He most likely does not need nor care for the job and for that reason, Apple is better off without him. To leave a company because you do not want to go to a luxurious private office with free parking for 1 day a week is illogical. Oh well, such is life.
This guy is a director, no doubt has a massive salary, pretty much infinite resources at work, state of the art working environment, yet resigns cause he refuses to come in to work not 5, not 4, but 3 days a week? 3 out of 7 fucking days a week crosses the line?
Good fucking riddance. This speaks to his lack of character, and lack of willingness to make even the tiniest sacrifice to retain a position he should feel incredibly lucky and humbled to have. Sounds like an entitled asshole.
It doesn't make a lot of sense to us who aren't Apple employees, but I am aware that most of the appealing jobs are at the Cupertino headquarters, where the cost of living is absolutely insane. It would be great to work at Apple while being able to live in an area with more reasonable rent and living expenses, which would only be possible if most work was done remotely.
The solution is simple. Offer rent-free condos and homes close to the office, owned by Apple.
Surprised they haven’t done this.
Well, Apple is making an Apple TV+ version of Metropolis. Maybe they should make a version of Neal Stephanson’s Diamond Age.
Possibly he has an immuno suppressed person at home with whom he is living. He may fear the increased risk of passing on the illness. We can’t know all the background so we can’t logically judge. Oh dear, Siri will be put even further behind until they find someone.
This guy is a director, no doubt has a massive salary, pretty much infinite resources at work, state of the art working environment, yet resigns cause he refuses to come in to work not 5, not 4, but 3 days a week? 3 out of 7 fucking days a week crosses the line?
Good fucking riddance. This speaks to his lack of character, and lack of willingness to make even the tiniest sacrifice to retain a position he should feel incredibly lucky and humbled to have. Sounds like an entitled asshole.
“Forgive me for the harm I have caused this world. None may atone for my actions but me and only in me shall their stain live on. I am thankful to have been caught, my fall cut short by those with wizened hands. All I can be is sorry, and that is all I am.”
There are real benefits to having folks working together in person. There are also benefits to flexible WFH arrangements. I think everybody is trying to figure out a new equilibrium.
Personally, I'm trying to get back to 3 days a week in the office but I'm not quite there yet -- I'm at about 2 on average. It's going to be really interesting to see where this all lands.
The solution is simple. Offer rent-free condos and homes close to the office, owned by Apple.
Surprised they haven’t done this.
It’s one solution. Mildly dystopic though; there’s no reason to worship one’s work or have it own something as fundamental as your family’s housing. That’s a level of lock-in that makes iMessage look lackadaisical.
For people whose work strongly benefits from in-person sessions, regular office time is valuable. For myself, now, I hate soulless open plan offices, yet my company loves them. Every meeting I have is with people who are based in corporate offices in other cities, countries, and frequently different time zones. For us, prior to Covid, we were already effectively working remotely; we just also had a commute to a lousy environment to do it. Turns out that dropping the commute just meant we all got more time for sleep, hobbies, spouses, and family. The nature of the work remained unchanged.
Do corporate employees not deserve affordable housing in a place where rent is through the roof? If this was a different state it wouldn’t be a problem but in N. California it is.
Complaining about free rent and calling it “dystopian” while working for the biggest company in the world (in air conditioning) is truly a first world problem.
The solution is simple. Offer rent-free condos and homes close to the office, owned by Apple.
Surprised they haven’t done this.
It’s one solution. Mildly dystopic though; there’s no reason to worship one’s work or have it own something as fundamental as your family’s housing. That’s a level of lock-in that makes iMessage look lackadaisical.
For people whose work strongly benefits from in-person sessions, regular office time is valuable. For myself, now, I hate soulless open plan offices, yet my company loves them. Every meeting I have is with people who are based in corporate offices in other cities, countries, and frequently different time zones. For us, prior to Covid, we were already effectively working remotely; we just also had a commute to a lousy environment to do it. Turns out that dropping the commute just meant we all got more time for sleep, hobbies, spouses, and family. The nature of the work remained unchanged.
I can totally relate to every one of your points, except I wouldn't call open plan offices "soulless." They are more like social experiments or a corporate take on an arranged communal marriage. I've also been heavily involved in virtual teams that span multiple offices, regions, countries, and time zones. I have seen first hand what works and what doesn't work. There is no one size fits all and it's never without compromise or a need to adjust how your work, how you think about work, and how you make the best of the situation to make it work as well as possible.
