Apple Software Chief Refused to Sign Maps Apology

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204840504578087192497916304.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

by cremnob • 14 years ago

155 100 14 years ago

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bennyg2• 14 years ago

I feel like this is the sort of situation that shouldn't even be featured in the discussion. Who else signed the press report? It's totally irrelevant.

javis• 14 years ago

According to this article, Scott refusing to sign the apology is the reason he was fired. How is that irrelevant?

bennyg2• 14 years ago

Apple Inc. executive Scott Forstall was asked to leave the company after he refused to sign his name to a letter apologizing for shortcomings in Apple's new mapping service, according to people familiar with the matter.

That's their justification. I'm still skeptical. No offense, but an apology not signed by Cook isn't an Apple apology. Tim was gonna' sign it no matter what I believe.

twoodfin• 14 years ago

I agree it would have been very strange for the letter to be signed by both Tim Cook and Scott Forstall. For one thing, it would make Cook look smaller than Jobs, who, if I recall correctly, never had a co-signer on such a letter. It wouldn't have looked much better for Cook if Forstall had signed the letter alone, given its significance to the company and its customers.

My guess is that Forstall refused to sign off on the public apology. Nobody was asking him to sign the letter, but he was asked by Cook to stand behind it. Failure to do so was probably the last straw for his remaining in an active role at Apple (a role he clearly was at least contemplating leaving after his big stock sale).

46Bit• 14 years ago

I feel it's important to emphasise this: we have nothing to suggest whether it was because the software team was forced to ship early, because Forstall didn't agree it was so far behind Maps, or other disagreements.

Don't blame Forstall for not signing the letter if you don't know the cockup was his fault.

cremnob• 14 years ago

I'm more inclined to blame Forstall, especially after reading this feature on him by Businessweek.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/scott-forstall-the-sorc...

majormajor• 14 years ago

It's been quoted to death, but I feel Jobs was right on the money when he said that at the executive level, there's no "it's not my fault."

It was at the very least his responsibility, and this story paints him as not accepting that responsibility. That doesn't look good. If the story is true, I'd consider it a big enough disagreement to remove someone over.

phaus4• 14 years ago

You can be an executive and still be in a situation where a higher ranking executive can override you even when you are the domain expert and they aren't. I don't know if that's what happened here or not, but if it did, then there is in fact such thing as "it's not my fault."

If Steve Jobs was talking about himself when he made that statement, then it's spot on. He micromanaged the shit out of that company and nearly always got his way. Fortunately, he did a hell of a job. If he screwed up though, he would have had not a single person to blame but himself, because he personally called most of the shots.

While I haven't been an executive at a billion dollar company, I have a good amount of leadership experience from my time in the military. I always try to be blatantly honest with myself and others. If I personally fuck something up, I tend to immediately own up to it and propose a solution. However, there have been a few very rare occasions where I've either had myself and my team thrown under the bus for something that was beyond our control, or failed to complete a task because it was simply impossible to achieve under the given deadline. Only a coward would let someone place undeserved blame on himself or his subordinates.

cbsmith2• 14 years ago

There is a big difference between refusing to apologize and "it's not my fault".

dasil003• 14 years ago

> Jobs was right on the money when he said that at the executive level, there's no "it's not my fault."

I see the truth in that, but you have to admit Jobs was probably the person for whom it was easiest to make this admonition.

objclxt• 14 years ago

"Don't blame Forstall for not signing the letter if you don't know the cockup was his fault"

Sometimes you have to take the fall for something that's not your fault. This is particularly true at high levels of management - or rather, it should be.

It doesn't matter whether it was his personal fault - Scott Forstall was in charge of iOS, full stop. iOS was his remit, maps included.

PeterisP3• 14 years ago

How can a cockup in his area be somehow not his responsibility? For any possible contributing cause - number and expertise people working on the product, handling of acquisitions in the sector, strategic deals with other companies and partners involved, the marketing-built expectations of consumers, the PR followup of the maps - as a senior VP, it is his direct duty to make sure that stuff there happens in a favorable way and take responsibility for whatever happened.

Even if a major reason is disagreements with CEO or board or other VP's - it is still clearly his responsibility to solve those disagreements and ensure that they don't harm results. As in the Jobs' citation, somewhere between the janitor and his position that ceases to be a valid excuse.

jpdoctor5• 14 years ago

Lopping off a senior exec over the mapping fiasco is completely warranted, but here's the next problem: The exec had several people feeding him information that the mapping app was somehow acceptable.

If Tim Cook does his job right: There will be several of those underling heads rolling, either by Tim himself or some one who takes over Forstall's area. (And which one of those two possibilities will tell us a lot about Tim Cook.)

smegel• 14 years ago

> The exec had several people feeding him information that the mapping app was somehow acceptable.

