Adam Lashinsky is an Editor at Large for FORTUNE magazine, where he has reported on silicon valley for more than a decade. His new book, Inside Apple: How America’s Most Admired – and Secretive – Company Really Works, reveals what it is really like to work at Apple. It must have felt like a kick in the stomach for Lashinsky, when Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs was released, because the two books cover a lot of similar ground. But they approach it from different perspectives. Isaacson, necessarily, focused on the CEO and founder, Jobs. Lashinsky didn’t have the access Isaacson got and has to approach from multiple perspectives and usually lower on the totem pole. Lashinsky’s book is more for learning about what it is like for the average engineer to work at Apple.
Also, being completed, and published, after the death of Steve Jobs, the book dedicates a lot of thought to what Apple will be like after Steve Jobs, by looking at the key figures at the company (Tim Cooke, Scott Forstall, and Jonathan Ive).
The book is very interesting and hard to put down. It does suffer a little, in the reading, if the reader has already read Isaacson’s book, but the two do work well together, and I recommend reading both to gain a better understanding of Apple.
The Apple depicted in this book is unlike the picture often depicted of Silicon Valley companies like Google, where work seems like a party and employees are spoiled rotten. Apple seems to be a place that is heaven for those that want nothing more than to be completely dedicated to their work. It seems like a tough place to work, but a place where one can be part of things that make a difference.
Below is a inDay Speaker series interview of Adam Lashinsky, about the book:
