<story><title>Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?</title><url>http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_28266341/why-has-apple-spawned-so-few-startups</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gumby</author><text>&amp;gt; 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.”&lt;p&gt;I have a lot of friends and former colleagues who are at Apple and you&amp;#x27;re wrong about the &amp;#x27;go home to your family.&amp;#x27;  At least the friends I have (mostly nerds admittedly) are routinely in the 60-70 hours mark (have only one exception and he&amp;#x27;s worked at Apple since the 1980s).  But they seem to like it.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; 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.&lt;p&gt;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 &lt;i&gt;only&lt;/i&gt; know nerds at google -- no marketing or business folks, so it could be different.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;t really organized like an effective business.&lt;p&gt;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).</text></item><item><author>Eric_WVGG</author><text>(I really hope I don’t offend any Apple people saying this)&lt;p&gt;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.”&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;I could be totally wrong about this.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cromwellian</author><text>Working backbreaking hours with bad work&amp;#x2F;life balance is considered unGoogley. There are sometimes when people burn the midnight oil, but in general Googlers don&amp;#x27;t work 60hr weeks.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;s easy to see why so many Googlers are lured away by the allure of startups.&lt;p&gt;As for Googlers being unhappy with their projects, there&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;The other is that Googlers switch products often when they get bored. It&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;The level of secrecy and compartmentalization in Apple sounds like hell to me.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why Has Apple Spawned So Few Startups?</title><url>http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_28266341/why-has-apple-spawned-so-few-startups</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gumby</author><text>&amp;gt; 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.”&lt;p&gt;I have a lot of friends and former colleagues who are at Apple and you&amp;#x27;re wrong about the &amp;#x27;go home to your family.&amp;#x27;  At least the friends I have (mostly nerds admittedly) are routinely in the 60-70 hours mark (have only one exception and he&amp;#x27;s worked at Apple since the 1980s).  But they seem to like it.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; 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.&lt;p&gt;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 &lt;i&gt;only&lt;/i&gt; know nerds at google -- no marketing or business folks, so it could be different.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;t really organized like an effective business.&lt;p&gt;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).</text></item><item><author>Eric_WVGG</author><text>(I really hope I don’t offend any Apple people saying this)&lt;p&gt;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.”&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;I could be totally wrong about this.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>marcell</author><text>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&amp;#x27;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)</text></comment>