AirPods Pro Development Pushed Apple Toward Less Internal Secrecy and Greater Collaboration, Says Former HR Executive

[MacRumors]

As AirPods Pro were under development in the years before their launch in 2019, Apple was pushed by a small team of HR managers to adopt a more transparent and less secretive work atmosphere for employees, a departure from the ultra-secretive and siloed work culture that leads to most of the company's products.

The revelation comes from a guest article on Fast Company written by Chris Deaver, a former Apple HR manager who worked at the company from 2015 to 2019. In the article, Deaver describes, as is well-known, Apple's stringent culture of product secrecy and confidentiality. Employees working on products such as the Mac or iPad have no insight into what teams working on the iPhone or other products are doing, creating a great sense of exclusion for some employees.

That culture of immense Apple secrecy and confinement of information often left employees working on different products and disciplines in uncomfortable dilemmas of not knowing who they can speak to and who they must keep secrets away from out of fear of legal or work-related punishments. "How do I operate like this? If I can only share information with certain people, how do I know who and when? I don’t want to end up fired or in jail," Deaver quotes one employee saying during his time at the company.

Beyond personal and social dilemmas for employees, the culture of secrecy also caused friction across teams at the company. Deaver describes his role as part of the HR department as having to deal with internal disputes, which he said often came from complaints of "that team not sharing."

Deaver, alongside a close business friend, Ian Clawson, conceived a small team of HR experts and partners to think of a new, more transparent way for Apple's teams to work that would result in less friction during the development of products. Deaver said he was inspired to do this based on his experience having seen the development of the original AirPods, which reportedly left staff feeling burned out and frustrated.

Teams were innovating for months in silos only to finally converge in the eleventh hour before launch, ending up in five- or six-hour-long daily meetings, causing tremendous friction and burnout. People were frustrated. They wanted to leave or to “never work with that one person again.”

How could Apple have avoided the internal turmoil we faced with the development of AirPods? How do cultures take the shape they do? These questions and the inspired sessions with Ian, led me to form a mini braintrust at Apple. As a small group of HR partners, we started to explore this by getting curious about the Apple culture.

The brainstorming of this team ultimately led Apple to adopt a more transparent and collaborative work culture for the AirPods Pro. Instead of separate groups working in silos, all on the same products but not being able to communicate or work together, Apple opted for an open, free-flowing workflow for the AirPods Pro.

As teams converged with leaders becoming more open, connected, and driving higher quality collaboration than ever before. We spent time coaching, collaborating, and influencing key leaders and engineers driving the next frontier of AirPods. What emerged was a braintrust with regular sessions, openness, and connection that brought to life the insanely great, noise-canceling AirPods Pro. It was a testament to innovation, but also to the power of sharing. Yes, sharing could be done in the context of secrecy.

The new culture was internally dubbed "Different Together," a play on Apple's iconic "Think Different" campaign. Part of Apple's priority in maintaining high secrecy is preventing leaks and rumors about what the company is working on. As Deaver tries to prove, Apple can both be secretive and collorbaritve simultaneously, as demonstrated by the development of AirPods Pro.

Article Link: AirPods Pro Development Pushed Apple Toward Less Internal Secrecy and Greater Collaboration, Says Former HR Executive

 

[szw-mapple fan]

Secrecy works well for independent skunk works projects but for devices already in the ecosystem it doesn’t really make sense to develop everything independently given how much of Apple’s “secret sauce” is devices working well with each other. Some of the worst bugs or discrepancies between devices/features over the past few years could have been caught if teams worked more collaboratively.

 

[Leon Ze Professional]

This was an interesting read and thanks for the insight. But this culture would not be my cup of tea. I view collaboration as really important in the work environment.

 

[Red Oak]

A 3 yr HR middle manager trying to pat himself on the back.

You could not even keep your idea a secret. It’s why your no longer here

 

[CarAnalogy]

Can someone tell me what benefit all this secrecy is still providing? Apple counter-intel operations are clearly still going strong, and all the most interesting leaks come from the supply chain anyway. Maybe if teams could talk to each other we wouldn't have a notch randomly changing size with no accompanying software developments.

I know Steve Jobs absoluely loved to hide iPods and iPhones in his pocket, have the big reveal. This made sense fifteen years ago. Does every little thing still have to be treated like it's national security?

 

[KENESS]

Can someone tell me what benefit all this secrecy is still providing? Apple counter-intel operations are clearly still going strong, and all the most interesting leaks come from the supply chain anyway. Maybe if teams could talk to each other we wouldn't have a notch randomly changing size with no accompanying software developments.

