Fortune goes Inside Apple
Fortune's Adam Lashinsky goes Inside Apple to detail how the world's most secretive and successful computer consumer electronics company is run, from Steve Jobs... down to the janitor. And it's a doozy of an article. Over the course of some 22 pages, we learn:
- Steve Jobs was not amused by the disastrous MobileMe launch, pulling the team together at Apple's Town Hall and asking: "Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?" "So why the [frak] doesn't it do that?" (iTunes head Eddy Cue was subsequently put in charge of a new, smaller team and charged to fix it.)
- We hear again how Apple, despite its monolithic size, is run like a startup.
- Jobs is trying to institutionalize his process to prepare Apple to run without him one day
- Every Monday, Jobs and his team review the "whole business", and they can turn the whole company on a dime if they have to.
- Accountability is enforced. Every project has a "directly responsible individual"
- According to Jobs, the difference between a janitor and a VP is that the janitor can have reasons for not getting something do. "Somewhere between the janitor and the CEO, reasons stop mattering."
- There's a Top 100 clique -- whose members can change over time -- that Jobs takes on quasi-annual retreats to share his and the executive teams' visions for Apple's future.
- Apple believes in small groups. iPad Safari was ported by just two engineers.
- Managers are specialists. Ron Johnson runs retail but Tim Cook controls inventory.
And much, much more. If you're interested in Apple, get the May 23, 2011 edition of Fortune. You can grab the app from the App Store [iTunes link] if you don't already have it, and if you're a print subscriber you can get the issue for free. If not, it's $4.99.
[via Fortune's Apple 2.0]
Editor-in-Chief of iMore, Executive Producer at Mobile Nations, co-host of Iterate and ZEN and TECH, cook, grappler, photon wrangler.
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Interesting ??
I meant it without the interrogation ...
Sounds pretty cool. I'll check this out
Interesting. You know unlike others I believe Apple does have a plan set up. If we follow the ipod, they will bring innovation to their product space.
But only when revenues aren't as fast as they think.
Thankfully Android will push Apple to bring greater features and products out due to the rate of growth for the OS.
I <3 Competition.
I wonder how long it will take Microsoft/Google to copy Apple's corporate structure...
Microsoft and Google haven't exactly been unsuccessful managing things their own way.
"Microsoft and Google haven’t exactly been unsuccessful managing things their own way."
and how would you prove that because they are not recording record profits like apple?
sorry but your comment makes no sense.
Nice he noticed the MobileMe problem. It still has sync problems. Has gotten better. Needs work.
Thanks for the link, Rene. It's interesting, I've only started reading it and I've read a lot of it elsewhere, but being a bit of an Apple fanatic it's always good to have extra reading material
I like the part about janitors vs managers. Makes me imagine Jobs calling in one of his VPs with a "You have failed me for the last time".
Its good to see that Apple came from nothing, because back in the days no one cared about them and they were left for dead.
but i hope while they are at the top they make the right choices because you can only be at the top for a certain period of time.
the Mobileme part was funny its good to see that they set goals and stick to them and they want their products to operate the way they intended and try to fix them when they are a pain in the ass cough (itunes) cough
You can at the top for a long time look at windows
Windows is an OS. Your comparison makes no sense.
"Accountability is enforce."
did you mean "Accountability is enforced," or "Accountability is in force"?
Fix MobileMe!
@Velkcro
That's avoiding the fact that Microsoft has been posting great profits for decades to this day along with Google. It's not like suddenly they don't exist anymore or drop dead. Apple can only keep posting profits for so long until they run dry. It'll happen one day, don't you worry.
Point being Apple's doing great. But MS and Google are right behind its wiggling red ass with sharp fangs.
What's up with the mass typos? "According to Jobs, the difference between a janitor and a VP is that the janitor can have reasons for not getting something do." I don't even know what this means...
i wish they had done this sooner! Check out this new amazing deal website that post new links to deals everyday like free movie rentals, store sales!!! andrewsdeals.blogspot.com
"Jobs is trying to institutionalize his process"
You can't institutionalize creativity and passion, all it creates is box checkers and form fillers.
Institutional (and monetized) Love = prostitution. Institutional (and monetized) Religion = a lot of physically dead people at worst and a best a bunch of spiritually dead people Institutional(and monetized) Art = RIAA
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