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

[VicMacs]

this was a long time ago, mobile me is working fine nowadays, and its going to get supersized pronto!

[kjs862]

My MM has been working good.

[Pojo458]

Steve Jobs has the personality of a true CEO, stay on top of everything, rewards those who are achieving, give a talk or punish the people are below the standards. Seriously, if steve jobs didn't set them in place, apple would be a floundering piece of jello going nowhere.

[LarryC]

As far as employees being trained regarding Apple after Steve Jobs. It does sound kind of odd, but I remember either hearing something or reading something somewhere that said that it is a good CEO's responsibility to have everything in place so that if he or she is suddenly gone that the company will continue to run smoothly with no instances of people standing around and wondering what do we do now? There are several things about which I strongly disagree with Steve Jobs, but I have no delusions that I could have or would have done that job as well as he has. I am sure that when he is gone that he will be remembered as not only a cultural icon, but as one of, if not, the most unique CEO's in american history. Isn't SJ the largest shareholder of Apple stock? I remember hearing that somewhere. That is what he is going to be leaving to his family when he is gone and I am sure that he wants to make sure that the value of that stock remains high and continues to grow.

[Vercingetorix]

Originally Posted by Stella

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.

You are taking a meeting held during in the heat of the one of the biggest, most embarrassing public screwups in the history of the company and extrapolating that into a day-to-day working culture.

It's hard to seriously criticize a guy's management style when he's on the greatest 15-year run in the history of modern American business.

[spraulin]

Heres a slightly more legible copy of the org chart http://www.macstories.net/wp-content...1-19-52-48.jpg

Also, why are people so "shocked" about the internal goings on at Apple. Its exactly the same as what goes on in senior management at most companies...

[lilcosco08]

Am I the only one trying to imagine steve saying this?

[LarryC]

Originally Posted by lilcosco08

Am I the only one trying to imagine steve saying this?

No.

[BaldiMac]

Originally Posted by andiwm2003

So it's obviously not the peoples fault who worked on it. The entire concept is bad and blaming the people who try to get it running is unfair. He is the one to blame because he is in charge and set it up like crap.

But that's typical managerial behavior. Start some crappy flawed concept and blame the people who try to make it work. [sorry for the rant]

What was flawed about the concept? How did Jobs "set it up like crap"?

[Stella]

Originally Posted by writingdevil

i'm not questioning your work background or experience, but i do question that you can speak for success in enterprise. especially when you write:

"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.."

By implication:apple is not a "good" company (you'd have an argument from Forbes, Fortune Most Admired Company (4 years in a row), Harvard Business and on and on for management, design, marketing, distribution (google for more).

I have worked in a similar environment and learned more about reaching my goals, pushing myself and my self expectations than I ever learned before. It's not the appropriate culture for everyone, but judging whether a company is "maturely managed" "good" or doesn't "learn from it's mistakes" just by time passing, seems ill informed. It's so easy to criticize things that don't the way other people think they should look/act/think.

In this case, I do think Apple could have handled it better - based upon the article description alone. Of course, we don't know all the details - or even if its accurate. So therefore, I wouldn't say that "Apple is a bad employer" based upon *this* scenario.

Originally Posted by Vercingetorix

You are taking a meeting held during in the heat of the one of the biggest, most embarrassing public screwups in the history of the company and extrapolating that into a day-to-day working culture.

It's hard to seriously criticize a guy's management style when he's on the greatest 15-year run in the history of modern American business.

I wouldn't go as far as that - I wouldn't base this on a day to day working culture. If it sounded like I did, it was badly expressed. To say "Company X has a culture of blame" would have to have a consistent record.

If rumours are true - a CEO - who sacks people in elevators needs better people skills. There's nothing to stop a CEO building a great company while having crap people skills. Sure, SJ has good vision, but like everyone he has his weak points - he's not perfect. SJ is not exempt from criticism... thats pure arrogance.

[Rodimus Prime]

Originally Posted by dagamer34

It's even worse than that. That was 3 years ago and it's STILL a failure. Please tell me why someone should pay $99 for MobileMe when Google gives it to you all for free, PLUS, you don't actually have to see their ads if you use your own clients!

What little does Mobileme even off. Lets see if you need book market syncing both firefox and Google Chrome can and do handle that.

Email. Lets see Gmail offers larger inbox space push and what not. No gain there.
Yahoo same as above.

Cloud storage. Nope DropBox beats the crap out of it there and low and behold more space.

@me addresses to show you fanboyism well that you can pay for.
@mac same as above and originally it was among the few out there at the time but Apple failed to expand on it and keep it ahead of the curve.

Originally Posted by andiwm2003

Steve should chill a bit. Yelling at the MobileMe team is highly unprofessional.

The service was crap from the beginning and is still crap now. I've been a .mac customer for years and since the MobileMe launch the service has gotten just worse and worse. Emails come with minutes or hours delay, syncing is still like playing the lottery, iDisk is slow as molasses.

