[ping_pong]

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.

[Ologn]

> 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.