Insider: Life at Apple tough, but rewarding

Working for Steve Jobs is commonly perceived as being hard work, but an insider says that "if you can do it, you get to do really great stuff, and that's addictive." The Guardian reveals that Chuq von Rospach – formerly responsible for a large portion of Apple's mailing lists – alludes that working for Apple, and being privileged enough to work alongside Steve Jobs, is a great place to be for most. He supports this, noting that Apple executives are not likely to be "poached" by startups, unlike competitors Google and Yahoo.

Rospach says that, while many of the company's departments are collecting accolades for their efforts – iTunes being the largest music retailer in the US – achieving that goal is not an easy task. He explains that the great success is only reached through a long, difficult road, working for individuals like Eddy Cue (responsible for the majority of Apple's back-end infrastructures for the iTunes store, and so on), who share Steve's fanaticism for excellence. Cue is now in charge of remedying the problematic MobileMe situation.

When restructuring its various online services, Rospach narrowly avoided working with Cue through management's recollection of his "vow to die before working with him," forming the move around the above limitation. Rospach admits he now has greater respect for Cue, although it is only since meeting him at an equal level that he feels this way.

Filed under: industry, Apple
Other story tags: MobileMe