Yeah, this article is mostly bluster. There's no special "internal competition" where 10 teams line up at tribal council and Jobs snuffs out their torches one by one. Organizational structure is very mundane, honestly. There's the kernel team, the CoreOS team, Frameworks, iApps, Pro Apps, the Image and Media Group (affectionately known as IMG), Safari, Developer Tools, Server (now merged with Dev Tools), and maybe one or two others I'm forgetting.
Look, the Eureka myth is a myth as this article rightly points out. But the "just work harder and you'll succeed" myth that it embraces is, likewise, a myth. The key to Apple's success is as old as humankind itself. Jobs is just continuing the same tradition that started when the first monkey looked at his seed-eating chump friends, then down at the rock in his hands, and then decided "screw the nuts and berries, I'm going to go kill me a wildebeest!"
That first monkey probably died. Jobs's first company called Apple effectively died. His second company, originally called NeXT, nearly died. It's a wild stroke of luck that he was able to merge the two corpses and finally succeed.
Having worked at Apple, and now at a more "normal" company, I've seen both sides of the same story. It goes like this...
CEO: We need a hit!
MARKETING MANAGER #1: I have an idea!
CEO: Do you think it can make money?
MARKETING MANAGER #1: Yes.
MARKETING MANAGER #2: Wait, I also have an idea!
ENGINEER #3: I have an idea.
CEO: Wait, there's a professional speaking. Mr. Marketing Manager, can your idea make money?
MARKETING MANAGER #2: Sure.
MARKETING MANAGERS #3-9 (in unison): We ALSO have ideas!
CEO: Great! Will they all make money?
SYSADMIN: Um...we could be running our servers more efficiently if...
CEO: Quiet! There's work going on here.
MARKETING MANAGERS #3-9: YES!
CEO: Excellent! Let's do all the ideas!!!
ENGINEERING MANAGER: Um...excuse me, we don't have very many engineering resources...
(CEO has already walked out the door)
ENGINEERING MANAGER (frowning, dejected): ...oh
--- vs ---
STEVE: Who's got a good idea?
(in the audience 100 hands are raised simultaneously)
STEVE: No. No. Nope. Nu-uh. As if. Yeah right. Nope. Not gonna happen. No. No...
(this goes on)
STEVE: Ok. So we're doing a tablet!
MARKETING MANAGER (obviously new on the job): Um. But, excuse me Mr. Jobs. The tablet market has been stagnating for over a decade and dozens of our competitors who have attempted to enter the market with a myriad of different technologies have all foundered or given up outright.
Regarding your tablet story, which is obviously fictional, but I think raises a good point. Apple was originally working on a tablet, before the iPhone. Someone (maybe Jobs) decided that a phone would be better use of the technology today.
Imagine a world where they release the iPad in 2007 w/ no app store. That tablet gets slaughtered in the market. It may well prevent the iPhone from ever getting made, much less given special privileges from ATT.
The simple act of saying, "Not a tablet... not yet" may have been the difference between the greatest turnaround in corporate history and who knows what.
The turn around began before '07, and it wasn't the iPhone that started it. But that is a good point, Ill bet the story would have been quite different if the iPad came first.
...ah, but that's the whole point! The iPad could never have come out before the iPhone because it wasn't perfect yet.
In fact, were the iPad under development at a different company, it probably would have been released in '07. The logic and reasoning from the top execs would have been: "Well, we know we will sell some. We'll probably make back our investment and then some! Besides, working out all of the kinks will take another 3 years and billions of dollars. Who wants to do that?"
This is what annoys me about most people's understanding of MVP. I see too many companies whose approach is: "Here's our thing. It does these 10 things. Each feature works. SHIP IT!"
Instead, the Apple approach is:
ENGINEER: "Here's our thing. It does 10 things."
MANAGER: "Does thing 1 work 100% of the time?"
ENGINEER: "Um...more like 85%"
MANAGER: "Is thing 2 so intuitive that your Grandma could explain it to me?"
ENGINEER: "Well...there's still 5 panels of configuration required..."
(...time passes...)
MANAGER: "Make it do 1 thing."
ENGINEER: "But, but..."
MANAGER: "And it better do that 1 thing better than any damn product even GOD could create!"
This is what worries me about Apple post Steve Jobs. While I am almost totally certain that there are people in the company with all the vision and creativity of Steve, I don't think anyone else has the clout to pivot the company on a dime the way Steve did.
