “Let’s conquer the world and become bazillionairres while we’re at it” — the Google culture — which is more prone to eventually jumping ship and creating a startup.
> My impression, which comes from meeting a handful of Apple employees and several friends who took jobs and later left, is that the culture of Apple is that of “show up, do good work, cash the paycheck, and go home to your family.”
I have a lot of friends and former colleagues who are at Apple and you're wrong about the 'go home to your family.' At least the friends I have (mostly nerds admittedly) are routinely in the 60-70 hours mark (have only one exception and he's worked at Apple since the 1980s). But they seem to like it.
> It is not one of “Let’s conquer the world and become bazillionairres while we’re at it” — the Google culture — which is more prone to eventually jumping ship and creating a startup.
This feels more like Google propaganda. My impression is that google folks seem to work a lot less (long hours its true, but less) than the Apple folks. Unlike Apple I only know nerds at google -- no marketing or business folks, so it could be different.
But of my google friends there are two groups: the übernerds who get to work on whatever they like (basically research) and they seem to have a lot of fun. A bunch of them are former colleagues from PARC and MIT, so they are doing the same kind of work we did years ago -- probably Microsoft research is the same.
The rest are doing product work of some sort of another and none of them seem particularly happy. A lot of them are on the market (I have hired a couple). It feels like Google has reached the microsoft phase: they have two real cash cows and are struggling to find more. Product managers have a lot of sway. They aren't really organized like an effective business.
Apple went through that mode and was within a few weeks of dying. Luckily they debugged themselves. My Apple friends, even those deep in the bowels of tools or drivers, amazingly are still super excited by the Apple products (I guess they would have given up by now if not).
Working backbreaking hours with bad work/life balance is considered unGoogley. There are sometimes when people burn the midnight oil, but in general Googlers don't work 60hr weeks.
I think the primary difference may come down to a culture of secrecy. Openness breeds cross fertilization, couple that with very few restrictions on Googlers in working on side projects, open source，and collaborating outside Google and it it's easy to see why so many Googlers are lured away by the allure of startups.
As for Googlers being unhappy with their projects, there's two answers. One, google culture permits challenging your management and product vision even as far as calling out VPs, so people here are constantly voicing their criticisms instead of falling in line. That can breed dissatisfaction especially if your criticisms are later proven right.
The other is that Googlers switch products often when they get bored. It's easy for people to get unhappy when you switch from development to maintenance. I think this is very healthy，enduring people working on a product are enthusiastic. If your jet collecting a paycheck while dreaming of more interesting stuff better to go do interesting stuff.
The level of secrecy and compartmentalization in Apple sounds like hell to me.
I've worked at both Apple and Google, as a SWE. I found very few engineers at either company who are phoning it in. There is great passion in both organizations. I also found engineers to be very vocal internally at both companies, Apple at least as much as at Google. Apple engineers absolutely do not "fall in line" without a fight.
Google is definitely more open in the way you describe, both in terms of collaborating internally and externally. "Googlers switch products often" matches my experience. The transfer process is easy, and hiring managers are welcoming.
The downside is that your team is constantly in flux, making it harder to build relationships or friendships. It is not healthy for a team to be constantly changing; it's better to have stable teams, where contributors can develop deep expertise and collaborative relationships.
At Apple, you have greater chances for meaningful ownership. Software teams are generally smaller, so your responsibilities are broader. Product direction is top down, so what you work on is more likely to actually ship.
Google's "bottom up" culture makes it easier to start up a project. But it also results in duplication, and a sense that the company isn't really committed to your product. My work at Apple mostly shipped, but my work at Google was mostly scrapped. It's frustrating to work on projects that are cancelled, through no fault of your own.
I'm curious which years you were at Google? The bottom-up culture has been dead for the past 2 years, and a deluge of projects were canned in the past 12-18 months. There's really zero chance now of starting your own project at G and building a team around it.
I left literally last week. I looked for other positions internally, and I did get the sense that there were lots of "startup opportunities" within Google. Cardboard is an example of new-ish team, in the process of ramping up.
I wonder why we saw things differently? I stayed away from the big central codebase (you know the one), instead working in Android and Chrome. Maybe the bottom-up culture is more vibrant on the periphery?
Perhaps that is part of it. I did work in the main repo. I was looking into some of the teams under the Android/Chrome org before I left, but none of it seemed too different to me despite seeing some new projects. They didn't seem like bottom-up initiatives though.
