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by retskrad 1830 days ago
I have lived in Silicon Valley for two decades and most people I've talked to see Apple as the most prestigious place to work out of all the FAANG companies. I'm not surprised because Apple has had the fortune of having a visionary founder AND Tim Cook, who is one of the best managers in the world.
3 comments

Out of the people I know who actually work at Apple, they're either incredibly overworked and constantly teetering on the edge of burnout, or they see Apple's market position as a tool they can use to further some goals of their own. While I'm sure some people do consider working at Apple as high-prestige, that's doesn't seem to be reflected in the employees I know, at least.
I used to want to work at Apple until I got to know people who work there. Very heavy secrecy + burnout culture, plus weird things like some projects get free meals where others don't.
This mirrors my impressions from friends and family who work at Apple as well. My friends do get paid well for working there but its quite a stressful place to work.
I've lived in Silicon Valley for over 2 decades as well. Until iPhone, Apple was not prestigious at all. I still remember Brass Ring hiring conventions where the Apple hiring booth was completely empty. In fact, until recently, all I've heard is that Apple underpays engineers compared to most other companies. The fact that the stock as gone up ~300x in the last 8 years changed that equation, so everyone shuts up now, but it has historically never been prestigious. I've in fact never heard of Apple being prestigious unless you worked in design, or worked on the iPhone.
> it has historically never been prestigious

I would say the M1 is prestigious. It pushed tablets and notebooks forward.

You can also go back to 1977, the design of the Apple ][, and all the prestigious innovations (or bringing innovative ideas to the mass market) since then.

Haha... Apple to me is quite the opposite, more like a cult of personality. I really do not see Apple as visionary. I don't think they are doing anything really special or are market leaders in anyway when it comes to technology.