John Gruber who runs the Apple-oriented blog, Daring Fireball, has obtained third-hand, unconfirmed reports that there is some rebellion surrounding the open floor plan at the new Apple HQ – Apple Park. According to Gruber, Johny Srouji, in charge of hardware engineering at Apple, kicked up a bit of a fuss about the new working conditions.
In one of the latest podcasts on Daring Fireball, Gruber shared information that some employees aren’t satisfied with Apple Park’s open floor plan, instead preferring their own cubicle or office. Commenting on the issue, Gruber said:
“I heard that when floor plans were announced, that there was some meeting with [Apple Vice President] Johny Srouji’s team. He’s in charge of Apple’s silicon, the A10, the A11, all of their custom silicon. Obviously a very successful group at Apple, and a large growing one with a lot on their shoulders.”
Gruber continued on to say:
“When he [Srouji] was shown the floor plans, he was more or less just ‘F--- that, f--- you, f--- this, this is bulls---.’ And they built his team their own building, off to the side on the campus … My understanding is that that building was built because Srouji was like, ‘F--- this, my team isn’t working like this.’”
The open floor work spaces will only be for standard employees, while the high-level executives will be exempt from the collective work environment and will have their own offices on the fourth floor of Apple Park. Other employees won’t even be moving to the new HQ, on this list is Eddy Cue, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services; he and his team will remain at the current headquarters at Infinite Loop.
Employees have started moving into Apple Park now in groups of 500 per week. Apple plans to move 13,000 employees to Apple Park by the end of the year; Apple has 25,000 employees in the Silicon Valley area.
Source: Silicon Valley Business Journal | Image via Matthew Roberts (YouTube)