AppleInsider Staff
A new look at the corporate culture of Apple before and after the death of Steve Jobs reveals that Senior Vice President Bob Mansfield went back on his decision to retire after being offered a large sum of cash and stock by Chief Executive Tim Cook.
Details on the behind-the-scenes politics were published on Wednesday in a feature by Bloomberg Businessweek. It revealed that Cook "nearly witnessed an insurrection" after Mansfield's retirement and replacement were announced.
"According to three people familiar with the sequence of events, several senior engineers on Mansfield's team vociferously complained to Cook about reporting to his replacement, Dan Riccio, who they felt was unprepared for the magnitude of the role," authors Brad Stone, Adam Satariano and Peter Burrows wrote. "In response, Cook approached Mansfield and offered him an exorbitant package of cash and stock worth around $2 million a month to stay on at Apple as an adviser and help manage the hardware engineering team."
Publicly, Apple announced in June that Mansfield, the company's head of hardware engineering, would retire after a 13-year stint with the company. But in August, the company announced that Mansfield would instead stay with Apple to work on "future products," and would report directly to Cook.
Wednesday's report characterizes the "public reversal" in retaining Mansfield as part of the new Apple being formed after the death of co-founder Steve Jobs. Employees who spoke with Bloomberg indicated that Apple has more office politics than before Jobs, and there is a lingering concern that the corporate culture could be diluted, but they also say that under Cook, employees are happier with fewer "frantic calls at midnight" or pressure on engineers to cancel vacations.
"No one would say Apple is better off without Steve Jobs," the report said. "But to a surprising degree, it's doing fine."
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60 Comments
Might also explain the travesty of iMac, Mac Mini, and Mac Pro releases.
Just leave well enough alone, Cook. Let the people who've done so well for Apple pick their own replacements.
Might also explain the travesty of iMac, Mac Mini, and Mac Pro releases.
Just leave well enough alone, Cook. Let the people who've done so well for Apple pick their own replacements.
Not quite sure what you mean by "travesty",
but the style of management you describe is usually characterized, when it doesn't work, as "rudderless".
I think you'd have to say that the Apple culture is embedded in Mr. Cook, and vice versa, and I, for one,
am comfortable with him shaping his team as he sees fit.
This doesn't appear to have been a mistake, in any case.
This is just tempest-in-a-teapot nonsense. $24M for a senior exec in $600B+ company is peanuts if that person is adding value in spades.
As to there being politics and confusion in an organization this size, especially after the death of an iconic, once-in-a-generation, visionary, founder-CEO... well, you could knock me over with a feather.
Might also explain the travesty of iMac, Mac Mini, and Mac Pro releases.
Just leave well enough alone, Cook. Let the people who've done so well for Apple pick their own replacements.
Wait, what? How is anything you wore related to the info in the article? Is the guy that everyone wanted to stay on too nice to drive his subordinates hard enough to develop product updates that you like? or is Tim Cook's original choice for Bob's replacement somehow retroactively responsible for the past 13 years of hardware development? Or are you being sarcastic when you use the word "travesty" - I ask because while the all good products in my opinion, there are those who decry the lack of significant updates to the Mac Pro specifically.
And I am not sure I have ever read anywhere that any group at Apple has ever been in a position to choose who their team leader will be or who they will report to. Not saying that isn't the case, but asking where in this article or Apple's history do you get the info to suggest that Cook, "Just leave well enough alone"?
So unless you have info that the rest of us do not or are deliberately trying to be abstruse, sardonic or sarcastic, none of which would really surprise me based on your past posts, I just don't see what you are actually trying to convey with your post.
he's an exec. without a home. Poor guy. He's the only SVP without a suffix if you look at the "Leadership" board.
http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/