Some things, especially integration challenges involving multiple disciplines like software, firmware, hardware, and their associated planning, scheduling, testing, etc., are absolutely harder to do when people are spread out around the globe. But there are also some benefits, for example, the project can be running 24x7 if some things can be tag-teamed to get work done while other members of the team are off-work, sleeping, etc. The project never sleeps.
Major disruptions to the status quo are often the impetus for change. I'd say that over six million worldwide deaths, one million Americans included, years-long lock-downs, shutdowns, cancellations, and postponements, social isolation, and stalling the worldwide supply chain to battle a global pandemic would qualify as "disruptive." There's simply no way that something this far reaching can happen and then suddenly expect that everything will snap back to normal. Change occurred whether we want to admit it or not. The only question is how are we going to adapt to this change.
The main issue here is no different than pretty much every other "ill"
that is facing our country and society. There doesn't seem to be a way
to discuss the problem with multiple sides and perspectives contributing
openly and honestly to the discussion while everyone listens to
what everyone else has to say before rendering an opinion or considering
workarounds or compromises. We've become too hard wired to everything in
life being Win or Lose for our side. It doesn't even matter how the Win
is achieved as long as it favors our side. This means that meaningful
discussion doesn't matter, only the outcome matters - and it had better
be uncompromising and in favor of our side.
I get it that some people moved away to escape commuting hell or high home prices. Some people reallocated their child daycare responsibility and funds to other things. Some people restructured their lives to commingle their work, home, and side hustle tasks. Some people no longer fit into their work clothes. Some people adopted dogs who suffer from separation anxiety. From a work-comes-first hardliner perspective, some people probably did a lot of really stupid shit that returning to the office is going to expose or make them regret. There is also the anxieties that plague all those middle managers who felt diminished by their inability to physically oversee what their direct reports were actually doing, when and for how long they were doing it, and with what degree of intensity they were doing it during "company hours." They are hurting too.
If we truly accept that the world has changed due to the pandemic and its multilayered and lingering effects, all of these things need to come out into the open and be discussed with an open mind and consideration for all parties involved before we can ever hope to achieve a reasonable compromise. Otherwise, we'll just keep talking past one another and compounding stupidity on top of stupidity in an infinite loop.
It doesn't make a lot of sense to us who aren't Apple employees, but I am aware that most of the appealing jobs are at the Cupertino headquarters, where the cost of living is absolutely insane. It would be great to work at Apple while being able to live in an area with more reasonable rent and living expenses, which would only be possible if most work was done remotely.
You get paid in part based on the location in which you live, you will not be paid the same living in the remote hinterlands nor will you get promoted for anything, Apple also seems to have problems with some employees in recent times stealing and recruiting people on company time.
Apple has many on going projects that depend on being and staying a secret until they are ready for release, that person should just go back to Google or someplace else where they don’t care.
The element of surprise for Apple is a necessary part of the way they do things, get out if you can’t keep a secret.
What a great time for apple to turn this into a win for itself, it’s employees and the general workforce. Apple should say, “hey, losing all these good employees bcoz we can’t budge on our RTW Policy isn’t worth it, so maybe we can compromise…”
seems to me perhaps apple (and business in general) doesn’t trust their employees integrity much. Maybe it’s time to let go of that extremely outdated work ethic. I think we’re seeing the American workforce has had a taste of what a real “work/life balance,” actually looks like and they really like it. Good for company moral and good for employee production and ultimately good for the company.
Agreed, but there’s a flip side to that coin. Not being in the office anymore deteriorates company culture and a sense of belonging. It reduces connection with your coworkers to Zoom calls; no more jokes, after-hour drinks, getting inspired by sitting next to your coworker and develop together (a very effective methodology) or just brainstorm and looking your manager or coworker in the eyes.
I have benefited a lot from remote work due to Covid, but I know it also came with new problems for the company and its employees including me (a survey concluded I’m not the only one), despite the workforce preferring a remote-work-first policy.
