
Inside Apple's Global War on Leakers - jbegley
https://theoutline.com/post/1766/leaked-recording-inside-apple-s-global-war-on-leakers
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bagacrap
That picture of the roll call at the Chinese factory --- do you think they
would do that on the California campuses, which the article states have been
the source of many leaks? I think not, they wouldn't stand for it. It seems
like an abuse of power over the factory workers to treat the honest ones so
distrustfully. It seems like there's an inherent flaw in your business if it's
predicated on "surprise" rather than execution. Not to say Apple doesn't
execute, but if they relied entirely on product quality over product cult this
wouldn't be an issue.

~~~
tinus_hn
> Not to say Apple doesn't execute, but if they relied entirely on product
> quality over product cult this wouldn't be an issue.

Reality check: nobody relies entirely on product quality. If people don't know
your product exists they aren't going to buy it, even if it is the best in the
world. Every company needs to let people know about their products, either by
advertising, media events, expo presence, explicitly putting them in the hands
of influencers etc..

It's just that Apple tends to create things people want and knows how to
present that. So they only really have to announce a product exists and that
they think it's great and there will be a huge amount of buzz, people will buy
it and probably be happy with it.

------
ghughes
It sounds like the point of this "briefing" \- replete with polished videos
featuring a who's who of executives hammering the point home - is to threaten
corporate employees not to leak. Apple isn't hosting these meetings to satisfy
anyone's curiosity; it's to make an implicit threat that if you leak, you'll
eventually be caught by talented people whose full-time job is to catch you
using the experience they gained at various three-letter agencies.

> “But there’s a whole slew of folks that can be tempted because what happens
> if I offer you, say, three months’ salary?’ In some cases we’ve seen up to a
> year’s worth of salary being rewarded for stealing product out of the
> factory.” Apple workers on the production line make approximately $350 a
> month, not including overtime, according to a 2016 report from China Labor
> Watch.

Duh. If you give valuable intelligence to workers who are paid a pittance,
that info is inevitably going to find its way into the hands of people who are
willing to pay a pretty penny for it. Good luck to anyone who hopes to address
that without altering the economics of the situation.

~~~
Ajedi32
They _did_ address it though:

> “In 2014 we had 387 enclosures stolen,” he says. “In 2015 we had 57
> enclosures stolen, 50 of which were stolen on the night of announce, which
> was so painful.” In 2016, Rice says the company produced 65 million
> housings, and only four were stolen. “So it's about a one in 16 million loss
> ratio, which is unheard of in the industry.”

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joezydeco
_“Surprise and delight. Surprise and delight when we announce a product to the
world that hasn’t leaked. It’s incredibly impactful, in a really positive way.
It’s our DNA. It’s our brand. But when leaks get out, that’s even more
impactful. It’s a direct hit to all of us.”_

"Surprise and Delight" seems more like AppleSpeak for the billions of dollars
of free publicity generated when a new product is announced with no prior
expectation. That seems to be magnitudes of order larger than, say, a
competitor learning about a new Apple cloud service or iTunes feature.

~~~
SkyMarshal
That's definitely what they mean, but nothing wrong with that. If that's their
business strategy and they've made that clear to their employees who
voluntarily joined the company anyway, and some employee undermines or ruins
it and costs the company some or all of that value, then that's a fireable
offense.

~~~
joezydeco
The point was that it seems the financial impact of a leak is not expressed
overtly to Apple employees or to the public, just that "it spoils all the hard
work and fun we're having".

Perhaps it needs to be that expressed that way to the American workers.
Putting it all in terms of the bottom line is probably a hollow message when
the market cap of your company is approaching a trillion dollars.

