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| Apple in China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company |
#蘋果在中國：美國科技巨頭如何造就中國製造霸權 (Apple in China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company)
#從「曼報」知道這本書 - 從Podcast的Angela簡述幾句本書的內容後，我就找了這本書的英文版來看，以下是我挑了自己覺得有趣的段落，作了書摘及心得分享
Apple is a famously secretive company—more so than the US military, according to some sources with experience at both. To the more than 200 people I interviewed…
More than 90 percent of my sources worked at Apple, from the earliest hires through today. Very few of them spent fewer than three years at Apple; many logged more than ten, fifteen, twenty, and even twenty-five years there. Often they served in senior roles, but as much as possible the anecdotes, experiences, and perspectives making up this narrative stem from sources on the ground and in the weeds
心得：雖然大家一直笑蘋果發佈會沒有秘密，但本書曾在美國軍方及蘋果上班的受訪者表示蘋果保密的程度比美國軍方還高… (第二段了則再次證明本書受訪者的質量及作者的嚴謹)
And the Mac got its first “killer app” in the form of PageMaker, which provided a simple user interface for designing layouts. ……For years, anyone involved in the business of printing books and magazines wanted to own a Mac. And soon so did anyone else seeking to print brochures and newsletters. “So solid was this business that during the dark months of mid-1985 one could have made a strong case for Apple being not a computer, but a printer company,”...
心得：上過班的人應該都知道視覺設計師對Mac的喜愛是遠遠大於PC，只是我沒想到這個歷史能從這麼久之前開始…
Frustrated by Apple’s in-house manufacturing deficiencies, Gassée advocated for the Portable’s laptop successor, the PowerBook, to be outsourced to contract manufacturers in Japan. …Sony crammed the innards of a $4,500 Mac desktop into the form factor of a five-pound laptop. The whole project went from drawing board to production in just thirteen months, wowing Apple. It was priced at $2,300.
Joe O’Sullivan from operations moved to Tokyo in 1993 to head up supplier quality—meaning he was to oversee production and ensure it was up to snuff. “I was in Japan about five minutes, and it was like, ‘Apple can teach the Japanese nothing,’ ” he says.
心得：在台灣人熟悉的台灣、中國蘋果代工史之前，蘋果的首選是日本，然後是韓國。本段簡述了早期日本強大的工程能力 - 蘋果的工程師根本無能為力。
Guerrino De Luca, senior vice president of marketing, remembers Ive in these days as “the most frustrated person I’d ever met.” De Luca says Ive had prototyped a variety of elegant products whose simplicity masked the enormous complexity that went into their design, but engineers would only scoff, “We can’t put the electronics into this!”
Jony Ive realized he’d pushed engineering too far. He oversaw changes that made the iMac easier to manufacture and offered more room inside for the logic board. The horizontal pinstripes that were so difficult to make became vertical instead, aligning with the movement of the plastic injection tools. The transparent blue plastic case was redesigned to give only a foggy view into the interior. Tweaks allowed for screws, bolts, and mounts to be carefully hidden below the surface so the recessed handle was structurally robust.
心得：這兩段描述了大家熟悉的知名設計師Jony Ive早年在蘋果遠超工程團隊所面對的挫折及妥協（但隨著蘋果的對設計端及製造端的了解，這些妥協後來都被實在的克服了！）
By the time Steve Jobs was ready to unveil the iMac to the world, the factory in Gumi was not at all production-ready. So the first models Jobs had shown on stage were handcrafted by Apple’s ID team in Korea. “There was only two or three of them,” says Jon Rubinstein, the head of hardware whom ID reported into at the time. “One of the guys sat in the bathtub and hand-did the surface because it’s a disgusting mess—you just get plastic everywhere.”
心得：這一段簡述了蘋果初期與韓國代工場的痛苦。
Employees were given a Little Red Book featuring the sayings of Terry Gou, some of which were also plastered on the otherwise bare walls. The aphorisms ranged from inspirational to threatening. “Work hard on the job today or work hard to find a job tomorrow,” said one. “Value efficiency every minute, every second,” said another. “Achieve goals or the sun will no longer rise,” said a third.
心得：這一段摘要了郭董富士康廠的小紅書 - 很好笑也很心酸，滿想知道中文原文是什麼…。
One executive says Steve Jobs was difficult because his emotions could abruptly go from zero to a hundred. “Tim,” this person adds, “goes from thirty-five to thirty-six.” And yet somehow that would be more disconcerting, because it was so unusual. A former vice president at Apple says the way you knew Tim Cook was upset was when he would say, “I just don’t understand.”
心得：大家都知道Steve Jobs的難相楚，但看起來溫和儒雅的Tim Cook也是狠角色 - 沒有想到「I just don’t understand」的殺傷力可以這麼強…。
Cook was fond of teaching colleagues to “be aggressive and unreasonable” when negotiating with suppliers. Max Paley, a vice president of graphics at the time, recalls not really knowing what this meant. Cook would say in a calm, deliberative cadence: “Don’t… ever… be… afraid… to… be… unreasonable.” What did that mean? Was Cook saying to be a jerk? Paley wasn’t sure, but he later grew to understand and respect it. “What he was really saying was that it’s a typical thing for people—even in business negotiations with a supplier—to try to figure out: What’s a reasonable thing to ask them? What are they likely to be able to do?” Paley says. “Whereas he was kinda saying, ‘You have no clue! You have no idea what the supplier might actually be capable of. So don’t be afraid to ask for the moon. Ask for everything you want. Ask for everything you need. If they can’t do it, they’ll say no.’ ”
心得：非常喜歡這一段 - Cook教你如何合理的不講道理去作合理的談判。
If something was too easy, ID would push the envelope even further. In the making of the Mac Mini desktop around 2004, one engineer recalls Ive asking if he could make the computer such and such a size. The engineer said he could. Ive narrowed the dimensions and asked if he could build that. The engineer said he could. So Ive minimized the dimensions again. This time the engineer said, “No, no, that would be really difficult.” And Ive said, “Great, those are the dimensions.”
