Apple's pirate culture-a new book

On the first day I went to work at Apple, the sun was shining. I got on the bus and took out my own report book. I was shocked. The place where I went to work was actually a commercial bank. I was a little confused at the time. Why didn't I go to work at Apple's headquarters? Did apple move to the bank?

When I came to the bank, I carefully asked the security guard there, "Does Apple go in from here ?" The security guard refers to the backdoor.

It seems no error! Turning to the Bank's backdoor, I found that it was really a strange thing. On the second floor, some young people were playing with computers in a small door. It turned out that we were working in a secret building behind the bank. Apple's product R & D is mostly carried out in secret, and it is hoped that all people will be "surprised" and "amazing" when listed, so the office location is very secret.

"This may be a reflection of Apple's pirate spirit ." I think. I have heard of Apple's so-called "pirate" spirit. In Apple, the company's creed is: do not care what others say, a person can change the world.

At the early stage of the company, Steve Jobs hung a huge pirate flag on the roof and declared to the world that I was just different. Steve Jobs also put a Bosendorfer piano and a $10 thousand pair of speakers in his pirate house. Sometimes, he can play an impassioned piano piece for his staff, and the whole hall is filled with passion. Next to the piano, Steve Jobs put a BMW motorcycle. As soon as he got into the door, he saw silver shining there, "alternative" and "overbearing ".

I am a young man in my speech recognition project team. I was 28 years old and some people are even younger than me. They are elites in the national software industry. They love and inherit Apple's pirate culture. They are cool and cute people who are immersed in Apple's loose culture. They often bring pets to the office. You writeProgramI don't know who the puppy will come together to sniff your feet. once, a rabbit raised by a colleague even jumped to my keyboard. At that time, all kinds of pet food were piled up in the office, and anyone who had time could feed their pets.

In the Mac III product group, I found that I met some real cool people, such as Philip Miller, who later became one of the authors of the famous software Lotus 1-2-3; phil Goldman, who later founded Web TV (the company sold it to Microsoft for $1997 in 42.5 billion); Andy Rubin ), he was later in charge of Google's mobile Android program.

After too long research at school, I felt at a loss about how to make real products. They gave me enthusiastic help, it frees me from the old saying in the academic world. It is a truly harmonious small circle.

We were the most advanced scientist at the time. Our ultimate goal was to make computers truly human secretaries, so that Mac could understand human languages and execute human commands, we hope to make the user interface 3D and dream of 3D implementation of online video conferencing.

That was almost the happiest time I spent on Apple: From July 1990 to February 1991, there was no one in Apple managing us, and our passion and imagination were all at our best, we don't want to go home next time, but are immersed in our own research and hope to make breakthroughs in their respective fields as soon as possible. During this period, the Mac speech recognition speed increased by 40 times and achieved a good recognition rate.

After several months of hard work, the Mac III project has made many breakthroughs: video conferencing, speech recognition and speech synthesis, cameras, 3D user interfaces, and fever-level audio effects. This product will use Motorola's latest processor 88110, and the kernel chose my alma mater Carnegie Mellon's open-source Mach operating system. At that time, we knew nothing about Apple's crisis. We thought Apple would always be the best, and thought Apple would always be the "Apple Park ".