What I learned at Apple camp





Disclaimer: this post is not about what working at Apple, but about the summer camp I attended.



The Camp

In this Verge article from 2017, Apple's Engineering Technology Camp (ETC), is described as the place “where high school kids can build the next big thing.” I attended in 2019, as one of 25 students from across the U.S. Before we were flown to Cupertino, we had to sign a non-disclosure agreement (which makes sense, given Apple's infamy for secrecy.) The NDA makes this post a little difficult, because I can't talk about what we actually did during camp. Luckily, like with school, specific skills/projects are rarely relevant to broader take-aways and learnings. I'm relying on public releases to give an overview of ETC:

• “The four-week program gives students a rare and exciting glimpse into the company as well as the opportunity to work in small groups and collaborate closely with Apple hardware engineers.

• “The new camp was designed to give high school juniors and seniors full access to 40 Apple staffers, as well as various building tools, as they split into teams and try to build working prototypes in just under a month.”

• “The structure will vary daily, but will include hands-on workshops and classes, interactive discussions with Apple engineers, and the opportunity to work in small teams to find creative solutions to an engineering challenge. Each team will present their solution at the end of camp.”

• “The camp hours will be Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.”



Yes, we had 40-hour work weeks.



Learnings

(In no particular order)



* Apple loves confidentiality—a fancy way of saying secrecy. Obviously, confidentiality hides new products and practices from competitors. But making things exclusive and secretive also makes them more alluring. Humans are wired to love secrets and gossip. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes in Antifragile: “the wily Venetians knew how to spread information by disguising it as a secret.” The Apple brand is protected, elevated, and made elite by its secrecy. This has multiple dimensions:

1. For customers: keeping information secret until the “big reveal” creates excitement, hype, and an element of surprise. This definitely drives up the profit margins for new products. Leaking information can also dampen interest in existing tech. Other companies employ a similar approach, like creating “early access” periods before a product launch. But the extent of Apple neuroticism around confidentiality is really deep. Even with high-schoolers at a month-long summer camp, we had multiple confidentiality trainings.
2. For employees: even if they’re working on a small feature, keeping it secret makes them feel like they’re building “the next thing.” They get a sense of belonging and feel like they’re “insiders” at a company that everyone else is trying to spy on.

3. For potential employees: for example, us at camp. The secrecy made the camp feel way more cool and exciting, even if we were just sitting in a room listening to a lecture. Rather than thinking that scanning a badge to get in and out of any room was a hassle, it felt fun and special. We got the sense that we were insiders.





* Pay your dues. Having a fancy degree or elite experiences isn’t a substitute for working hard and starting from basic and unglamorous tasks. I think Apple really tries to hire people on a relatively "even' plane. One of my mentors attended community college, another worked in a tool shop. One senior leader majored in religious studies in college.



I remember the camp director told me that a lot of young people ask her about how to get into leadership positions. But she thinks they should be spending more of their time thinking about how to pay their dues. * Engineers have a very specific mindset: they look from the perspective of the user. Who is the target user? How does the user interact with each part of the product? They imagine walking through what the user does, from start to finish. This trains an understanding of details, inputs and outputs, and potential misses. This is probably not exclusive to Apple. * Learning to say thank you and no is a skill. It’s difficult to express “thank you” to someone in a very personal, specific, and meaningful way. Saying “no” is also about how you say it. Usually it’s good to give a reason. But sometimes you need to just say “no” in a firm, objective way—it’s not personal, you just don't have the time or resources. * Know exactly what you want. The clearer your metrics and goals are, the better. For small problems, getting to that goal and writing the actual code for a program is easy. For big problems, it’s definitely not easy. But having a very clear idea of what you want means that you can consistently work in that direction. * Communicating in a project is really energy-consuming. A vast amount of time and energy is spent communicating an idea, debating ideas, reforming ideas, and updating team members. What are productivity tools in this area? Slack doesn't count. You need to actually talk. * People at Apple looked, dressed, and sometimes talked the same. I guess every company culture creates subtle forces towards conformity. (There can even be a conformity among those who are “different,” i.e. they all have interesting/dyed hair, earrings, and wear button-ups with little cartoon patterns.) * It’s difficult to connect what you learn in school to the real world. Always ask for help. Don’t sit around waiting, try something new to keep you moving while you wait.





* It’s easy to get caught up in competitiveness. I realized I’ll inevitably push myself to perform well and try to please others, even when I tell myself “I don’t care.” I think it becomes more important to recognize what things are actually worth being competitive about. In general, collaboration will get you further. * Everyone is watching closely, the leadership really pays attention to small things, like if you stay after to clean up or if you help a someone on another team with a problem. * Working in a team is difficult AF. When dealing with difficult team members, it’s really tempting to just communicate with them less. It helps to try to find common ground and not show impatience. * I heard the phrase “see around corners” for the first time. I really like this phrase because of what it says about what the future looks like. Usually you hear about people who are “far-sighted” or have a high vantage point. But the future isn’t this straight path or a single plane, where you just need better vision or binoculars. The future is unexpected, non-linear. Who are the people who can see around the corners where the future is twisting?



* I learned about two new Steve Jobs quotes (actually more, but these two stood out):

• “Technology alone is not enough. It's technology married with the liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields the results that makes our hearts sing.”

• “If you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what's next.”

* Every piece of architecture at Apple is meticulously designed and tells a story. It's a really useful way of animating some random piece of wood or a staircase—this is not just an object or piece of architecture, but a story. A lot of the stories subtly communicate aspects of Apple's culture and beliefs, like caring about privacy or creating a sense of delight. There are a lot of plants and trees that feel natural. Nothing is overly designed. Everywhere you look is very minimalist and clean. The window cleaners get on cranes to polish the huge panes of glass (hope I’m not divulging trade secrets here). Crisp white edges look like the sculpted edges of a vanilla cake. * People will buy lots of expensive Apple merch and minimalist t-shirts. The Infinite Loop Apple Store is a tourist destination. Swarms of people are literally paying money to advertise for Apple—probably the metric for when you can tell you have a wildly valuable brand. * Apple has really good food and desserts. Going inside Apple Park, the “Spaceship,” is really freaking cool. That's all.

Bonus: random observations



I also took notes on some people I met and wanted to learn from. Here are four (with the names redacted):

• [Camper] learned a ton of skills through YouTube, like how to solve different Rubik’s cubes and how to play billiards really well. Big, tricky projects don’t intimidate him. He finds things online that can help him solve the problems.

• [Engineer] is a relatively new engineer. Even with 25 campers, he remembers your name and details about you. He seems good-humored all the time and unhurried. Everyone really likes him, but I don’t think many of us realize how smart he is.

• [Camper] is really good at asking for help, which is actually sometimes a difficult skill that can pinch your ego. She never seems like she “needs help.” Instead, she frames asking for help as being able to get somewhere faster and better.

• [Engineer] shuts down a lot of people’s ideas, has a large ego, and may or may not have made someone cry. There are really difficult people to deal with in the workplace, even at a “prestigious” place like Apple, where it seems hard to get hired. Maybe one downside of being at a big company is that you might be force to work with jerks?

• [Camper] really hates chocolate and will go to great lengths to get non-chocolate desserts. I admire and despise her tenacity at the same time.



Thank you for reading! As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Connect with me on Twitter @teafang.