Steve Jobs' Reaction to MobileMe Launch, Life at Apple After Jobs and Other Anecdotes

Piggie said:

Yes, indeed, I agree with you.

But, and here's the thing.

You may have someone that has a spark of genius and creates something, but you don't them want this singles person determining what this great invention can and cannot be used for.

As I say, we almost need Steve in the back room being paid by the world to create wonderful things, but not controlling all the inventions and stifling what they can do.

Like with the iPad at the moment, it's a great product, but again and again, I hear people say, can I do this, can I do that, what about this..... etc etc.

And again and again you hear, yes, but only if you jailbrake it.

The device is capable of being much much more than Apple allow currently.
Hopefully in time the chains will be removed, as if they are not, other unchained makes will, without question overtake it.

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Pffft!

The iPad was not the first tablet ever created. It was beat to the market by at least 10 years. But it was by far the first successful one created. Why? Because Apple didn't try to over reach and create a product that satisfies everyone's "what if" scenarios.

Other tablet wannabes listen to the noise about why the tablet should have this feature or have that feature, and they bust their a**es trying to deliver when the engineering doesn't yet exist. Result: Watered down, difficult to use products that end up not delivering the experience promised.

I work in an organization where we demo numerous devices in anticipation of offering them to our employees as productivity tools. We've had the Galaxy tablet, Xoom, Atrix, and several other Android devices. Even the geeky Android fanboys in my department all admit that they're "concept" devices.

But our users keep buying iPads and iPhones in droves. Why? Because they offer a stable device that gives them an intuitive, useful tool. Today.

Stella said:

Talking to employees like that is a good way for them to leave. A company that treats employees badly get a reputation, unfortunately, larger companies get a way with it. For example, EA. But they can still hire because who they are.

Perhaps the MobileMe problems were further up the chain?

Sounds like Apple has a culture of blame. A kind of company any employee wants to avoid like the plague.

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... which is why Apple is doing so poorly since Jobs became their CEO, with many employees working there since a long time back?

It's OK to have theories, but if they are completely different from the real world, you really need to also explain why. Otherwise you look crazy to others.

Eddyisgreat said:

As a paying customer from the start of MobileMe, I find this incredibly amusing and wish I could've been in the room when this smack down was being hand delivered hot and fresh.

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That was 2008. I would like to know why the **** it's still a steaming pile of ****.

Macboy Pro said:

Jobs has always been so arrogant that in my opinion he has stunted the growth in Apples user base. The are so many people who won't touch Apple products for that reason. Showing that he mistreats his employees this way doesn't help Apples reputation. I'll be glad when he is gone from Apple.

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On the other hand, Apple's user base has utterly exploded in the last few years... sigh

Lol don't confuse a few "why can't we all love each other" posts with the general audience. I work for myself and life is simple: if I don't wow my customers every single time and produce a product beyond their expectations they will go to someone else.

The good news is, because I always offer them 150% everybody else that only does 100% seems mediocre and they all come back. It does mean working almost twice as hard as everyone else to keep the competition away and to be honest: I love it, because it is always a challenge.

In my business someone who can't stop talking like stella wouldn't last a day. Then again real world and online attitudes are very different.

iPadThai said:

Typical american culture when every employee expects to be treated with respect and dignity.

If you have never been to asia, you should try it once. You'll see that the competition is so fierce amongst everything and everyone you have no room to "feel bad" at getting "yelled" at because you are incompetent.

You do a good job, you get rewarded,...if you do a mediocre job, you shouldn't get rewarded and if you under perform, you should get fired. That's as dry as it can be.

That's why all your iProducts are built in China - because over there, you don't work hard, you don't eat. It's life guys - suck it up and over perform. That's how it works. People who complain about what's happening in this article about people would "leave" because they were treated this way is just stupid. Leave then. Hard working people who perform are always highly valued and compensated.

