Fortune’s “Inside Apple” article is a must-read

Fortune magazine recently published an in-depth piece on the highly secretive culture and inner workings of Apple. It's in the latest Fortune 500 issue, and isn't yet available freely online, however, you can download it from the Kindle Store for 99 cents to read it on a Kindle, PC, Mac, or any of the smartphone platforms they support (iOS, Android, etc.) For a buck, we'd consider this one a must-read. You get a lot of juicy tidbits about the company, including just how disappointed Steve Jobs was about the horribly botched launch of MobileMe:

According to a participant in the meeting, Jobs walked in, clad in his trademark black mock turtleneck and blue jeans, clasped his hands together and asked a simple question: "Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?" Having received a satisfactory answer, he continued, "So why the **** doesn't it do that?"

For the next half-hour Jobs berated the group. "You've tarnished Apple's reputation," he told them. "You should hate each other for having let each other down."

Harsh, but those are the actions of a man who seemingly doesn't tolerate failure, and aims to exceed expectations. In fact, he doesn't want to ever hear excuses from any of the Apple VP-level employees:

The janitor gets to explain why something went wrong. Senior people do not. "When you're the janitor," Jobs has repeatedly told incoming VPs, "reasons matter." He continues: "Somewhere between the janitor and the CEO, reasons stop mattering." That "Rubicon," he has said, "is crossed when you become a VP."

This is some good stuff, and Fortune has a lot more in the full-length article. If you're at all interested in Apple, either from a consumer standpoint, or just interest in the management style that makes them so unique, give this one a look.

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