That might be an excuse Tim Cook himself can reasonably use, but not the exec directly responsible for the development of the new Maps app. He simply can't say he was getting information from a small number of direct underlings - he should have been in the trenches talking to the developers, testers and beta users and getting feedback directly.

He was putting his reputation on the line by being the original public presenter for the new Maps, and if he was prepared to stand up in front of the world and say "this is great" he should have first been prepared to dig a little deeper into the true nature of the new app.

wololo• 14 years ago

http://quora.com/Apple-Inc-2/How-well-does-Apples-Directly-R... on Directly Responsible Individuals

jpdoctor5• 14 years ago

> He simply can't say he was getting information from a small number of direct underlings - he should have been in the trenches talking to the developers, testers and beta users and getting feedback directly.

True enough, but my point is that there is a bigger problem: He ran an org in which nobody tackled him in the hallway and said "WTF This is a piece of crap! We can't release such a POS, and if you do I quit!"

An organization is not fixed by chopping only one head, there are no doubt lieutenants that need to be axed.

gchpaco• 14 years ago

I think you might have misread; what I saw was "exec responsible for Maps goes away. His underlings, who were feeding him bad data but which he was apparently unable or unwilling to replace, also go away." Whether this is the right thing or not can be debated, but arguably it's why people on that level of the enterprise get paid the big bucks.

PeterisP3• 14 years ago

If an exec has subordinates feeding him misleading information, then that is not an excuse, but an aggravating circumstance.

His primary job is not "building good Maps", it is "building an organization that delivers good Maps". Having failed products may be excusable for some reasons; having products fail because your team is not functioning is not excusable, having your team be like that is 100% direct execs fault and responsibility if he has been there for more than a few months.

23david• 14 years ago

Sounds like a good move. It's important to signal to the entire Apple organization that nobody is untouchable if they screw up. Apple's culture is generally pretty tolerant of mistakes as long as people fix them quickly. I think in this instance, the problem was that 1) He didn't publicly accept responsibility for the problem. and 2) He couldn't fix the problems fast enough.

I know that right after the maps issues came to light, I suddenly got a bunch of recruiting emails from the Apple mapping team. Sounds like the team was caught flat-footed and didn't really have a solid plan to immediately fix things. When you have a pressing and urgent systems engineering problem, I definitely think it's a bad idea to suddenly distract your team with tons of recruiting interviews. Building a good team takes a lot of time and focus. I would normally assume that Apple would transfer their best engineers from other teams to fix the maps app, but maybe Scott didn't have enough goodwill built up within the organization to make that happen.

ChuckMcM2• 14 years ago

Hmm, sounds like the Apple variation of the 3 envelopes joke. I expect the Scott is going take a lot of the heat here as the designated person but with most things I expect the story is more nuanced.

This account is written to portray Scott as the bad guy, one could speculate that perhaps he had been arguing all along that there needed to be a different option, which no one accepted, and when the choice to ship turned out to be a poor one and he was asked to take the blame for it, he might have said "No way, I told you we shouldn't ship it, you overrode me, you sign it."

The version with Scott as the hero, refusing to compromise his principles, also fits all the 'known' facts (maps kinda sucks, Tim signed the apology) and might be communicated by nameless "people familiar with the matter" who liked Scott.

But we won't know. Some folks will know, and some folks will think they know, but having been high enough in the food chain to directly witness some executive shifts like this first hand, and to see how they got spun to the public and to others. the one thing I know is that those of us out here in the peanut gallery, we don't have an ice cube's chance in hell of knowing the 'real' story.

arn2• 14 years ago

The other evidence though is that Forstall has been depicted as "the bad guy" for a long time. Well before he was expected to be departing.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/scott-forstall-the-sorc...

He was even described as CEO-in-Waiting. Even then, the same things were said about his personality conflicts with others:

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/01/17/scott-forstall-is-app...

gurkendoktor• 14 years ago

> Forstall has been depicted as "the bad guy" for a long time.

> personality conflicts with others:

The same things have been said about Steve Jobs over and over.

ChuckMcM2• 14 years ago

I don't know Scott at all, I don't think I've even casually met him. My advice here is to not stress over the "why" of his departure, unless he tells you honestly why he left, or Tim tells you, everything else is just speculation.

aresant• 14 years ago

I had to look up the 3-envelopes joke:

http://www.design.caltech.edu/erik/Misc/Prepare_3_Envelopes....

megablast• 14 years ago

I always heard it as 2-envelopes.

001sky• 14 years ago

Good comment. One thing seems to be clear: This article (and others) is a strategic part (pawn) of a pre-meditated PR strategy. The optics look like a purge; at the 1 yr mark of a new CEO this is quite typical. Some may be given the kiss of death, others handed just enough rope to do themselves in. Etc. Like you say, the peanut gallery comprised of us outside the situation know less than many much closer, who themselves likely know next to nothing at this stage.

trustfundbaby• 14 years ago

If what I've read about Forstall is true (from the links posted below) it seems Tim Cook just took a golden opportunity to take out a competitor for his position.

mikeash2• 14 years ago

> ...might be communicated by nameless "people familiar with the matter" who liked Scott.

