Inside Apple

Title: Inside Apple – The Secrets Behind the Past and Future Success of Steve Jobs’s Iconic Brand

Author: Adam Lashinsky

Publisher:  John Murray, 2012 (First)

ISBN: 978-1-84854-744-5

Pages: 208

Apple, founded by Steve Jobs in 1976, is an iconic brand in personal computing, music players and mobile phones. Its pedigree is deeply awe inspiring, having come out with the world’s first graphical user interface and mouse, while Microsoft was dabbling with text-only DOS operating system. However, Microsoft aligned with Intel and did a revolution in popularizing the PC with cheap products and an open architecture, which was cloned by many competitors. Apple remained aloof, with overpriced Macintosh computers which couldn’t be repaired or upgraded by the user. Even if you wanted to replace the monitor, Apple’s service personnel had to be called in. Apple ensured that it exercise a monopoly of hardware and software. Soon, it was relegated to back shelves as PC sales soared while it clung on to expensive niches. The book details the dramatic turnaround of the company when Jobs retook charge as CEO and how he diversified into undreamt of portfolios. Jobs died in 2011 and Apple continues to move forward with his unparalleled legacy at its back. Adam Lashinsky is an editor for Fortune magazine and has extensive researches on the silicon valley in his kitty.

Steve Jobs was born in 1955. Though not trained as an engineer, he was a nerd who would stay around computer clubs. With Steve Wozniak, he developed Apple I, their first computer in 1976. The Macintosh line emerged in 1980. Increased business requirements made him appoint John Sculley as the CEO. Dwindling fortunes of the company and dissatisfaction over Sculley’s style forced Jobs to leave Apple in 1986. He founded NeXT and acquired another company, Pixar. The first half of 1990s saw Apple at its nadir, with enough money to stay solvent up to 90 days. Jobs reentered as CEO in 1997, and beginning with the introduction of a slew of cutting edge consumer tech products starting with the translucent iMac, the list quickly grew to include iPod, iPhone and iPad. By 2011, it shared the title of the world’s largest market capitalization with Exxon Mobil. Jobs developed pancreatic cancer and had to undergo liver transplantation too. Health issues forced him to relinquish the post of CEO in Aug 2011 to Tim Cook and he died two months later, in Oct 2011.

Apple operates in a manner unconventional in the extreme. It goes openly against the tenets of modern management principles. Steve Jobs’ was the only voice which counted in the end. He was inaccessible to subordinates, with the other guy always on tenterhooks when he had had to meet the CEO in social gatherings or casual meetings. Jobs derided the employees in many ways until he was assured of getting what he wanted, at the lowest cost. Apple’s salaries are matching with those of comparable industry majors, but no better. Apple’s reported work culture is not conducive to a normal human being, with utmost secrecy surrounding product development. All companies make good use of external secrecy, but in Apple, even seasoned employees who are not working on top secret projects are not disclosed details of it. They are not allowed to discuss their work-related matters to outsiders and even with their colleagues. In internal meetings, people wouldn’t start discussions about things until they are sure that everyone in the table is disclosed about it prior to the meeting. Any slackness on this count is dealt with harshly – swift termination a constant threat. Employees thus work like horses with their blinders on.

Design is Apple’s forte. Often without any feedback on consumer preferences, Jobs sets down instructions to produce gadgets people would love to use. With a world class design centre chaired by Jonathan Ive, meticulous attention to every minute detail make Apple products stand apart. Designers make decisions and make other departments to produce the item they wanted which is quite the other way round in competing companies. It also insulates its technical talent from the mundane details of financial constraints and proceed ahead with what they do best. Only the CFO, directly reporting to the CEO, handles finance in the executive team which advises the CEO who runs the company. Beauty of the product is the company’s USP in which they still reign supreme. However, even with all the brag about impeccable products and being a different company, Apple too manufactures its product range in China by outsourcing, like any other. Apple decides what the customer wants and implement it, rather than the other way. It makes fun of PC companies, which fill them with software the users wouldn’t be seeing at all. Jobs called them ‘crapware’. Apple’s policy is of frugality – the iPad didn’t even have a camera when it debuted. That was available only in iPad 2, an expensive upgrade a few years later.

The company’s PR program is as tight knit as its HR. Favourite journalists find places of prominence and keep them lured to the company with occasional interviews with the CEO and other tidbits. Customers also get what Jobs wanted them to receive. Apple’s products are steeply priced, with features that are common in other brands curiously omitted. IPhone users have to avail Apple Service technicians even to replace the set’s battery. The company’s hierarchy is highly skewed to serve the interests of the CEO, and Lashinsky gives a neat description of who counts in the enterprise with a brief presentation on the higherups who have some clout in the corporate ladder and wonders at the operational pathways it could explore in the post-Steve Jobs era. Jobs’ death would definitely be a crushing blow to the enterprise, but much depends on the new CEO who has worked well under Jobs for a long time. The company is yet to improve on the features of some of its software like Numbers, its spreadsheet program. This is a very poor cousin of Microsoft’s Excel because Jobs was not at all interested in spreadsheets himself whereas its presentation software, Keynote was far superior to competitors like PowerPoint because it was Jobs’ favourite who used it to present for seminars and new product meets. Also, there are signs that Apple’s philanthropic record is scaling up in the post-Jobs era under a more sympathetic Tim Cook. This is particularly noteworthy when we remember that when one executive once asked Jobs why he wasn’t more philanthropic, he replied that giving away money was a waste of time! (p.84).

The book paints Apple in a sympathetic light, which is quite expected from an author who has close business links with it. The fact which is astonishing to the reader is why Jobs is getting the respect from the society which he didn’t deserve. He tried hard to keep the personal computing industry under wraps and monopolistic practices, but miserably failed before the popularity of the ubiquitous Windows-Intel platform. If Apple had been successful in the battle then, probably the popularization of computers wouldn’t have taken place. They would continue to be the favourite toys of the rich and fabulous. The myriad software available for the PC make it attractive and worth the money for common people as compared to Apple’s very few offerings priced sky high and distributed by the company itself. Jobs was unflinchingly harsh in dealings with his employees and was no philanthropic. Compare him to Warren Buffett or even Bill Gates and the money the duo spending on charity! Even now, Apple’s bulk share of income from manufacturing music players, mobile phones and tablets rather than Macs. So, in a sense, Jobs’ popularity need not be taken as a token of the success of his philosophy. The book is also easy to read and impressively structured. It can be finished very quickly.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star