A bunch of whiny people here

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Macboy Pro said:

Jobs has always been so arrogant that in my opinion he has stunted the growth in Apples user base. The are so many people who won't touch Apple products for that reason. Showing that he mistreats his employees this way doesn't help Apples reputation. I'll be glad when he is gone from Apple.

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Quoted for stupidity...Apples growth has been so out of control lately with each new release, I'm not sure where you are getting this from.

/V\acpower said:

I can't imagine what happened to the "Ping" team...

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I'd rather not... But I'm sure thumbscrews were involved.

Macboy Pro said:

Jobs has always been so arrogant that in my opinion he has stunted the growth in Apples user base. The are so many people who won't touch Apple products for that reason.

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Just IT doofuses and Windows geeks that like to anthropomorphise companies as if they were individuals.

"The iPad is great but I hate Steve Jobs so I won't touch it", and other nonsense. Frankly, people like that should stay away in the first place. At least it'll cut down on the "Steve Jobs is arrogant" threads on MR.

Steve Jobs is the driving force behind Apple, and has been for the last decade. The mind behind the iPod, iPad, pretty much everything. I'm not sure why having him gone will be a *good* thing. While there are people that might be able to fill his shoes, Apple needs to continue under the same general vision: a vertical business model - closed and controlled, which puts User Experience ahead of everything else. This is how Apple stays ahead (and has always stayed ahead) and drives the industry. Get rid of this, and you'll have some ****** box-maker in Shanghai having their way with your OS. Do not want.

Macboy Pro said:

Jobs has always been so arrogant that in my opinion he has stunted the growth in Apples user base. The are so many people who won't touch Apple products for that reason. Showing that he mistreats his employees this way doesn't help Apples reputation. I'll be glad when he is gone from Apple.

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With that level of misunderstanding you should truncate it to macboy.

/V\acpower said:

I can't imagine what happened to the "Ping" team...

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So true.

Isn't he the CEO, shouldn't he have known what the hell they were doing BEFORE they released it?

Quote

Jobs was also particularly angry about the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg not liking MobileMe:

"Mossberg, our friend, is no longer writing good things about us."

What, is he paid to say good things about apple regardless of what they really are like?

liavman said:

That is not how it works in highly challenging environments. We are only hearing this example when things went wrong. But getting it right requires open and honest criticism and back and forth ( and some shouting matches ) without taking it personally. If anyone thinks that this is not a way to treat employees, then Apple is not the right place for them.

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Agree. There's examples of companies around that went from highly accountable and tense environments to being friendly and warm and fuzzy. When they went all warm and gentle, there was no frank conversations and the businesses slid down hard.

Sounds familiar

Stella said:

Yes, he does take the heat. However, there are better ways of going about it... you don't *degrade* your employees. You'll loose them.

Grow up? No.. I've worked for long enough to know what you do and don't do to your employees. Sure, you don't wrap them up in cotton wool.... of course not.. but you don't go for the other extreme as well. You find out what went wrong and handle it *maturely* without lashing out. A *good* company will *learn* from its mistakes... Lashing out / degrading employees shows the culture of a company.

Also a good manager will take the heat and appropriately manage their employees.

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Loose them on the rest of the world?

When an entire team assures the boss that a product is ready to be shipped, then the team fails, they deserve to have a tongue-lashing. After all, they don't work for a knock-off products company.

*********

cirus said:

Isn't he the CEO, shouldn't he have known what the hell they were doing BEFORE they released it?

Quote

Jobs was also particularly angry about the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg not liking MobileMe:

"Mossberg, our friend, is no longer writing good things about us."

What, is he paid to say good things about apple regardless of what they really are like?

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A statement of fact, that Mossberg, a friend of Apple products for many years, wasn't writing good things, should not be classified as angry. It's just that, a statement.

cirus said:

Isn't he the CEO, shouldn't he have known what the hell they were doing BEFORE they released it?