I LEFT APPLE BECAUSE OF THESE ARROGANT SMART ASS IDIOTS WHO LOVE THE MOINEY - PRESTIGE AND OF COURSE ARROGANCE. That and the fact SJ was no longer leading the company, Tim is great, but I don't like accountants, Forstall would of been my choice. We are currently getting pinged by Apple folks that want a remote position, and while we fully understand the concern over Covid and 'better offers' the reality is that Ian was just a director and IMO should be in a research position - maybe at university where he can teach and experiment at his own pace. That is another problem at Apple - hire 1000 hope that 8 contribute. The rest are more worried about getting their children into the right schools and planning their next vacation to brag they work for Apple. The innovation is gone - Apple will of course survive and bring forward new 'things' - maybe Cars, maybe more content, maybe more something HOWEVER, vulnerabilities in their silicon, products that kind-of-work, services that kind-of- work(maps, siri, etc) and a host of really cool features NOBODY really knows about except the engineers. What happened to providing consumers the best of the best ? I don't know anymore - my iPhone, my Macs, my watch, my Homepod, my earpods all kind of let me down every day and the didn't happen when the MOST VIABLE PRODUCTS were being developed at Apple. So when employess are making news that they don't want to come back to work and are quitting - great go do what you want to do - Eddy, Tim, Craig Joz, et al IMO try to instill the spark that once ran the company - and knowing that there are all kinds of issues to deal with beyond Covid - when news of a director leaving the company makes news something is just bad business all around - who cares - shareholders like me ? Of course it matters because its about time to clean out the managers, directors and staff that really don't contribute - I mean Ian was a smart individual and should of remained in research - but a Director ?
Reduce the workforce - now is the time, find those that are motivated to contribute - not just show up every day to the ivory tower and figure out what is for lunch - or sit on video calls while ski-lifts go by in the background. I mean even I think about how nice it would be to sit in Aspen and work from my home every days - but in the end your RTW mandate is IMO reasonable and if I was an "IAN" I'd wonder what I would do next in life - start a company and think you can sit at home and build a company 'remotely' in a world where investors are going to want a founder to do what is needed to build that company. MOST OF ALL - who cares its not like an 'Ian' was a major contributor, after all 'what AI at Apple - lol.
What a great time for apple to turn this into a win for itself, it’s employees and the general workforce. Apple should say, “hey, losing all these good employees bcoz we can’t budge on our RTW Policy isn’t worth it, so maybe we can compromise…”
seems to me perhaps apple (and business in general) doesn’t trust their employees integrity much. Maybe it’s time to let go of that extremely outdated work ethic. I think we’re seeing the American workforce has had a taste of what a real “work/life balance,” actually looks like and they really like it. Good for company moral and good for employee production and ultimately good for the company.
Agreed, but there’s a flip side to that coin. Not being in the office anymore deteriorates company culture and a sense of belonging. It reduces connection with your coworkers to Zoom calls; no more jokes, after-hour drinks, getting inspired by sitting next to your coworker and develop together (a very effective methodology) or just brainstorm and looking your manager or coworker in the eyes.
I have benefited a lot from remote work due to Covid, but I know it also came with new problems for the company and its employees including me (a survey concluded I’m not the only one), despite the workforce preferring a remote-work-first policy.
Working online (or I should say online meetings) takes more time and delays decisions that have to made in a timely manner or at least it does where I work, productively is not better in these meetings. (a non director/manager).
The solution is simple. Offer rent-free condos and homes close to the office, owned by Apple.
Surprised they haven’t done this.
It’s one solution. Mildly dystopic though; there’s no reason to worship one’s work or have it own something as fundamental as your family’s housing. That’s a level of lock-in that makes iMessage look lackadaisical.
For people whose work strongly benefits from in-person sessions, regular office time is valuable. For myself, now, I hate soulless open plan offices, yet my company loves them. Every meeting I have is with people who are based in corporate offices in other cities, countries, and frequently different time zones. For us, prior to Covid, we were already effectively working remotely; we just also had a commute to a lousy environment to do it. Turns out that dropping the commute just meant we all got more time for sleep, hobbies, spouses, and family. The nature of the work remained unchanged.
Do corporate employees not deserve affordable housing in a place where rent is through the roof? If this was a different state it wouldn’t be a problem but in N. California it is.
Complaining about free rent and calling it “dystopian” while working for the biggest company in the world (in air conditioning) is truly a first world problem.
I would trade my life today for this “dystopia”.
And effectively, you will.
Your employer would end up controlling everything about you. Your job, your pay, your healthcare, your home.
The employer might do this if it was sending you somewhere temporarily, but this scenario, where the employer provides your home by default, contains all the elements of the very definition of unintended consequence. The company will own you, lock stock and barrel. You are one pink slip away from being homeless, and that the company owns your home is an impediment to switching jobs. And don’t get too uppity about maintenance.
