Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired--and Secretive--Company Really Works (24 page)

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Authors: Adam Lashinsky

Tags: #Management, #Leadership, #Economics, #Business & Economics, #General

BOOK: Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired--and Secretive--Company Really Works
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AUTHOR’S NOTE

Because Apple operates differently from every other company, revealing its secrets is a tricky affair. Secrecy is a central facet of life there. Apple declined to make any of its executives or other employees available for interviews. Many former employees at Apple, from all levels of the company, as well as various people who work with Apple, did agree to speak to me for this book. None, as far as I know, received permission from the company to do so. Many spoke on the record, and their names appear here. Others agreed to help me but chose to remain unnamed. The overwhelming majority of the ex–Apple employees I interviewed professed affection for the company and a desire to see it portrayed well, knowing full well that Apple prefers that it not be portrayed at all. In an industry where everyone holds out hope
of someday working with or for Apple, retribution is a legitimate concern. Strangely, at least for someone who is not as steeped in Apple-ania
as I am, some ex-employees as well as current and former partners were as reluctant to be quoted speaking positively about Apple as they were to be identified criticizing Apple.

Wherever possible, I have attempted to attribute quotations or to otherwise describe in some way the characteristics or bona fides of everyone I quote. In the instances where I have quoted Steve Jobs and Tim Cook directly, without further explanation, I have first-or secondhand knowledge of their comments. Though I communicated with both Jobs and Cook during the reporting for this book, neither granted me a formal interview, either for the book or for the original article that appeared in
Fortune
.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adam Lashinsky covers Silicon Valley and Wall Street for
Fortune
magazine, where he has been on staff since 2001. vm timmm">

In addition to working as
Fortune
’s senior editor at large, he is a weekly panelist on the Fox News Channel’s
Cavuto on Business
program on Saturday mornings. He also co-chairs
Fortune
’s annual technology conference, Fortune Brainstorm Tech, and is a seasoned speaker and panel moderator.

Prior to joining
Fortune
, Lashinsky was a columnist for the
San Jose Mercury News
and
TheStreet.com
. A native of Chicago, Lashinsky earned a degree in history and political science from the University of Illinois in 1989. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and daughter.

Inside Apple: How America’s Most Admired—and Secretive—Company
Really
Works
is his first book.

You can follow Lashinsky on Twitter at @adamlashinsky.

BUSINESS
PLUS

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Our philosophy is that business is truly global in every way, and that today’s busi
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at:

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Contents

Front Cover Image

Welcome

Dedication

Chart: Apple’s Core

1.   Rethink Leadership
2.   Embrace Secrecy
3.   Focus Obsessively
4.   Stayvm tim60; F Start-Up Hungry
5.   Hire Di
sciples
6.   Own Your Message
7.   Overwhelm Friends/Dominate Foes
8.  
Plan for After Your Successor
9.   Inspire Imitators

10.   One More Thing

Acknowledgments

Author’s Note

About the Author

Copyright

Copyright

Copyright © 2012 by Adam Lashinsky

All rights reserved. In accordance with the US Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

Business Plus

Hachette Book Group

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New York, NY 10017

www.hachettebookgroup.com

www.twitter.com/grandcentralpub

First e-book e
dition: January 2012

Business Plus is an imprint of Grand Central Publishing.

The Business Plus name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to
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ISBN 978-1-455-51217-1

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