Comment by jballanc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jballanc | Hacker News Reader

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There's a story that I've heard told about Tim Cook numerous times. I can't remember the original source (there's a reference here: http://www.cultofmac.com/who-is-apples-new-ceo-tim-cook-bio/...), but I think it basically sums up Tim:

> When in a meeting discussing a problem in China, Tim Cook noted that the problem was “really bad” and that someone should be in China fixing it. Thirty minutes later, Cook then famously looked over at Apple’s operations manager, Sabih Khan, and asked “Why are you still here?” Khan was on the next flight to China.

But what's most remarkable is that like Jobs, Tim has managed to infuse this attitude into the very fabric of Apple. Once, when I worked there, a friend called and asked if I had plans for lunch. I replied that I did not. "Good," he said, "Can you drive me to SFO?" So I picked him up. He had a seat on the 1:30 PM flight and we were barely going to make it. "Do you think we have time to stop by my place so I can grab a change of clothes?" he asked. I told him that we did not, and his reply was "Oh well, I guess I'll just have to find a store in Boston"...

I understand these things are partly symbolic, but besides that is this really useful? I mean, is there a real business benefit to Apple by making Khan take the next immediate flight to China rather than the one a few hours later. Similarly, what was your friend doing that was so important that he couldn't wait to get a change of clothes?

I personally do my best work when I'm relaxed and un-stressed. The apple environment seems to be diametrically opposite to this. I can see that some people might thrive in this environment, but I always wonder at what cost to themselves.

Speaking from experience as somebody who has done this sort of trip: Yes, it's hugely useful and there is a real business benefit.

First off, we're probably talking about a time when there were only a few direct flights a day from SFO to the relevant airport so if he didn't go that afternoon he'd have to wait until the next morning so instead of flying through the night he'd be flying through the day - flying RIGHT THEN means one less day in which your product slips its schedule.

Now recall that Apple used to have trouble getting enough media attention so they would schedule product announcements around, say, MacWorld or the Superbowl. Big events that cannot be moved. Every day the schedule slips makes it that much more likely you miss the intended product launch window. For Apple, if your product isn't ready to ship, it's not ready to show which means you've wasted a lot of money - your next suitable launch window might be months later by which time the product no longer has a compelling story to tell. Missing the intended launch date can mean the difference between a successful product and a failure.

Conference calls are expensive and tend to involve both high-level people and lower-level people. If the schedule is slipping, the chinese engineers won't necessarily tell you the truth about why it's slipping in that sort of forum - there's a face-saving issue. There are also communications difficulties when people who don't speak english well just nod and say "yes, we'll do that" without really understanding what they're agreeing to. Email can clarify and puts things in writing but the time difference means most exchanges lose at least a day.

Another factor is "the squeaky wheel gets the grease". The same factory is trying to build products for you and a variety of other companies. When some other company's product totally unrelated to yours has a crisis, they might choose to rationally pull engineering resources away from your product to serve somebody else...if you're not there to nag and check up on the schedule.

The bottom line is that if you don't have at least one person there most of the time, your product stands a very very low chance of meeting your schedule or your quality targets.

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Yes he would. Apple doesn't own any jets. Steve owns a jet, and Apple reimburses him when he's using it for Apple-related travel.

> For Apple, if your product isn't ready to ship, it's not ready to show

Hm. I guess the iPad that shipped a couple of months after being shown is the special butterfly exception that confirms your nice fluffy rule.

Standard exceptions to the rule in recent memory include:

- products that depend on 3rd-party developer support. If the iPad 3 has a new form factor and new hardware such that developers will want to rewrite their apps to take best advantage, Apple might show it at the developer conference and tell everybody "you've got 3 months to get your apps ready"

- products that get accidentally leaked or need to be leaked early due to regulatory requirements such as filing for FCC approval.

What Apple doesn't do is float trial balloons just to have something to show. Lot of companies will mock up some design that is approximately similar to the expected final product and show/announce that, then finish figuring out how to build it. Apple's ideal is to make a big splash by showing something unexpected that you can buy in the very very near future so people run out and buy it, garnering additional publicity based on the big lines and big numbers of customers.

Which is great if you can pull it off, though it seems inevitable that one of these days they'll guess wrong. If and when they do blow it, it'll be at least a billion-dollar mistake to have built up so much inventory in advance of finding out whether people like the thing.

Ready to ship almost never means "in stores". Additionally, Apple trusts no one, even when NDAs are in place, so at the very least the product has to be ready to go to third-party partners by the time it's announced. Often, the partners may need some time before it's "ready to ship", which can account for part of the delay.

