Inside Apple -- From Steve Jobs down to the janitor: How America’s most successful—and most secretive—big company really works.
Adam Lashinskyamazon.com
Inside Apple -- From Steve Jobs down to the janitor: How America’s most successful—and most secretive—big company really works.
Simplicity also is key to Apple’s organizational structure. The org chart (see next page) is deceptively straightforward, with none of the dotted-line or matrixed responsibilities popular elsewhere in the corporate world. There aren’t any committees at Apple, the concept of general management is frowned on, and only one person, the chief financial
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“My job is to work with sort of the Top 100 people,” he said. “That doesn’t mean they’re all vice presidents. Some of them are just key individual contributors. So when a good idea comes…part of my job is to move it around [and]…get ideas moving among that group of 100 people.” Privately Jobs has spoken even more strongly about the Top 100’s import
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For Apple the result is an ability to move nimbly, despite its size. “Constant course correction” is how one former executive refers to the approach. “If the executive team decides to change direction, it’s instantaneous,” this ex-Apple honcho says. “Everybody thinks it’s a grand strategy. It’s not.” As an example, Apple’s management has been known
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An executive who has worked at Apple and Microsoft describes the differences this way: “Microsoft tries to find pockets of unrealized revenue and then figures out what to make. Apple is just the opposite: It thinks of great products, then sells them. Prototypes and demos always come before spreadsheets.”
Adam Lashinsky • Inside Apple -- From Steve Jobs down to the janitor: How America’s most successful—and most secretive—big company really works.
Jobs indoctrinates a culture of responsibility by hosting a series of weekly meetings that are the metronome that sets the beat for the entire company. On Mondays he meets with his executive management team to discuss results and strategy as well as to review nearly every important project in the company. On Wednesdays he holds a marketing and comm
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Apple process notes
“Over and over Steve talks about the power of picking the things you don’t do,” says one recently departed executive. Obvious? Perhaps. Yet few companies Apple’s size—and very few of any size—are able to focus so well and for so long.