I would expect, of course, that the square metres allocated would be based on one’s position in the company. Executives of course get palatial penthouses, janitors get barracks style accommodation. Everyone has to know their place.
It is also another example of how the system as currently constructed by our governments would benefit the development of mega corporations, which would be the only entities that could afford this. The relentless expansion of regulation and workplace reporting already favours them with their large corporate areas able to handle the mountains of growing paperwork. There is no way on this good earth a start up type of company could afford that kind of benefit.
Such a policy would be yet another step on the road to serfdom. I joked about Apple remaking Metropolis. I hope it bears some consistency of message with the original.
(if you want a better, more effective policy proposal, move the company to a better business environment. That is, practically anywhere but California.)
But looking at the photos it looks pretty damn spiffy.
Pods of desk clusters looks like they are never more 20 people in to pod. Lots of solid elements between those and break out spaces either side for direct collaboration. Other articles have detailed great natural air flow via facade and assuming HEPA filtering was built in to air handling and 3/5 which in reality means less than 1/2 staff on site at any time it could well be one of the best configured offices for containing assorts of issues. Noise, annoyance,..., COVID
its not like an 'Ian' was a major contributor, after all 'what AI at Apple - lol.
It doesn't seem like Apple has much software that uses AI. They have dedicated silicon for the neural engine but the main use is for things like tagging images. Some apps have started using it with CoreML like Pixelmator.
This guy is credited as being one of the inventors of adversarial networks:
Everybody is replaceable to an extent but some people are harder to replace. Jony Ive's day-to-day role for example has been replaced at Apple but it's a better outcome that they are still involved on some level.
Hybrid working is a good enough compromise for most jobs. For high-level software/research jobs, fully remote should probably be an option too. He might have been offered fully remote while his team wasn't.
The problem is, it can't be applied universally because a lot of people will do hardly any work. There are people on reddit posting that they work remote with no manager and are just watching movies all day.
Maybe Apple showing some productivity measurements to the people complaining would clear up the complaints. For some people productivity is unaffected, for others it drops significantly. Apple has 150,000 employees, over half in retail that can't be remote and similarly a significant amount in hardware. They can't build and test iPhone camera hardware, battery tech, display quality etc at home. Software and possibly marketing can be done remote and it's probably an even split between who likes office or remote. Remote work appeals more to introverts like software developers but it's actually beneficial for them to counteract that, especially for new hires.
It'll take some time to figure things out, I don't think it's good for employees or managers to make rushed decisions about the best way forward. Maybe some new tech like AR glasses can make remote work more integrated with people in the office and would work for the likes of Jony Ive being at some design meetings virtually.
Another option is to have more ad-hoc satellite offices where people can arrange regular meetups that don't need long commutes and only do long commutes to HQ less frequently.
There seems to be a generational element to this too, this guy is 35-36 years old. A few comments online talk about 'back to the office' being a boomer preference. Millennial and lower are the screen generation who grew up with a screen everywhere and interact more with a screen than with people. Tim Cook has mentioned that he is quite introverted too but likes interacting with people. They can see how damaging screen life is and are trying to get people out of the habit. This is why they don't like VR as it closes people off from others.
If the commute is part of the problem, the suggestion about trying to house people nearby would help but it's not really feasible to house 50,000 people. There can be overnight cabins though. For people without families, that would be ok and they could probably fit a few hundred at Apple Park. Some could live there permanently and save $40k/year on rent.
The best way forward can't be a one-size-fits-all as people have different circumstances and preferences so they need to talk about what's going to work. One part of what makes working from home good is that it's usually the most comfortable space for people - personal bathroom, easy access to all the food they like, soft furnishings, peace and quiet. Offices can be improved by making them feel more like working from home, offices are still designed like sterile, easy to clean showrooms and they are pretty depressing places to be for 8 hours or more every day.
Several managers where I work say they are having trouble filling positions because as soon as the candidates hear it isn’t a completely remote work job they bail on the interview. Those who think that they can fight this are in for a rude awakening in the next few years. As someone said above, workers have had a taste of work-life balance and they aren’t going back to the old grind if they can help it.
Comments
To leave a company because you do not want to go to a luxurious private office with free parking for 1 day a week is illogical.
Oh well, such is life.
Good fucking riddance. This speaks to his lack of character, and lack of willingness to make even the tiniest sacrifice to retain a position he should feel incredibly lucky and humbled to have. Sounds like an entitled asshole.