That said, last minute bugs do happen and cause delays. Apple will ship late before it ships a known defective product (yes, it has shipped defective products, but not any that were known defective), but it doesn't like to do either.

What I take away is these people are part of something bigger than themselves, they understand that, and they care deeply about that thing.

Why does this matter? Anecdotes like this are simply the tip of the iceberg. In my experience, it's also (counter-intuitively) good for morale. You feel good about the sacrifices you make, rather than stressed or bitter.

This wasn't for show, wasn't symbolic. Without going into details, there was no alternative for being there in person (remember Apple is as much, or more of, a hardware company as a software company).

As for your second point, I think you make the mistake of assuming that there are only two states one can operate in: stressed or relaxed. In fact, there is a third...let's call it "flow", for lack of a better term. That's where you're up all night, running to the airport on a moments notice, pulling out all the stops to be absolutely perfect, but you don't feel stressed in the slightest.

...Apple runs on that flow.

In operations, given the number of units they produce and sell per day, the answer is yes. For the sys admin types, the answer is the same as if the data center had a major fault and the market is opening in a couple of hours.

My wife worked for a major consulting company. I came to understand that their major selling point was the ability to put a warm willing capable body anywhere anytime for any job, and for this they commanded a high price. For this, her work demanded such rapid response as the above tales note: one morning she was informed she would be at the client location, a thousand miles away, by that afternoon - and would work there 12 hour days four days a week for months. She had hardly time to pack a small bag before the flight.

Some thrive under such pressures, where most would soon crumble.

If it is related to manufacturing, then absolutely. My neighbor works for a Honda supplier, and one day had to drop everything and fly from Indiana to a plant in Brazil with a replacement for some part of the assembly line. It is surprising how quickly a supply chain disruption can ripple through the entire manufacturing line. These organizations track things in hours and minutes.

The next flight out probably was more than a few hours later. "Why are you still here" could have easily meant " Why aren't you at home packing to leave as soon as you can?"

Flights from SFO to Hong Kong / Shenzen area sound difficult to come by...

Yep. Depending on the airline you might do direct SFO->Hong Kong or there'd be a stop in Tokyo (Narita) or some other inconvenient location. It was one or two flights a day, not every couple of hours.

Heck, I'll bet it's not a lot better now. let's take a look! Suppose I want to fly on United to Hong Kong next Friday. Kayak tells me that if I miss the one that leaves at 1pm (direct flight - total time 14 hours 5 minutes), the next one available leaves at 10:51pm and has an 8-hour layover in Chicago. Total time-in-transit on that option: 27 hours 19 minutes. ("This flight leaves on Friday and arrives on Sunday.") Oof.

Sure, there are other airlines, but booking at the last minute, most of the best route options are likely to be sold out.

(I spent about half of 1999 in short trips to Hong Kong helping "PocketMail" devices ship)

Um, I'm not entirely convinced that a high-level Apple employee on critical business would be restricted to any particular airline. If you're willing to pay, between SFO, LAX, and YVR you should be able to find a flight heading for southern China in any next four hours, except maybe at 12:30 AM.

FWIW, if you want a direct flight there weren't any today from SFO to HKG leaving later than 1:35pm on any airline. All the flights that were available as of this afternoon that had stops took at least 4 hours longer than a nonstop - there weren't any quick connections.

You left off SJC and OAK. Not to mention Seattle, Beijing, and Tokyo... :-)

I agree with you in that I don't see the business benefit, but I can understand that a boots on the ground approach can be very beneficial and can sometimes help avert a disaster of even greater proportions.

Rands mentions this in his blog (rands in repose) as being part of the DNA of the culture of the company. My take away is that this is Company Myth; these are the myths we tell each other over lunch, the stories that say, "This is who we are, this is what we do, these are the people to follow". These are the myths that we think about when a hard choice comes, so that we know we know what the Company would do.

I don't mean this as a bad thing. It's like the myth of Stallman coding alone to write emacs. Maybe it is 100% true. Maybe it is 50% true. But it's part of the Hacker Mythology, and hackers take their cues from that mythology.

And Apple has the Apple Mythology.

Stories like this are absolutely fascinating. I'm sure there are a ton of lessons to learn from Apple's senior leadership; lessons that would otherwise have been drowned under the attention given to Jobs and his leadership style. You can't have a successful company with one iron-willed leader; you need a team that knows what it's doing.

I really don't understand the story. Why can't they just call someone in China, that is smart enough to understand what needs to be done? Seems like really bad management to fly around the world, hunting bugs.

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