AFAIK 20% time is dead, and has been for > the last 2 years. People only use it to try out new teams before transferring.
But I never did get access to the "other" codebase, so you know more than I in that respect. :)
I think that's true but scrap and pivot is generally what the startup experience is like, so if you aren't accustomed to failure and throwing away work and uncertainty as to whether you'll ship, you might not like the startup experience.
> It's frustrating to work on projects that are cancelled,
I'm going to guess you're fairly junior in the profession?
The more time you spend writing code, the more you realize that most of your projects will never, ever ship. That's just how the gig goes.
And it's okay. As an engineer, you should be looking forward more to the journey and how much you'll learn working on that project than anything else. Once in a while, you'll ship and you'll feel pride knowing that millions of people are using your code, but that's the exception, not the rule.
I have 12 years of professional experience. In that time, most of what I worked on shipped. It would be a serious failure if we committed to a feature and were unable to deliver it. To be fair, I have tended to work on mature products, which have predictable lifecycle. Perhaps you've had a different experience because you've worked for startups or on early development?
Anyways, the way I see it, if I'm OK with my project being cancelled, I am working on the wrong project. We should not be comfortable with delivering results "once in a while."
I've worked at Apple and none of what you said rings true for me.
Apple doesn't prevent you working on side projects, open source etc. It's just that you are working so many hours under tight deadlines that you want to spend time with friends/family during a spare time.
And Apple absolutely allows challenging management and product vision. In fact I was involved far more in product design that I expected to be. Every team is different but it is a relatively flat structure.
Just a correction, Apple does indeed forbid employees from working on side projects, including selling software on the AppStore and most contributions to open source projects. This is made very clear during the employee's initial (and yearly) Business Conduct training. To me it's one of the major drawbacks of an otherwise great place to work.
It's been a few years since I was there but I definitely knew of a lot of engineers who were flouting this rule. I just assumed it was contract boilerplate. Definitely understand you couldn't write an iOS app in your spare time however.
Open source contributions are in general acceptable, as long as it's not to a competitor's product. You should reach out to legal, they'll probably OK it.
I recently left Google and I think your characterization of those two groups is accurate. There is a large group of engineers at lower levels working on mundane products who are not especially excited or empowered. I wouldn't recommend working there unless you are on a researchy project (eg. Brain), or you are focusing on things aside rom your career (eg. Many employees with families tolerate working there because of the good pay and benefits)
I absolutely agree. I left recently as well after more than 3 years. I would not recommend working there unless you 1) Are working on a cutting edge project. Which is unlikely, because those positions are reserved for exceptionally brilliant types, including industry renowned figures (think Sebastian Thrun). Or 2) You want some job security with a big paycheck so that you can manage to live in high-cost Silicon Valley. In return, you'll take remedial work in Java with your choice on any number of systems that Google needs to maintain.
Most people fall into #2. Further, I found that many if not most of the engineers there are foreigners on work visas. Many are not that motivated or very good, and they are most concerned with playing politics and entrenching themselves so that they can stay on their work visas. This has helped to create a culture surrounded with politics and bureaucracy, even more so than other large companies I had worked for beforehand.
The Google name still has a lot of prestige attached to it, especially outside of the Valley. But word is getting out in the Valley about what a mess the company really is, and it's only getting worse.
I would go with a smaller company. You'll learn a lot more.
In many companies, Product Managers act almost entirely towards their own self interests (launching innovative products, stamping their name on major initiatives, and generally one-upping each other along the way). Any leaders who push an agenda which would jeopardize their aspirations (like re-architecting cross-product infrastructure, addressing long standing technical issues, or improving customer experience) are quickly squashed by the cabal.
With the right top level executive strategy, Product Management can be leveraged for the greater good and keep the company's products fresh and exciting. However, when left to their own devices, they often shift focus towards their own self-interests to the detriment of their company's overall success.
Microsoft is often the most cited example, largely because of how the culture changed after Bill Gates stepped down from the CEO role.
PMs who have no technical, design or marketing skills have used their free time time monopolize the time of executives with process loops in order to arbitrage credit and "responsibility".
it's actually a funny statement given the definition of a product manager... it's like saying the CEO has a lot of sway over company policy. well, yeah.
