Adam Lashinsky's new book, "Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired — and Secretive — Company Really Works", details how Apple goes about maintaining its secrecy and it's culture. In short, working at Apple is like working at the CIA except without the fear of the death penalty!
For new recruits, keeping secrets begins even before they learn which building they'll be working in. Many employees are hired into so‑called dummy positions, roles that aren't explained in detail until after they join the company. "They wouldn't tell me what it was," remembered a former engineer who had been a graduate student before joining Apple. "I knew it was related to the iPod, but not what the job was." Others do know but won't say, a realization that hits the newbies on their first day of work at new-employee orientation.
"You sit down, and you start with the usual roundtable of who is doing what," recalled Bob Borchers, a product marketing executive in the early days of the iPhone. "And half the folks can't tell you what they're doing, because it's a secret project that they've gotten hired for."
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Apple employees and their projects are pieces of a puzzle. The snapshot of the completed puzzle is known only at the highest reaches of the organization. It calls to mind the cells a resistance organization plants behind enemy lines, whose members aren't given information that could incriminate a comrade. Jon Rubinstein, formerly Apple's senior hardware executive, once deployed the comparison in a less flattering but equally effective manner. "We have cells, like a terrorist organization," he told Business Week in 2000. "Everything is on a need‑to‑know basis."
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Apple's culture is the polar opposite of Google's, where fliers announcing extracurricular activities -- from ski outings to a high-profile author series -- hang everywhere. At Apple, the iTunes team sponsors the occasional band, and there is a company gym (which isn't free), but by and large Apple people come to work to work. "At meetings, there is no discussion about the lake house where you just spent the weekend," recalled a senior engineer. "You get right down to business." The contrast with the non-Apple world is stark. "When you interact with people at other companies, there's just a relative lack of intensity," said this engineer. "At Apple, people are so committed that they go home at night and don't leave Apple behind them. What they do at Apple is their true religion."