Apple: A Romance
As with any whirlwind romance, though, the honeymoon couldn’t last forever. Apple may be a very special company, but it’s still just that: a company. And, like any company, at the end of day it needs to take care of business. In Apple’s case (or at least the part of Apple I worked in), that business is shipping amazing software on impossible schedules with astonishingly small teams. It’s been Apple’s business since the “90 Hours a Week and Loving It!” days of the original Mac team, and the grand tradition continues to the present day (just ask anyone on the iPhone team how much vacation they’ve had in the last year).