Good luck finding such people, though. I'm not sure what it says (you could take it as evidence that Forstall was as bad as this story portrays, or as evidence that people had it out for him and would be willing to unjustly badmouth him), but he does not seem to be well liked at all, especially among insiders.

brudgers• 14 years ago

"This account is written to portray Scott as the bad guy"

Journalistically, the technical term is "hatchet job."

The piece flows like an official leak. On the surface the narrative seems plausible as that of a press event. In depth, it is not.

Forestall cashed out his shares in May, more than a month before the release of the Maps app was announced and almost five months before the letter of apology. Usually, when a senior executive cashes out, it is a clear statement that the direction of the company is such that it no longer appears to be a wise investment - it expresses a loss of faith in the company.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57425920-37/apple-exec-sco...

What I find interesting in this officially unofficial narrative is what its truth would imply about Apple's leadership. In an a distorted reality where Forstall signed the letter rather than Cook, consumers would have said, "Who's that?"

More importantly, Wall Street would have said, "Who's in charge?" Forstall would have been taking on the responsibility as the face of Apple, and Cook would have looked ineffectual as a leader by failing to take responsibility.

A letter bearing Forstall's signature would be a clear statement that he was so vital to Apple's future that he was allowed to atone for such a grave error rather than being summarily sacked. It would have made it nearly impossible to fire him, because of the contradictory signals leadership would be sending.

So I doubt the narrative. I doubt that Apple's leadership is so inept as to have considered anyone but Cook signing a letter. I doubt that Cook is so inept as to not seriously consider not apologizing. I doubt that anyone at Apple is so naive as to have misunderstood what Forstall's stock sale meant.

I believe the truth is simple.

At his level, it's pretty much up or out for "Type A personalities." Forstall did not succeed Jobs as CEO. Six months after Job's death, he sold his stock. A year later he publicly took the fall for Maps. In return, Apple lets 75,000 options vest while he advises Cook over the next year. By signing the apology, Cook looks compassionate to consumers. By sacking Forstall, he looks decisive to Wall Street.

The officially unofficial narrative serves it's purpose. It's more interesting than one about a negotiated severance package and the implementation of a succession plan.

And by getting the media to accuse him of acting Jobsian, Forstall displays a Jobsian brilliance. I suspect there is already a queue of companies seeking him as CEO.

codex• 14 years ago

Apple CEO Tim Cook also cashed out all of his vested shares around the same time. Does that indicate a lack of faith in the company? No. When you have a ton of shares and the stock is at an all-time high, and you have even more shares vesting, it makes sense to sell. In fact, executives have very little say over when they can sell--as the ultimate insiders, they usually arrange to sell their stock months, if not years, in advance, by filing a plan under SEC Rule 10b5-1. These plans typically say "sell x shares whenever the stock goes above y". In this way, shares can be eventually sold, but not at the executive's discretion.

SHOwnsYou4• 14 years ago

I hope I'm reading the situation incorrectly, but all I get out of this is that Forstall has an epic ego.

He is asked to sign an apology letter for the short comings of an app that he was in charge of and was at least confident enough in to present to the world. When it was time to pay the piper and accept responsibility for the app he told the world was great, he shirks all responsibility.

I fully support the decision to remove him from his position.

Volpe2• 14 years ago

Well sure if you believe that's how it happened.

Or, he was against releasing, but was overridden (by Cook perhaps), then refused to apologise because it wasn't his mistake...

The reality is, we don't, and probably won't know. Seems strange though, that Forestall did exceptionally good releases [1] up until iOS 6 and then all of a sudden he just dropped the ball with maps...

[1] Excluding the fact that new iOSes generally suck for older iPhones, and force a hardware upgrade.

SHOwnsYou4• 14 years ago

How it actually happened doesn't matter.

If you've accepted the role of svp of IOS software, you're at fault if there is horribly broken IOS software.

droithomme2• 14 years ago

iOS is behind Apple's present riches and Forstall is the hard ass visionary genius that made that happen. Before that, he was a primary architect on OS X before it was even called OS X. He's the single most important engineer at Apple (since Bertrand Serlet was tossed out last year). To pooh pooh this guy's contributions as many are doing, while celebrating Cook as some great visionary genius is totally absurd.

Cook is a bean counter with no vision. He is very good at bean counting and has a lot of success at it. He is not appropriate as anything more than transitionary CEO for a visionary company.

