Tech Reflect

The most common questions people ask me about Apple are about Apple Park. Usually, did you work in Apple Park? Yes, for 6 months. What was it like?

Pros

Grounds

The grounds of Apple Park are essentially the most beautiful arboreteum in the world. So many things were done so well that I could write an entire article about it.

The building is essentially located at the bottom of the piece of land, with rolling hills going up in most directions. Even on the higher floors, you can get a great illusion of being in a landscape that goes on foverer. No highways or no other buildings. Very serene.

Unlike most corporate landscaping, everything is done in a fashion that makes it look very organic and natural. Things aren’t planted in rows or in large sections. The variety of plants is enormous.

The building structure

The structure of the building … READ THE REST

Although I only have my experience at Apple and those of my friends at other companies, but this appears to be the case:

• Most companies use codenames from time to time
• Most companies that do use codenames use them for ultra-super-secret projects
• Most companies that use codenames are to protect leaks to the outside world, not leaks within a company
• Apple is not like most companies

The only thing at Apple that doesn’t have codenames are other codenames. Oh wait, that’s not entirely true since some projects have multiple codenames based on which organization you are in, although this is not super common.

To complicate matters, there are not really resources to translate a codename into what it stands for or vice versa. So it’s fairly anecdotal and many people keep their own cheat sheets.

But early in my career at Apple I had an amusing codename experience in a … READ THE REST

It’s always fun to walk around and hear snippets of conversation coming from offices, conference rooms, or open areas. Sometimes you hear frightening things out of context!

My favorite overheard line came from when I worked on Aperture. We were in the same area of Infinite Loop as Finance, so we would frequently see the CFO, Peter Oppenheimer.

One day I was walking down the hall and Peter was leaning against a wall having a conversation with someone I didn’t know.

What I heard coming out of Peter’s mouth was:

I don’t see why we have to get the FBI involved

Do I want to know the context? Should I sell my stock?