Comments
Yeah, this article is mostly bluster. There's no special "internal competition" where 10 teams line up at tribal council and Jobs snuffs out their torches one by one. Organizational structure is very mundane, honestly. There's the kernel team, the CoreOS team, Frameworks, iApps, Pro Apps, the Image and Media Group (affectionately known as IMG), Safari, Developer Tools, Server (now merged with Dev Tools), and maybe one or two others I'm forgetting.
Look, the Eureka myth is a myth as this article rightly points out. But the "just work harder and you'll succeed" myth that it embraces is, likewise, a myth. The key to Apple's success is as old as humankind itself. Jobs is just continuing the same tradition that started when the first monkey looked at his seed-eating chump friends, then down at the rock in his hands, and then decided "screw the nuts and berries, I'm going to go kill me a wildebeest!"
That first monkey probably died. Jobs's first company called Apple effectively died. His second company, originally called NeXT, nearly died. It's a wild stroke of luck that he was able to merge the two corpses and finally succeed.
Having worked at Apple, and now at a more "normal" company, I've seen both sides of the same story. It goes like this...
CEO: We need a hit!
MARKETING MANAGER #1: I have an idea!
CEO: Do you think it can make money?
MARKETING MANAGER #1: Yes.
MARKETING MANAGER #2: Wait, I also have an idea!
ENGINEER #3: I have an idea.
CEO: Wait, there's a professional speaking. Mr. Marketing Manager, can your idea make money?
MARKETING MANAGER #2: Sure.
MARKETING MANAGERS #3-9 (in unison): We ALSO have ideas!
CEO: Great! Will they all make money?
SYSADMIN: Um...we could be running our servers more efficiently if...
CEO: Quiet! There's work going on here.
MARKETING MANAGERS #3-9: YES!
CEO: Excellent! Let's do all the ideas!!!
ENGINEERING MANAGER: Um...excuse me, we don't have very many engineering resources...
(CEO has already walked out the door)
ENGINEERING MANAGER (frowning, dejected): ...oh
--- vs ---
STEVE: Who's got a good idea?
(in the audience 100 hands are raised simultaneously)
STEVE: No. No. Nope. Nu-uh. As if. Yeah right. Nope. Not gonna happen. No. No...
(this goes on)
STEVE: Ok. So we're doing a tablet!
MARKETING MANAGER (obviously new on the job): Um. But, excuse me Mr. Jobs. The tablet market has been stagnating for over a decade and dozens of our competitors who have attempted to enter the market with a myriad of different technologies have all foundered or given up outright.
STEVE (glaring): We're. doing. a. tablet.
Regarding your tablet story, which is obviously fictional, but I think raises a good point. Apple was originally working on a tablet, before the iPhone. Someone (maybe Jobs) decided that a phone would be better use of the technology today.
Imagine a world where they release the iPad in 2007 w/ no app store. That tablet gets slaughtered in the market. It may well prevent the iPhone from ever getting made, much less given special privileges from ATT.
The simple act of saying, "Not a tablet... not yet" may have been the difference between the greatest turnaround in corporate history and who knows what.
The turn around began before '07, and it wasn't the iPhone that started it. But that is a good point, Ill bet the story would have been quite different if the iPad came first.
...ah, but that's the whole point! The iPad could never have come out before the iPhone because it wasn't perfect yet.
In fact, were the iPad under development at a different company, it probably would have been released in '07. The logic and reasoning from the top execs would have been: "Well, we know we will sell some. We'll probably make back our investment and then some! Besides, working out all of the kinks will take another 3 years and billions of dollars. Who wants to do that?"
This is what annoys me about most people's understanding of MVP. I see too many companies whose approach is: "Here's our thing. It does these 10 things. Each feature works. SHIP IT!"
Instead, the Apple approach is:
ENGINEER: "Here's our thing. It does 10 things."
MANAGER: "Does thing 1 work 100% of the time?"
ENGINEER: "Um...more like 85%"
MANAGER: "Is thing 2 so intuitive that your Grandma could explain it to me?"
ENGINEER: "Well...there's still 5 panels of configuration required..."
(...time passes...)
MANAGER: "Make it do 1 thing."
ENGINEER: "But, but..."
MANAGER: "And it better do that 1 thing better than any damn product even GOD could create!"
ENGINEER: "Ok!"
This is what worries me about Apple post Steve Jobs. While I am almost totally certain that there are people in the company with all the vision and creativity of Steve, I don't think anyone else has the clout to pivot the company on a dime the way Steve did.
I think you're wrong. The last couple pivots weren't even his (though I understand that they did have his approval).
It's a wild stroke of luck that he was able to merge the two corpses and finally succeed.
So two turkeys can make an Eagle.