Personally, I'm trying to get back to 3 days a week in the office but I'm not quite there yet -- I'm at about 2 on average. It's going to be really interesting to see where this all lands.
Complaining about free rent and calling it “dystopian” while working for the biggest company in the world (in air conditioning) is truly a first world problem.
I would trade my life today for this “dystopia”.
Apple has many on going projects that depend on being and staying a secret until they are ready for release, that person should just go back to Google or someplace else where they don’t care.
The element of surprise for Apple is a necessary part of the way they do things, get out if you can’t keep a secret.
Working online (or I should say online meetings) takes more time and delays decisions that have to made in a timely manner or at least it does where I work, productively is not better in these meetings. (a non director/manager).
I would expect, of course, that the square metres allocated would be based on one’s position in the company. Executives of course get palatial penthouses, janitors get barracks style accommodation. Everyone has to know their place.
It is also another example of how the system as currently constructed by our governments would benefit the development of mega corporations, which would be the only entities that could afford this. The relentless expansion of regulation and workplace reporting already favours them with their large corporate areas able to handle the mountains of growing paperwork. There is no way on this good earth a start up type of company could afford that kind of benefit.
(if you want a better, more effective policy proposal, move the company to a better business environment. That is, practically anywhere but California.)
I love Cook but he has been way too lenient on these people
https://www.dezeen.com/2017/08/10/apple-park-campus-employees-rebel-over-open-plan-offices-architecture-news/
But looking at the photos it looks pretty damn spiffy.
Pods of desk clusters looks like they are never more 20 people in to pod. Lots of solid elements between those and break out spaces either side for direct collaboration. Other articles have detailed great natural air flow via facade and assuming HEPA filtering was built in to air handling and 3/5 which in reality means less than 1/2 staff on site at any time it could well be one of the best configured offices for containing assorts of issues.
Noise, annoyance,..., COVID
This guy is credited as being one of the inventors of adversarial networks:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Goodfellow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_adversarial_network
Everybody is replaceable to an extent but some people are harder to replace. Jony Ive's day-to-day role for example has been replaced at Apple but it's a better outcome that they are still involved on some level.
Hybrid working is a good enough compromise for most jobs. For high-level software/research jobs, fully remote should probably be an option too. He might have been offered fully remote while his team wasn't.
The problem is, it can't be applied universally because a lot of people will do hardly any work. There are people on reddit posting that they work remote with no manager and are just watching movies all day.
Maybe Apple showing some productivity measurements to the people complaining would clear up the complaints. For some people productivity is unaffected, for others it drops significantly. Apple has 150,000 employees, over half in retail that can't be remote and similarly a significant amount in hardware. They can't build and test iPhone camera hardware, battery tech, display quality etc at home. Software and possibly marketing can be done remote and it's probably an even split between who likes office or remote. Remote work appeals more to introverts like software developers but it's actually beneficial for them to counteract that, especially for new hires.
It'll take some time to figure things out, I don't think it's good for employees or managers to make rushed decisions about the best way forward. Maybe some new tech like AR glasses can make remote work more integrated with people in the office and would work for the likes of Jony Ive being at some design meetings virtually.
Another option is to have more ad-hoc satellite offices where people can arrange regular meetups that don't need long commutes and only do long commutes to HQ less frequently.
There seems to be a generational element to this too, this guy is 35-36 years old. A few comments online talk about 'back to the office' being a boomer preference. Millennial and lower are the screen generation who grew up with a screen everywhere and interact more with a screen than with people. Tim Cook has mentioned that he is quite introverted too but likes interacting with people. They can see how damaging screen life is and are trying to get people out of the habit. This is why they don't like VR as it closes people off from others.
If the commute is part of the problem, the suggestion about trying to house people nearby would help but it's not really feasible to house 50,000 people. There can be overnight cabins though. For people without families, that would be ok and they could probably fit a few hundred at Apple Park. Some could live there permanently and save $40k/year on rent.
The best way forward can't be a one-size-fits-all as people have different circumstances and preferences so they need to talk about what's going to work. One part of what makes working from home good is that it's usually the most comfortable space for people - personal bathroom, easy access to all the food they like, soft furnishings, peace and quiet. Offices can be improved by making them feel more like working from home, offices are still designed like sterile, easy to clean showrooms and they are pretty depressing places to be for 8 hours or more every day.