Replace visionaries with bean counters that have allegiance to the established hierarchical order of bean counters? This works well for commodity companies that sell fizzy sugar water. Will it work for Apple this time around? Last time they went this route with Sculley there were some problems.

swang2• 14 years ago

I have no doubt in my mind that Apple itself leaked this info to WSJ. What is surprising is how willing they were to throw him under the bus. Would be interesting to find out what was behind all this. Maybe to pre-empt anything Forstall could say against Apple/Cook or other Apple Execs in future interviews?

jblock• 14 years ago

Count this towards my ignorance towards the business world, but are executives of large companies really that petty and childish?

SoftwareMaven2• 14 years ago

It's not so much as petty as it is a need to control the direction of the conversation. By placing a stake in the ground, the conversation will stay in the general area that the company (and I'm not including only Apple here) wants it to. Part of the field called "public relations".

laurentoget• 14 years ago

the game to get into that seat is not exactly set in favor of the magnanimous nice guys.

ekianjo2• 14 years ago

A lot of people about the top care more about their position and the power it represents rather than what it actually means for the company. Yeah, they are egomaniac children, most of the time.

fieldforceapp• 14 years ago

I actually see this rather as evidence of a strong corporate culture which recognizes the need for execs to take responsibility for mistakes, as the chapter from the Lashinsky book on Apple management famously quoted about the rubric being crossed when VP's are promoted: http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-on-the-difference-...

(Kinda wish a few more companies made this expectation clear... too much deadwood at the VP level in many IT companies I deal with...)

cbsmith2• 14 years ago

It's not really that petty. This stuff is the essence about what leadership teams tend to deal with.

codeonfire• 14 years ago

Not just executives, a majority of non-leaf nodes (but not all). The more money that's at stake, the more petty and childish people act. Acting like a child is an actual strategy people use. If people act rationally it provides a stronger basis for criticism and makes them a target. If someone acts like a child then people say "wow that person's a real stupid jackass that only wants power." If someone tries to rationalize bumping off their competition, its "wow that person is a real threat."

Gustomaximus• 14 years ago

More likely is Forstall leaked this himself if you consider who looks to benefit from the article.

.... Or it is completely made up...or the reporter is mates with an intern that overheard it in the lunch room...etc

darkarmani• 14 years ago

We all know how Apple can't keep any secrets and how leaks always happen. <sarcasm>

mrharrison• 14 years ago

Maps are really freaking hard to make. I wouldn't of signed it either. There was no need apologize in the first place. Jobs wouldn't of apologized either; I think we are starting to see the downturn in apple. We all make mistakes but its better to look strong instead of weak in business.

Shorel• 14 years ago

Operating systems are just as hard, yet they are routinely released, patched, upgraded and they usually work.

guelo• 14 years ago

> Mr. Forstall also recently sent some members of Apple's iOS software team an email saying he felt the group wasn't working on enough big ideas in mobile software

He had that right.

roc• 14 years ago

But whose fault would that be, if not his? Wouldn't it be the job of the head of iOS development to identify the ideas worth pursuing and setting the teams/projects/schedules accordingly?

If the guy ostensibly setting the feature list sends out an email saying "you guys aren't making the right stuff" ... how can you parse that in a way other than "asshole"/"not taking responsibility"?

Or does Apple have an internal project structure more along the lines of Valve?

pootch• 14 years ago

Who knows what the previous history is, but given the way maps rolled out, maybe Forstall could have simply given credence to the notion that maps was just a beginning instead of giving in to the blowhard sales pitches of apple keynotes. Apple says that Apple TV is just a hobby, maybe he should have said that Maps is just the beginning of a new road.

chj• 14 years ago

I don't think this has anything to do with Scott's departure. He sold most of his shares 6 months ago.. It's time for him to leave and build his own company.

_djo_• 14 years ago

I think this is about more than the signing of the apology letter, it's also about the way that Forstall presented Apple Maps to the world as a perfect finished product even as he reportedly knew that there were serious flaws in the data. That's what made the apology necessary.

Apple Maps should have been presented as a first step in a great solution and the issues acknowledged (with promised improvements) far earlier.

Forstall has been a wonderful engineer and manager at Apple and he is largely responsible for the success of iOS, but letting him avoid taking responsibility for this might've been poisonous to Apple in the long term.

Mordor• 14 years ago

Sounds like a typical dictatorship changeover. Leaders forced to sign statements they don't agree with, then removed when they don't. Failures blamed on sabotage. Everyone chanting the new tune... while the economy fails.

smackfu• 14 years ago

Funny thing is that if this leaked out before he got fired, I think it would have been seen as a positive thing for Forstall. That he stood up for the Apple Maps just like a lot of Apple fans, and that it was just the press making a big deal out of nothing.

pilsetnieks• 14 years ago

> The 43-year-old Mr. Forstall recently told people that there is no "decider" now that Mr. Jobs is gone

I guess they just made room for one.

Apple Software Chief Refused to Sign Maps Apology

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