I know Steve Jobs absoluely loved to hide iPods and iPhones in his pocket, have the big reveal. This made sense fifteen years ago. Does every little thing still have to be treated like it's national security?

Considering how brazenly and blatantly certain companies copy some of Apple's ideas, I would suspect there is still a significant benefit in the secrecy.

The copies are often times not nearly as good or well thought out, but a huge amount of the wow-factor would be diminished if a hastily pushed out copy actually BEAT Apple's original idea to market.

That said, managing the internal secrecy, especially for their own people, is important. And it looks like that is what they did, based on this article. They suffered a less-than-ideal scenario with the original AirPods development, and tried to find a way to do better the next time around, with the AirPods Pro.

 

[oofio2461]

One of the things that I love about Apple is that their products aren't leaked as heavily as Apple and Samsung do.

 

[44267547]

One of the things that I love about Apple is that their products aren't leaked as heavily as Apple and Samsung do.

Wait….what?

Apple has had plenty of leaks over the years, i.e-the Apple Watch has had loads of leaks (Red crown, schematics, first Edition, ect) The HomePod code that was leaked, the iPhone is on another level of leak's, the AirPods, ect. If anything, Apple probably has had more leaks than Samsung in just about every category, primarily due to Foxconn, Shenzhen, China leakers.

 

[xxray]

It’s kinda insane to imagine every Apple product team being siloed off from each other, especially with how much Apple likes to integrate its ecosystem together.

 

[ColdShadow]

I own many headphones including Airpods 2.
Recently bought Airpods Pro,I really liked the small size and comfortable fit,specially since they don’t enter ear canals (can’t stand headphones that go into ear canals),but man the sound quality was garbage.
I wasn’t expecting too much,but these totally lacked bass and just sound low quality.even standard Airpods 2 sound more engaging.
And the ANC..it’s really weak.just minimal noise reduction not noise cancellation.
returned them.
very disappointing and totally not worth the asking price.

 

[paulovsouza]

Didn’t they build a spaceship worth billions, to promote openness, and collaboration? Aren’t things being leaked regularly, we are on MacRumors right now. I think having a closed and hostile work environment is not only causing people to leave, but maybe leak and retaliate? I definitely think Apple needs to work on their energy, and try to realign themselves.

 

[StuBeck]

Can someone tell me what benefit all this secrecy is still providing? Apple counter-intel operations are clearly still going strong, and all the most interesting leaks come from the supply chain anyway. Maybe if teams could talk to each other we wouldn't have a notch randomly changing size with no accompanying software developments.

I know Steve Jobs absoluely loved to hide iPods and iPhones in his pocket, have the big reveal. This made sense fifteen years ago. Does every little thing still have to be treated like it's national security?

It makes sense for long term projects where you're truly revolutionizing the space. If you're 3 years out from launch, you don't want to give another company your ideas. But if we are protecting a product coming out in less than six months, thats a bit dumb. I'm not saying they should be publically sharing what the iPhone 14 will look like, but it can be internally known within the Apple watch and headphone division for example. There are also ways for different divsions to work together with mock ups which aren't like the final product too. Staying totally separate isn't useful.

Jobs putting stuff in his pockets or an envelope was cool in the 2000s, but I don't think anyone saw the new Beats earbuds and lost their mind that they had made a new version of an earbud.

 

[throwaway572937]

Interesting read. I agree though that the overwhelming majority of leaks come from the supply chain, not HQ, so idk why they wouldn't have a collaborative work environment on the home base anyway.

But I legimately lol'ed at reading "insanely great" and AirPods Pro in the same sentence. They are by far the most garbage Apple product I have ever owned. Coming from someone who still willingly and happily is part of Apple's ecosystem etc etc, I thoroughly despise my AirPods Pro.

 

[SirAnthonyHopkins]

One of the things that I love about Apple is that their products aren't leaked as heavily as Apple and Samsung do.

can't even figure out what you're trying to say here.

 

[DanteHicks79]

Contrast this with the early days of the Macintosh. Non-Apple people were repeatedly brought over to the Texaco Towers to see demos of the first machine, even though it was light-years ahead of anything else on the market at the time. Hell, Jobs would practically grab anybody he thought might dig it and show them around. He probably got off on it.

