<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>ridiculous_fish</author><text>I&amp;#x27;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 &amp;quot;fall in line&amp;quot; without a fight.&lt;p&gt;Google is definitely more open in the way you describe, both in terms of collaborating internally and externally. &amp;quot;Googlers switch products often&amp;quot; matches my experience. The transfer process is easy, and hiring managers are welcoming.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;s better to have stable teams, where contributors can develop deep expertise and collaborative relationships.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;Google&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;bottom up&amp;quot; culture makes it easier to start up a project. But it also results in  duplication, and a sense that the company isn&amp;#x27;t really committed to your product. My work at Apple mostly shipped, but my work at Google was mostly scrapped. It&amp;#x27;s frustrating to work on projects that are cancelled, through no fault of your own.</text></item><item><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></item><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>codesushi42</author><text>I&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x27;s really zero chance now of starting your own project at G and building a team around it.</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>ridiculous_fish</author><text>I&amp;#x27;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 &amp;quot;fall in line&amp;quot; without a fight.&lt;p&gt;Google is definitely more open in the way you describe, both in terms of collaborating internally and externally. &amp;quot;Googlers switch products often&amp;quot; matches my experience. The transfer process is easy, and hiring managers are welcoming.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;s better to have stable teams, where contributors can develop deep expertise and collaborative relationships.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;Google&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;bottom up&amp;quot; culture makes it easier to start up a project. But it also results in  duplication, and a sense that the company isn&amp;#x27;t really committed to your product. My work at Apple mostly shipped, but my work at Google was mostly scrapped. It&amp;#x27;s frustrating to work on projects that are cancelled, through no fault of your own.</text></item><item><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></item><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>I think that&amp;#x27;s true but scrap and pivot is generally what the startup experience is like, so if you aren&amp;#x27;t accustomed to failure and throwing away work and uncertainty as to whether you&amp;#x27;ll ship, you might not like the startup experience.</text></comment>