“It’s daunting to think about the number of products Apple has created that have transformed how most people use technology: the original Mac with the first mass-produced mouse, the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad,” Laura Sydell reports for NPR. “But fast forward to 2017 and it appears that a lot of innovation is coming from other companies. Both Apple fans and analysts who follow the company are beginning to wonder whether Apple has lost its mojo. All those innovations happened when Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder, was running the company. And some former employees say a cultural shift occurred at Apple after Jobs died in 2011.”
“One of those former employees is Bob Burrough, a software engineer and a manager who worked on the team that helped create the iPhone. He says under Jobs, every employee was encouraged to take personal responsibility for improving the products,” Sydell reports. “But he argues the culture at Apple changed when Tim Cook took over as CEO. Burrough says employees were getting the message to look down and do their jobs. Burrough says, when he saw something wrong, ‘the way that I was expected to deal with it was shut my mouth and do my job, and take care of whatever my assigned responsibility was and (not) worry about what anybody else is doing.'”
‘Bryson Gardner has similar memories. He worked at Apple for nearly a decade and was one of the team leaders for iPod and iPhone development. And Gardner says Jobs liked debate about how to make products better — and his style was to listen and then make a decision,” Sydell reports. “Cook is a more traditional CEO, Gardner says, and doesn’t like people arguing — instead typically bringing together top managers and building consensus rather than letting them debate it out until he makes a decision.”
“A lot of people are rooting for the company, including former employees Burrough and Gardner,” Sydell reports. “‘Like many other customers, I would like them to make more things,’ Gardner says. ‘It would be great to have something else people lined up around the block for’ besides the iPhone.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Half a decade after Steve Jobs’ death, people are beginning to see the results of the lack of a charismatic, focused leader.
You cannot go from Steve Jobs to someone who “doesn’t like people arguing” and not effect a profound culture change.
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