As clearly evidenced by the past ten years, it doesn't seem to matter if most details leak, or even if competitors release a similar looking product first - it doesn't eat into Apple's sales at all. Over half of the components are sourced from Samsung, Toshiba, Qualcomm, and others, so it's not like it's a big secret to any of those providers what guts the latest Apple thing has in them.

At this point, Apple isn't even innovating on form, design wise. They went from rounded edges, to sharp corners, to rounded edges... then back to sharp corners. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the iPhone will eventually swing back around to rounded edges again. Leaked designs for the exterior of the phone aren't going to ruin the company - we all know it's gonna look like an iPhone, in some way.

I could understand Apple getting pissed if they were going to completely redesign the exterior from the ground up, and it was going to look nothing like any previous iPhone, but that has never been the case, nor probably will ever be. Even when Apple went all screen for the iPhone, it wasn't like some groundbreaking first that's never been seen in the market. It wasn't a huge revelation - it was Apple catching up to what already was being done for over a year at that point.

Really, the only thing Apple should be worried about is if somebody managed to leak the layout of the design of their SoCs, which, to my knowledge, has never ever happened.

THAT in fact, WOULD be a major deal, because if somebody could stamp out the same die faster than Apple, Apple loses their edge. THAT is something Apple should be worried about holding close to the vest. Everything else is not so revolutionary that if it gets leaked, it's gonna hurt Apple's profit margins.

 

[AxiomaticRubric]

collorbaritve

What is this word? I am not familiar with it.

 

[GtrDude]

As the book says Apple Has Lost Its Soul.

 

[Analog Kid]

"This system has created one of the most iconic and successful product companies in the world. Let's change it."

It's not clear to me that the culture of secrecy is really core to Apple's being, but it's not clear to me it's a problem either. A few clips of people complaining though doesn't tell me the system is flawed. People always have a reason to complain. Maybe they don't want to work with someone after the project comes together and they spent 6 hours in a meeting with that person, but is that worse than not wanting to work with that person before the project comes together?

And, "I don't want to go to jail?" Seems like that quote was selected for maximum drama... Apple's not trying to put people in jail for making a best effort to do their job. Don't be stupid and you're fine. Pull your prototype out in a bar for all to see and maybe there's a conversation with your boss in your future.

Some people don't want to work this way, which is fine-- there's other jobs for talented engineers.

Or maybe there really is room for improvement. Hard to argue that the system doesn't work though...

 

[Analog Kid]

What is this word? I am not familiar with it.

I looked it up.

collorbaritve, adj:
produced or conducted by two or more parties under careful editorial proof and review.

 

[henryhbk]

I think secrecy makes sense when you are doing something incredibly novel (like the iPad when it debuted was fundamentally new to the world). But the next iPhone is 95% like the last iPhone (sure the camera will be better, the processor will be faster, but not like it's going to be a sphere). I was once at apple giving a talk and mentioned something like "when the next iPhone ships" and you would have thought I pooped in everyone's coffee (note I was not an apple employee, and I remarked that while I had no actual knowledge that apple was going to ship another iPhone I figured a product that brought in the GDP of a midsized country was probably not going to be sunsetted...

 

[DeepIn2U]

Secrecy works well for independent skunk works projects but for devices already in the ecosystem it doesn’t really make sense to develop everything independently given how much of Apple’s “secret sauce” is devices working well with each other. Some of the worst bugs or discrepancies between devices/features over the past few years could have been caught if teams worked more collaboratively.

Fully agreed.

We’re seeing bad implementations or big misses in software as well.

WatchOS - lack of sms sync to iPhone or iPad. Worked 1 os version then failed. Also STILL no way to delete all on watch and deletions on iPhone or iPad is NOT synching to watch.

 

[svish]

Surprising to hear Apple not being secretive!!

 

[genovelle]

Can someone tell me what benefit all this secrecy is still providing? Apple counter-intel operations are clearly still going strong, and all the most interesting leaks come from the supply chain anyway. Maybe if teams could talk to each other we wouldn't have a notch randomly changing size with no accompanying software developments.

I know Steve Jobs absoluely loved to hide iPods and iPhones in his pocket, have the big reveal. This made sense fifteen years ago. Does every little thing still have to be treated like it's national security?

It serves them well because without it they would not exist. They would have been stolen out of business long ago.

Even now the leaks are monitored by their competitors and they aggressively attempt to beat them to market with the copies of Apple’s innovations before they can.

The secrecy is what keeps them years ahead of the competition in a market that consistently pits Apple again the rest of the market combined.