心得：還記得前面提到的Jony Ive嗎？別以為他也是個溫和儒雅的英國紳士。
When the iTunes Store for Windows emerged in late 2003, the third-generation iPod became a sensational hit. Record executives found they didn’t have any leverage to oppose the expansion. Joe O’Sullivan, in Operations, calls the iTunes-for-PC move “the single biggest strategic decision that has enabled the company to be what it is today.”
心得：可惜20年後 - Windows版的iTunes還是很難用，而且越來越難用。
Years before Uber would become the largest taxi provider without owning a single vehicle or Airbnb would grow into the largest accommodation provider without owning any real estate, Apple was discovering how to be the world’s largest manufacturer without owning any factories.
心得：很少想過的類比 - Uber = Airbnb = Apple (Factory)
Ford was promoted to store leader in Salt Lake City, where the culture was broken. He began by interviewing all the employees, then informing them that he was setting a new direction that would accept nothing but excellence. “About 70 percent quit within a week, and I was hated by everybody,” Ford says. But a month later, employees were reporting that they liked the job a lot more. “Yeah,” he told them, “because all the people who don’t care aren’t here anymore.”
心得：所以是不是你討厭的同事都被開除後，你就會喜歡你的職場？當然，前提是你也喜歡你的老板。
Ford sought guidance from Ian Duffy, head of Asia for IKEA. In China, Duffy had made the decision to brand the Swedish furniture retailer 宜家, which means “suitable home.” Duffy told Ford this was his “biggest mistake,” as it had deprived the company of its strong global image. Ford followed his advice. So amid the Chinese legalese on the store license, English characters were used to spell out Apple. And as Ford built a local team, he taught all the Mandarin-speaking employees to use the English words Apple, iMac, and iPod. In turn, they influenced Apple’s marketing group and the wider masses. The decision didn’t feel major at the time, but, nearly two decades later, the weight of it pleases Ford. “It’s nice to have influence over the way a billion people think,” he says.
心得：我是覺得…IKEA叫宜家也不錯呀…還是你都唸IKEA？我都唸IKEA的。
The first three iPhones had been copied mercilessly, all running Android and usually selling for lower prices…… So the response by Cupertino was: “Let’s make the next iPhone so damn difficult to copy that they’ll go nuts or broke trying to copy it,” says a manufacturing design engineer.
心得：蘋果初期對於模仿廠商的想法 - 一直提昇產品的規格及品質，讓追隨著發瘋或破產… 可惜，中國廠商還是太強大…
He started seeking answers, wondering what sort of deal might be possible so the scalpers would stop clogging the lines and allow ordinary consumers to experience the Apple Store and buy a product themselves.
The yellow cows’ responses astonished him. “You could never run me out of cash,” one told him. Ford wasn’t convinced, but the reseller took him on a short walk, down a few blocks and around a corner, then past some informal security types. They entered a room, roughly 2,000 square feet in size, lacking furniture or anything else, save for one thing: renminbi.
心得：這一段談到iPhone初期在中國上市時，黃牛的張狂程度 - 當蘋果想讓更多人得到iPhone手機時，黃牛明白的告訴蘋果的店長 - 我有錢，我很有錢，你用不光我的錢…
So Apple learned to find a sweet spot: to be the most important client for its suppliers, so it had leverage, but not so much that the supplier was overly reliant. ……Apple encouraged its China-based suppliers to feed the Android market.
心得：在手機發展的成熟期時，蘋果管控供應商的新手法 - 要讓供應商很強，可以服務蘋果的對手 - 但又不能不需要蘋果…。
…… Cook’s email to the board was a model of transparency relative to what he and Maestri would tell analysts on the earnings call just a few hours later. They informed Wall Street that Apple was expecting $89 billion to $93 billion of revenue in the holiday quarter, underwhelming investors. But they didn’t say a word about the muted sales of the XR, or the difficulties of forecasting, or that Cupertino now expected China revenues to shrink. Instead, they soothed investors with cheery sentiment. The obfuscation was brazen. Asked specifically about the XR, Cook replied that it’d been on sale for just five days so “we have very, very little data there.” Asked about “deceleration” in emerging markets including China, Cook said it was a “great question” and mentioned “we’re seeing pressure in… markets like Turkey, India, Brazil, Russia.” Then he switched to China, subtly moving from present tense—the nature of the question—and looked back a quarter: “In relation to China specifically, I would not put China in that category. Our business in China was very strong last quarter. We grew 16 percent, which we’re very happy with. iPhone in particular was very strong, very strong double-digit growth there.”
心得：這一段教科書等級的財報發表，讓我想到很多公司的高層因為不會「講話」，明明財報數字不是太差，但總是能把股價搞成爛泥…。
本書中後段其實花了很多篇幅說明了蘋果是如何的依賴中國的製造能力，中國工廠的就業環境有多麼的差等等（甚至連蘋果內部的勞安調查單位都為了營業單位要追求利潤而被邊緣化。）我本來更期待是一些蘋果為了在中國發展與政府單位的幕後交易，但想來是蘋果的保密能力太強了（也呼應了前面的摘要 - 保密能力比美軍還強。）所以沒有提到太多的新東西（不過，有的話，也早就都上新聞了吧。）總之，亞馬遜四點五星的評價，本書值得一閱👀
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