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A CEO isn't there to micromanage - they're there to delegate and it is logical to assume that those put in charge of the said division should know what the hell they're doing.

Jobs was also particularly angry about the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg not liking MobileMe:

"Mossberg, our friend, is no longer writing good things about us."

What, is he paid to say good things about apple regardless of what they really are like?

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No, the point he was trying to make is when the chief Mac apologist and fanboy starts to criticise Apple then you've got to wake up and take notice - then again why anyone would read Mossberg's opinion piece os beyond me. Mossberg is merely an enamoured fanboy in much the same way there are Ford and Holden fans, or people who swear by a particular brand of soap which they've used for over 40 years.

cirus said:

Jobs was also particularly angry about the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg not liking MobileMe:

"Mossberg, our friend, is no longer writing good things about us."

What, is he paid to say good things about apple regardless of what they really are like?

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Who said anything about paying him? He was referring to the fact that Mossberg typically - independently - wrote good things about Apple. He was generally "pro-Apple". At that time, because of the MobileMe debacle, Jobs realized that even Mossberg (who was pro Apple) was now writing negative things. If he was doing that, who else was doing it?

That's what I got out of it.

Stella said:

Talking to employees like that is a good way for them to leave. A company that treats employees badly get a reputation, unfortunately, larger companies get a way with it. For example, EA. But they can still hire because who they are.

Perhaps the MobileMe problems were further up the chain?

Sounds like Apple has a culture of blame. A kind of company any employee wants to avoid like the plague.

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Do you work for an organization that needs to turn a profit?

If so, Steve Jobs' behaviour should appear completely normal.

jamesryanbell said:

Who said anything about paying him? He was referring to the fact that Mossberg typically - independently - wrote good things about Apple. He was generally "pro-Apple". At that time, because of the MobileMe debacle, Jobs realized that even Mossberg (who was pro Apple) was now writing negative things. If he was doing that, who else was doing it?

That's what I got out of it.

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You read it right. When one of your biggest fans starts saying negative things, something's wrong.

*********

motulist said:

Apple IS Jobs. We saw what happened to Apple when Jobs was ousted in the mid 80s. Apple continued to make superior products for the next few years, but by 10 years later Apple was really floundering. If Jobs leaves on his own terms this time, hopefully he'll be able to leave system in place that can keep Apple churning out products that are insanely great.

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I agree 100%. Look at what Jobs did when he got kicked out. He started NeXT Computers, which used the NeXTSTEP OS, which is the grandfather of Mac OS X and iOS.

If it hadn't been for the legal hassle which kept Steve from marketing NeXT computers in the same field as Apple marketed their computers, Apple could very well have disappeared long ago. What could be done with the hardware being used is impressive and you can only imagine how much further NeXT would be today.

Stella said:

Talking to employees like that is a good way for them to leave. A company that treats employees badly get a reputation, unfortunately, larger companies get a way with it. For example, EA. But they can still hire because who they are.

Perhaps the MobileMe problems were further up the chain?

Sounds like Apple has a culture of blame. A kind of company any employee wants to avoid like the plague.

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+1!! I have been a mobile me customer since the days of .mac and itools. Jobs reaction is uncalled for unless Steve had the same execs + rank and file employees working on Apple's web based services for the past decade. Even then if the same execs and employees were responsible for what we call Mobile me then Steve had better take a closer look at himself, marketing and other higher level executives, before he starts spewing self righteous belligerent nonsense.

Mobile me is ok but not great. Sadly Steve did not have enough vision in this area, so obviously its due to the faults of the employees. "Take all the credit and none of the blame!!" It's good to see that Jobs is following the first rule of "Poor Management".

I wonder what his reaction was to the failure of the Hi-Fi.

spraulin said:

Heres a slightly more legible copy of the org chart http://www.macstories.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Photo-07-5-11-19-52-48.jpg

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Image not working. Dead link.

Too bad those meetings aren't filmed... Maybe one day the recordings would escape to the outside!