Yes, it is funny but tsunamifury explained what I meant: at many companies, especially but hardly restricted to Microsoft and Google, the PMs are internally rather than externally focused and rarely have technical experience.
Despite Apple's propaganda otherwise, I get the feeling from some of the things my friends say that the engineers have more sway over product development than Google's do.
PMs of old were supposed to be the smartest or most experienced people in the room. Now, mostly due to microsofts export of thousands of poorly trained politically savvy, they are infecting other companies.
I'm also scratching my head, Advertising and ?
- Youtube, Gmail - really just advertising
- Android - is it a cash cow, there's some lic fees I guess but not huge
- Google Apps - is that big money?
>> Apple went through that mode and was within a few weeks of dying. Luckily they debugged themselves.
> Not really, Bill Gates rescued them.
Microsoft unquestionably kept them from dying at that point by giving them $150M. And probably it was a call from Jobs to Gates so I suppose you can say "Gates" instead of "Microsoft".
But my point was that foolish management got Apple to that point and they replaced that with a smarter management approach (and replaced a bunch of people).
Microsoft's cash lifeline wouldn't have helped them if they hadn't debugged themselves. Instead it would have simply have delayed death.
I'm tired of this urban legend. Microsoft agreeing to maintain release parity for the Mac and Windows versions of Office did more than the 150MM, but the company was already profitable again and had almost ten times that amount of cash in the bank anyway.
I've a number of friends on various teams, from WebKit, to iOS, to datacenter folks, to various app teams, and hardware teams and not one has ever consistently worked a 40hr work week. Most are easily averaging 50-60, with spurts close to or over 100 before launches. Consistently the message I've heard is people are expected to "work till its ready", so I'm not sure where you'd have heard this about Apple.
How do people do that? I'm fairly new in the game, but right after Christmas I had to work 3 weeks, about 70 hours each in a row. I was _exhausted_ after that. By the end of the third week, my head was just spinning and I went on a low morale and creative drought for 3 months... I could barely code deserialisation functions without losing focus..
You don't. You put in the hours, but realistically beyond the first week at that kind of schedule, most people are so unproductive that they're just fooling themselves if they think it's helping.
I've worked with many devs who think they can work those kind of schedules and be productive the whole time, but I've yet to work with one that actually was.
On the other hand, I've had to send people working for me home after getting pressured into having people work long hours to finish a project and having people snap or become so unproductive that it was a net drain on the team.
Mostly when people do crazy schedules and think it works they have lots of downtime they simply aren't paying attention to, e.g. drawn out morning rituals before they do any actual work; lots of breaks. And they'll simply just slow down and make more mistakes.
It looks like it "works" because people seem busy the entire time, and seem exhausted at the end of it, but being busy and feeling exhausted is not an indicator of being productive.
When I worked for a former employer we had mega pushes leading up to CES. There's one month, we called it Red October, where most of my team was doing 100+hr weeks for the full month. How did we do it? Combination of lots of Red Bull (as in buying it by the pallet), free meals, onsite shower, and an amazing QA team who would consistently find all the stupid bugs coded bleary eyed at 3:30am.
Those aren't incompatible. In fact, based on current and former Apple employees I know, you're both right. It's also worth pointing out the extreme compartmentalization at Apple. I imagine that makes it more difficult to get a handle on systems-level considerations that are so key for lean startup teams.
You are definitely right, I focused more on the "go home to family" part.
Many I know at Apple have had relationship issues with significant others and family due to the sometimes grueling pace and "CIA spy" level secrecy some teams are forced to have even with their spouses.
I wouldn't underestimate how much secrecy plays a role psychologically. Not being able to talk to friends, family, and loved ones about what you work on can be a real drain.
(Spoken from some experience; I did classified work at a DOE nuclear lab in the past.)
I must be odd, because I never talk about my work with my family even when I'm allowed to. None of them have the context to understand or care. It's a different compartment of my life entirely. Do normal people really do this?
Perhaps I'm the odd one then. Much of my family and most of my closest friends are perfectly capable of having informed discussions about technology when those discussions are rooted in basic physics. Actually, it goes beyond that: We all enjoy talking about those subjects.
Maybe Microsoft or Amazon, but talking with and listening to interviews with former Apple employees, that definitely doesn't seem to be the case. Nitin Ganatra (who I think was head of iPhone apps) had some super interesting interviews on the Debug podcast about the early software development of the iPhone, and those cats were clocking eighty hour weeks and certainly believed they were going to upend the technology industry. Don Melton also had some super interesting info on life at Apple.
the Google culture — which is more prone to eventually jumping ship and creating a startup.
