
AnandTech Publisher Anand Shimpi Headed to Apple - mstolpm
http://recode.net/2014/08/31/veteran-tech-journalist-anand-shimpi-headed-to-apple/
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qq66
Perhaps they're hiring him to be their "taster" \- the guy who tests a
prototype and says "it's perfect" or sends the team back to the drawing board.
Jobs was famous for this role and Anand would be great at it, having spent 15
years doing it.

~~~
Steko
I doubt they'd hire someone externally for that and I doubt Anand's taste
really aligns with what Apple is going for. I imagine he's going to be taking
over a lot of what Katie Cotton used to do.

I also imagine maybe (big maybe) he could be a presenter in keynotes, which
Katie didn't do. I think we could eventually (probably not next week) see him
doing demos similar to what Bertrand Serlet would occasionally do but more
often. Anand won't really be a hardware guy at Apple, just a bridge guy who
explains the hardware to the press.

Down the road when Anand comes on stage and tells you that the new SOC is
twice as fast as last year's, that's going to hold a lot more credibility with
the press than when Phil Schiller says the same thing.

~~~
eevilspock
Except that Apple presenters (and all execs) seem to also be chosen for their
physical charisma. Anand, at least from the articles one photo, doesn't seem
to fit Apple's bill.

~~~
qq66
No disrespect to Bob Mansfield, but I do not think that he built his career on
his good looks alone.

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JohnBooty
I'm embarrassed to admit that my heart sunk when I read this, because I
imagined thousands of dedicated dislikers-of-Apple immediately declaring,
"See! He favored Apple all along!"

It's ridiculous, of course. I always felt he and his staff were extremely
objective and by volume, the vast majority of AnandTech's coverage was non-
Apple in nature.

The whole idea of "picking sides" is so silly anyway...

~~~
mtdewcmu
I never sensed that type of bias on anandtech. The present career change does
seem a bit like selling out.

As the downvotes are starting, I feel like pointing out that I don't blame him
for accepting the offer. My point is that it's a point that can legitimately
be made, whereas claiming that he was in Apple's pocket all along seems to me
baseless.

~~~
whyenot
> The present career change does seem a bit like selling out.

Why? To quote wikipeida, "selling out is the compromising of integrity,
morality, authenticity or principles in exchange for personal gain, such as
money." That seems like an awfully strong accusation considering how little
information there is on what he will be doing and what he will be getting in
return for it.

~~~
mtdewcmu
I think it would be loss of authenticity, and I am sure Apple can afford to
pay more than could pay himself at Anandtech. At the very least, he no longer
has to worry that his paycheck might ever bounce. The concept of "selling out"
has always been a murky and subjective one, and it usually has as much to do
with the values of the observer as the actions of the subject. But in a case
where someone had been arguably on the side of the consumer for many years and
presumably turning down lucrative offers in order to tell the unbiased truth,
and then suddenly accepts one of those offers, well, it looks sort of like
selling out.

Now, I'd be a hypocrite if I tried to make that case myself, because I stopped
reading Anandtech a couple years ago, and I couldn't with a straight face
demand that Anand care more about it than I do. I stopped largely because the
news got dull and repetitive once 1) Intel decisively won the CPU war, and 2)
the GPU market became a permanent stalemate between AMD and nVidia (plus a
little bit of Intel). If Anand basically retired because there was no longer
an interesting story to tell, well, I can relate to that.

~~~
JohnBooty

      > I think it would be loss of authenticity
    

Loss of objectivity, maybe - I mean, I don't think we'll see him publicly
praising Samsung smartphones any longer! But authenticity? You think he's
going to be doing things he doesn't care about or believe in at Apple?

~~~
mtdewcmu
I think you may not be familiar with how "sellout" is commonly used. It's
commonly said, e.g., of musicians when they make a popular song, for violating
their assumed allegiance to being "true" to something other than career. It's
more about an abstract idea of what someone or something "stood for" than
about the actual person, and it takes place in the minds of observers more
than anything.

I don't think what he does in his work for Apple has anything to do with it.
If he tried to go back to the Anandtech style of journalism, I think he would
lack credibility now that he has accepted a job at Apple.

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jeswin
Just to improve my understanding of how things work, would anyone here be able
to shed light on how his compensation might be structured? I'm only looking at
examples, not in what exactly Anand makes.

~~~
kayoone
why does it matter? He will certainly be very happy with his compensation but
considering how well Anandtech is running, i am not sure money is a big
motivator for him at this point.

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passive
I'm pretty sure after the iPhone 5s announcement, when he was floored by the
64-bitness of it, I posted something along the lines of "it would be really
clever for a mobile company to hire Anand".

Maybe it was just in my head, but nonetheless I think Anand will be an awesome
addition to the Apple team. Anyone want to start a pool on when we will see
him onstage in a turtleneck? ;)

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sireat
What kind of financial/other incentive could there be for Anand be to go to
Apple?

It seems so much more limiting to be working at a company like Apple than
running your own show.

The reddit thread:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/2f1jze/anand_from_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/2f1jze/anand_from_anandtech_just_retired_the_site_will/)
refers to him buying a Ferrari at 17 in 1999(2-3 years after starting
Anandtech and at the high of the dotcom craze of late 90s).

Presumably, the site has been doing quite well since then thanks to the
excellent quality of articles like the famous SSD series.

We know Apple of Steve Jobs would not pay any super salaries at Apple.

Has that changed or maybe Anand is doing it just for the challenge?

~~~
jonknee
> What kind of financial/other incentive could there be for Anand be to go to
> Apple?

They're a $600,000,000,000+ company, there's a lot they can incentivize with.

> Presumably, the site has been doing quite well since then thanks to the
> excellent quality of articles like the famous SSD series.

Quite well is quite relative. Remember that they just paid $3b for a headphone
company. Beats was also doing "quite well" and then Apple happened.

> We know Apple of Steve Jobs would not pay any super salaries at Apple.

For people who are replaceable the salaries are not good. It's a different
story for people who are not or who represent Apple in public. For example,
Apple's executives are extraordinarily well paid. Steve Jobs richly rewarded
his friends and Tim Cook similarly doesn't have a problem handing out buckets
of cash.

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e15ctr0n
Is Apple hiring him for his experience with digital publishing or his
extensive knowledge of the hardware industry?

~~~
karl_gluck
Besides the fact that his public goodwill and expertise is valuable, Anand has
been behind the scenes at many of Apple's competitors.

His extensive knowledge of the competition's 4-year product timeline is well
worth whatever extraordinary concessions Apple must have made for him.

~~~
judk
Does he have nonpublic knowledge of those product lines?

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blutoot
I know what his title will be - Chief Benchmarking Officer - CBO...

~~~
akuma73
Except Apple really doesn't do much to call out benchmark results. Maybe that
will change going forward.

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dblohm7
Unless it favors them.

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kayoone
Read his Mac Pro review and you will understand that Anand really gets it
while others either just love or hate everything Apple does.

~~~
wycx
[http://www.anandtech.com/print/7603/mac-pro-review-
late-2013](http://www.anandtech.com/print/7603/mac-pro-review-late-2013)

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guelo
Kind of amazing that he would go to the one place where you're not allowed to
write publicly.

~~~
yuhong
Yea, I hope Apple is fixing the secrecy. I have wished for a Mac version of
oldnewthing for a while now.

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brisance
It makes sense. Anand built a site which became a brand and a community that
rallied around it. Angela Ahrendts built Burberry as we know it. Dre… beats.
Who is next, Alex Ohanian? :D

