
An Oral History of Apple's Infinite Loop - rosser
https://www.wired.com/story/apple-infinite-loop-oral-history/
======
msarnoff
I was an Apple engineer from 2007-2011. Worked in IL2 and IL3, as well as
across the street in De Anza 7. When I started, all the signage in the
Infinite Loop buildings used design cues from classic Mac OS styling--the
Chicago and Apple Garamond fonts, pixelated icons and bitmap dingbats from the
Cairo font. Awesome geeky old Mac stuff.

After the iPhone took off they started removing all of these signs and
replacing them with ones that were more "on brand." The building number signs,
with their Apple colors and pixelated Chicago characters, were replaced by
gray Myriad on solid white.

Everyone in my building either had their own office or shared it with one
other coworker. I was a relatively junior engineer, a couple years out of
college, with a window office to myself. Haven't had that since.

In early October 2011 I was looking for another job. I was actually at another
company's office for an onsite interview when the interviewer told me of
Steve's passing. Must have been awkward for him to deliver that news, but I
did accept the job in the end. :)

Sadly, I joined the company too late to see the famous "Icon Garden." I think
it was taken down in the late 90s/early 2000s.

------
dblohm7
> Everybody wanted to move in. It was a gigantic shift in the way we worked,
> because we went from being in cubes to, all of a sudden, literally every
> person had an office.

And now they've regressed.

~~~
trhway
Beside cost saving, I wonder whether it is generational with Millenials having
been closely watched over by the hovering parents, etc. all their live.

To the comment below: Not all Millenials may be explicitly asking for it, yet
they definitely have lesser allergy/resistance to it which makes the cost
saving measure of the "cool offices" more feasible. Other people have also at
different times/comments (for example
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18009641](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18009641))
noticed that the open office is frequently used as an "ageism" filter.

~~~
codemac
Are the millenials actually asking for open offices? I think you're projecting
a lot, and making pretty unfounded statements.

I don't know a single person IRL who prefers them that works as a software
engineer.

Finally - I've never been hired somewhere that actually let me decide on my
office format. I've been places that asked, but none have ever actually given
me what I asked for.

~~~
giobox
I find no shortage of young engineers who’ve never experienced offices
expressing a strong preference for open plan working arrangements. Sure it’s
not all of them, but it’s a significant amount. Everywhere I’ve worked,
if/when the topic of office layout redesign or move has arisen, the young
folks desires for “bull pens” or big shared desks or similar has always won
out.

I think popular culture has almost made the open plan office aspirational for
some too, which is kind of hilarious.

------
gdubs
I don't know if it's still there, but when I visited Infinite Loop 4 back in
2012, printed on the wall was one of my favorite Jobs' quotes:

"If you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do
something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s
next."

~~~
microtherion
I think you mean Infinite Loop 4 (the building with Town Hall & the
Cafeteria). Last I saw it was still there.

~~~
gdubs
Yes, you're right – thanks!

------
coldcode
I worked there for a while until a year before Steve came back. I always
dreamed of working at Apple having spent most of my career up til then
building stuff for Macs. But it was pretty depressing (they lost $1B while I
was there) and I didn't want to be there when they died. But I liked working
in IL, the cafeteria was great, so many cool people to work with. But it was
obvious none of the execs had any idea how to fix all the issues. I wondered
who would own IL afterwards. Of course I was an idiot for leaving, but telling
the future was not my strong suit.

~~~
pertymcpert
I think most companies in Apple's position would have folded, or hobbled on
for a few years while they sell off more and more of their business. You did a
reasonable thing.

------
amdelamar
> You see more young people than we ever had. You walk around and you’re
> hearing probably every foreign language being spoken around this campus.

That's been my first impression as well. Now that I work there.

------
dmead
is it true the sushi guy was interviewed by jobs?

~~~
pducks32
He was basically forced out of retirement for Jobs. Jobs loved his sushi

~~~
tzakrajs
When did he stop being a fruitarian? Is that a myth about Jobs that he was a
vegan who only ate fruit?

