Working at Apple isn’t a cake walk. Any former or current employee will tell you that point blank.
On a recent episode of the Debug podcast, ex-Apple managers Don Melton and Nitin Ganatra discuss the ridiculous hours senior-level employees are required to keep. Emails from executives in the middle of the night are commonplace, even on the weekends.
Ole Begemann transcribed part of the conversation between Melton, former director of internet technologies, and Ganatra, former director of iOS Apps. A lot of the back and forth echoes a blog post by Melton from last year in which he explains why he retired.
Don Melton: I wrote that blog post a couple of years ago after I retired about how Sunday is a work night for everybody at Apple.
Nitin Ganatra: Right.
Melton: Because it’s the exec meeting the next day. So you had your phone out there, you were sitting in front of your computer, it didn’t matter if your favorite show was on.
This was especially worse after The Sopranos ended because for a while there, you could count on the hour that The Sopranos was on that Scott [Forstall] wouldn’t bug you ’cause he was watching The Sopranos. And that was your reprieve. You could go to the bathroom, you could have a conversation with your family, you know, whatever. But after that—
And Scott was a late-night kind of guy. He was not a morning guy at all. You were basically on until, like, 2 o’clock in the morning. How many times do you feel you got emails from him at 1:30 or 2:00?
And later:
Melton: And by the way, when you hear the so-called apocryphal stories about Tim Cook coming to work in the wee hours and staying late, it’s not just some PR person telling you stories to make you think that Apple executives work really hard like that. They really do that. I mean, these people are nuts. They’re just, they are there all the time. I know that for Bertrand, certainly when he was there, you would never know what time of the day or night you would get email from that man.
Ganatra: I mean, he didn’t really make it a secret, either, that I don’t think he slept more than three or four hours a night, right?
Melton: No. And neither did Steve.
The two continue to discuss a “firehose of emails that are just going out at 2:45 in the morning” and “if you forwarded something to one of your people at 1 o’clock in the morning and they didn’t reply promptly, you got a little annoyed at them.”
They’re careful to not call Apple executives overly demanding, but the takeaway was that the top brass is definitely… intense.
Melton would say the following to wannabe managers:
When someone came into my office and said they wanna be a manager, I asked them, “How did you sleep last night?” And they said, “Oh, fairly well”. and I said, “Good, ’cause that’s the last good night’s sleep you’re gonna get.”
Alex Heath is a journalist who works for Tech Insider. He’s the former co-host of The CultCast. He has been quoted by the likes of the BBC, KRON 4 News, and books like “ICONIC: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation.” He lives in Lexington, Kentucky. If you want to pitch a story, share a tip, or just get in touch, additional contact information is available on his personal site. Follow him on Twitter.
16 responses to “Ex-Apple managers reveal Cupertino’s killer workload”
Anyone who has been employed in a critical care department who is on call 24/7 can identify with that work ethic. But they usually don’t get paid nearly as much.
I am a COO for a small online company, grow up… you want to be successful suck it up and answer your god damn emails…
If I want to be successful, I would first learn how to spell successful
Spelling is not required to be successful. But, it was funny.
Do you know what a typo is? Especially on an iPhone … Or are you intentionally being a prick?
Do you know what a troll is? Especially on the internet … Or are you intentionally being overly sensitive?
Nice one Scott. Great leadership skills there from a COO!!! How else do you motivate your troops – beat them physically?
Ooh you really rate yourself highly don’t you?
It’s ok, he’s just intentionally being a prick…
To be fair to you Scott, you are the type of leader I’d shoot given the first operational tour I was on with you if we were in the military. THE WORLD DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND YOU. Get a life .
For what they all make in stock options, they should sleep at Apple HQ.
You would think for a group that uses email so heavily and depend on it so much they would have written a better email app. Also, notice how everyone in the picture wearing black is now gone from Apple?
Working extremely long hours is generally required of any corporate executives, Apple or otherwise.
Whatever happened to that little word called life? I’d rather work to live, not live to work cause in the end all the money you’ve made winds up in someone else’s hands anyway. This society has become so wrought with greed and materialism that its no wonder the entire world is going to hell in a hand basket. Thanks Steve Jobs — your contribution to the world has surely made a huge difference. History will truly dictate whether it was for good . . . or bad.
working at night, spending extra hours, is bull shit. no matter how much you think your getting from it, the corporate heads are just using you, in the end when it comes to down sizing and cost cutting, your gone even if you did respond to those 12am emails, so the dick 1% executive over you can get his raise. I’ve kicked ass for big corporations and their scumbag 1% lackey depatment executives. Nothing these losers who have ‘no lives and its why the email or text you at midnight’ have to say at midnight can’t wait till the day starts in the office. Oh and Apple sucks anyway, they are tax evading, patent trolling bullies that greatest claim to innovations is how they steal other peoples ideas then buy them out when those people sue them.
If the picture with this story is any indication, I’d think many of these execs were afraid of Steve’s 5 foot long arms.