Responses to the “Leaving Apple” post

I have gotten several interesting responses regarding my previous post. Let’s start with the negative.

The story got posted to Digg, and got one comment. Here is what it said:

A frustrated and obviously bitter ex-employee decides to “justify” why he left. Somehow a I doubt a guy working in retail decided to leave due to market trends or altruistic reasons like “The focus has become the iPhone instead of the mac and that’s not good for customers”.

Really, every company has ex-employees who left the company because “they were better than the company”, but does that make it news? Someone quit their job… end of story. Happens thousands of times a day in America.

This is what I was expecting. I’m really not bitter at all. I’m happy that  the team I built and left behind is doing well. I’m glad Apple is making money. They are making great products.

I do have an altruistic view of Apple. Apple was founded at least partially on an altruistic world view. Sure, they want to make money, but the Apple I love was about making people’s lives better though this new thing called the personal computer. And without Apple, it wouldn’t have happened the way it did.

And I never said “The focus has become the iPhone instead of the mac and that’s not good for customers”. Leave it to some kid on Digg to misquote a blog post. I’m not here to justify my leaving Apple. Frankly, I doubt anyone wants to read me defending myself against what some would view as a dumb career move. I was simply explaining.

Now, to a blog post that echos mine.

My good friend Kevin Lipe wrote a piece in response to mine. Kevin was a great Genius and was let go over a procedural issue, not because of any “altruistic” issue; but he and I agree: the Apple of today and the Apple of yester-year are different. Kevin writes:

But what I think is more important, and more damning for the company, is that even with the world caving in around them, they didn’t once break the stark white shining public face of Apple, that antiseptic Berlin Wall surrounding the company, standing miles high between the company and its customers. All they had to do was start talking to people.

… and …

No genuinely brilliant, innovative thinker, no visionary, wants to go work at a company that used to fly a pirate flag, but gave up on that a long time ago in the name of being cool and controlling.

I couldn’t agree more. And to the 6 hits I got from within Apple on my last post, enjoy. You aren’t this free yet.