So it's obviously not the peoples fault who worked on it. The entire concept is bad and blaming the people who try to get it running is unfair. He is the one to blame because he is in charge and set it up like crap.

But that's typical managerial behavior. Start some crappy flawed concept and blame the people who try to make it work. [sorry for the rant]

I though .mac was lagging behind more and more before the MobileMe launch and was pretty much a rip off by end any how. SJ blaming the MobileMe team is very unprofessional. Hell the fact that .mac was going into the crapper and MobileMe just added to it tells me that the issues starts at the top with SJ. Clearly he did not gives a rats ass about it and is trying to pull the blame game.

I honestly thing after SJ leaves Apple it will become a better company and put out better products since he will not be in control. Hell they might start listening to their customers.

[Travis284]

I personally liked .mac

It was a cool name.

Never should've changed it.

[Atlantico]

Originally Posted by Travis284

I personally liked .mac

It was a cool name.

Never should've changed it.

iTools, now that was the real deal. Apple trying to review the entire internet and free email! Fun times

[Vercingetorix]

Originally Posted by Stella

If rumours are true - a CEO - who sacks people in elevators needs better people skills. There's nothing to stop a CEO building a great company while having crap people skills. Sure, SJ has good vision, but like everyone he has his weak points - he's not perfect. SJ is not exempt from criticism... thats pure arrogance.

But how are these "weak points" actually weak if they don't hurt him at all? How much better could Apple possibly be doing if only Jobs had better people skills? There are plenty of personally distasteful stories about Jobs's demeanor, sure, but his job isn't to be tasteful, it's to run a company. And if you look at Apple's performance since Jobs returned, it's really hard to see how there's any meaningful way that he "needs" better people skills.

The one area in which I do think Jobs should be pretty much exempt from criticism is in his management style. You can take shots at his vision; you can take shots at his obsession with control; you can take shots about lots of things. But I don't know how anyone can look at the results of the last 15 years and offer up one complaint about how the guy manages a business.

[afireintonto]

"life after jobs...."
he's gonna be like the Quetzalcoatl of the apple culture, as i'm sure he was in the 80's. I wasn't alive to witness it, sadly.

[carmenodie]

Originally Posted by Eddyisgreat

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.

Me too brother!
I work in the hotel industry in Florida and let me tell you, I have some managers that should be shot and quartered! Just stupid a** mofos to the nth degree.
Say what you will about Apple but Jobs makes that bi*** work!!!
When Jobs leave and there is one damn hiccup game could be over. No body in the tech industry is doing what Apple is doing.
The pc slum dogs are just cranking out system just to make MS that royalty money.
Sony is BSing while tens of millions of account are being used by hackers probably from China, the states and Russia and the middle east.

[TheRat]

I bet everyone who has a problem with what he said would see it differently if he didn't swear. There's nothing else in the anecdote to indicate that he was yelling. Also, the launch of MobileMe was an embarrassment, why wouldn't he call them out on it? Sometimes you have to light fires under asses.

[ciTiger]

MobileMe is a shadow of what it could be... Let's see if the new service lives up to the expectations...

[Žalgiris]

Steve is the man.

[lkrupp]

Meanwhile, over at C|net the Apple haters are out in full force over this calling Jobs everything but a white man. The vitriol is flying fast and furious. It's a thing to behold.

[Joshwawilson]

Originally Posted by ethana

If the employees can't take it then they can quit on the spot and find another job. Simple as that.

Who would be stupid enough to quilt that job?

[savemefromtears]

Originally Posted by dagamer34

It's even worse than that. That was 3 years ago and it's STILL a failure. Please tell me why someone should pay $99 for MobileMe when Google gives it to you all for free, PLUS, you don't actually have to see their ads if you use your own clients!

Do you even know what iWeb is and what the words WEB HOSTING implies? MobileMe isn't just an email addy...

[Joshwawilson]

Originally Posted by TheRat

I bet everyone who has a problem with what he said would see it differently if he didn't swear. There's nothing else in the anecdote to indicate that he was yelling. Also, the launch of MobileMe was an embarrassment, why wouldn't he call them out on it? Sometimes you have to light fires under asses.

That's a good point, it was probably a calm Convo with the F word for emphasis. That changes the whole mood lol

[hamean]

Originally Posted by HiRez

So Jobs admits MobileMe is crap, and then he's mad at Mossberg for telling the truth about it? What?

no... he was reiterating his point that it was a total failure, because even ALLIES were calling it what it was. He wasn't mad at Mossberg; he was angry at his team for producing a product so poor, that even a friend called it a failure.

[C. Alan]

I personally think I would like working for SJ. I like a boss who calls a spade a spade. I have an immediate supervisor who knows all the manager speak, and sometimes it is very difficult to get a direct answer out of him. However, some of my work brings me into contact with the head of our division, an ex-Air Force Colonel. That man is a very direct 'don't use pronouns' kind of leader, and I have come to appreciate his bluntness. Too bad I'm in the wrong kind of engineering to ever work for SJ (Im a Civil).