That's funny because I've always considered Google a place where great people disappear and never come out except for a small number who start a company only to be aquihired by Google.
That's sort of Google's reputation in machine learning: if you're tired of the lower salaries and grant-chasing of academia (or just don't like teaching), or have had enough of the uncertainty of a startup, Google is a comfortable place to go, with a large and stable salary, good access to data & compute time, good benefits, etc. Seems more common for people to try out academia and/or startups first and then go to Google later, rather than the other way around. I haven't done any kind of proper count or survey, though.
I know or have met a ton of ex-Googlers, only a few ended up on the startup path.
Any workplace can get old after a while for all kinds of reasons. Or perhaps they just couldn't figure out how to navigate the internal politics to end up on teams doing world-changing stuff (let's be honest, the vast majority of engineering going on at google is pretty boring maintenance and bug fixing like anywhere else).
Highly misleading, for a number of potential reasons a) Google was undergoing tremendous growth at the time, so many employees had 0 or low tenure, b) they had just purchased Motorola and their 20k employees, who knows how that factored in, c) it doesn't say they exclude temporary contract workers of which Google has quite a lot, d) it's only employees they were able to survey, which is likely to have selection bias towards people switching jobs. A much better measure of employee loyalty would be attrition rate, and average tenure of people leaving (but that data would still be skewed by some of the biases I mentioned). From my observations the attrition rate at Google is extraordinarily low. Very few people I've worked with have left the company.
I guess it could very well be that the mentality of Apple and Google employees could lean somewhat into those philosophies.
On the other hand, your described Apple culture sounds to me a heck of a lot more sustainable in the long run (I mean, Apple has now been around nearly 40 years now), especially since the "become a bazillionaire" part from Google really only works for founders and early employees with enough stock and only for very few selected unicorn companies.
Interviewed Apple EE last year-> BSEE from caltech and MSEE from UCB, so educated enough, but a rather narrow range of experience for a Sr Engr position. In fact, too narrow to be of any use to our small-potato company. So perhaps their organization is big and anonymous enough to find places that are well-hidden; that is, they find a comfortable niche, then just park it for a while.
In some ways it can be thought of, "This company is the apotheosis of tech. You can get the full experience of a startup, with the stability of a giant corporation. Why would you want to go anywhere else?"
Which company any are you referring to, Apple or Google? I am starting at Google[x] in two weeks for exactly that reason.
I just spent the first 11 years of my career helping build a solid software organization (I was employee #14-ish, and I'm the most senior engineer whose job is primarily code-related) in Cleveland. It's now a well-oiled machine, but it's lost some of the spark and excitement of the first years I was there.
I decided to go with Google[x] because I'm looking for an organization where they are all about doing exciting and innovative things, with the stability and perks of a big corporation.
Please...stop the madness! The trend of prefacing every criticism or, indeed, observation with an apology to the fanbois or a cheery positive "Apple is awesome, but.." statement has gone too far. It's actually quite amazing how many articles and comments follow this template. And it has to stop. The Cupertino Thought Police is not going to kick your door in and drag you to the Infinite Loop basement for a Think Different session. The Internet won't grind to a halt, you won't be named and shamed...everything will be okay!
Sure some fanbois with advanced symptoms might possibly berate you publicly or even downvote your post/article and that's it. It really is okay to not love Apple. Or point out that Apple isn't perfect. It's even okay to not own any Apple products whatsoever. Full disclosure...I do own Apple products and OS X is my daily driver of choice. But I have no emotional attachment to Apple's products, I don't buy Apple products exclusively and I do not worship at the iAlter or have a man crush on Steve Jobs.
The over-the-top reverence for Apple even by people who are far from being fanatical iCult members really is extraordinary. If you find some of their products useful, great, if their products aren't a good fit for you, that's great too. Apple is not the mafia (yet) and you owe the company nothing.
My impression, which comes from meeting a handful of Apple employees and several friends who took jobs and later left, is that the culture of Apple is that of “show up, do good work, cash the paycheck, and go home to your family.”
It is not one of “Let’s conquer the world and become bazillionairres while we’re at it” — the Google culture — which is more prone to eventually jumping ship and creating a startup.
I could be totally wrong about this.