Apple Trails Google, Amazon, and Microsoft Among Ideal Employers in Recent Survey

But.....so many people here think Cook is doing a lousy job. How is this possible?

Well, you're not understanding the difference. Consumer =/= employer. Same thing I say about consumer vs. stock owner. When prices increase for a device, that's bad for the consumer unless you like paying more for no reason, but for a stock owner, increasing profit margins is good.

Cook is good as an employer and also for stock owners. For consumers, he's honestly not moved the needle. Really, he's just a bean counter. The sooner he goes the better for Apple overall. Same thing that happened to Google and MS. The 2nd in command that takes over for the original founder just never does a good job. They were there to compliment the founders flaws. The 3rd CEO to follow gets a chance for a clean slate and has fared well.

I was under the impression working at Amazon sucks.

In a warehouse perhaps, but in a survey of "tech professionals", you're not talking about warehouse staff, just like how you're not talking about a Foxconn factory worker for Apple

I wonder what's the benefit for working for Apple. Free mac computers? Iphones?

A colleague from a few years back used to work at Apple in California ( non technical, but not low level position either ) The benefits sounded disappointing TBH. No free hardware, just a small discount.

I value work / life balance. Apple is one of the last places I'd get that.. include a lot of major tech companies in that list too - they have good office percs for a reason - to keep you in the office.

I wonder what's the benefit for working for Apple. Free mac computers? Iphones?

The benefit is you get $500 off an iPhone or Mac once every 3 years. That can be paired with 25% off once a year, 15% off 3x a year or 10% off anytime.

There are stock options at the end of each year. It varies by position, but for retail it was 10 shares for 1 year.

You can get stock for 80% of the lowest price in a quarter based on deductions from your paycheck that you must sign up for.

The health insurance is very good. The 401k is meh. You also can get $250 in gym memberships refunded to you.

There are a bunch of random discounts on everything from BMWs to Sonos speakers.

Overall, the benefits are good. The management is diverse. But they also love to poach random managers, which at the retail level kills the chance of upward mobility. Also, since Jobs died, the ethos has gone from take care of the customer to focus on money and what’s right for the business.

For example, I once had a regional manager who would walk up to trainees and tell them to pick a customer out and give them a free iPod. I literally saw him go get the iPod, give it away for free to a kid and watch the kid light up like a Christmas tree. If a warranty was a month out of warranty, we’d cover it. If you needed anything, we’d try to accommodate you.

After Jobs death, it slowly transitioned away from that. I eventually worked phone support and got pressured to keep calls to under 12 minutes. And I mostly did once I got fast enough minus an outlier call. But even though my numbers were good, they had me listen to long calls and complained about how long I was taking and had me write up what I could have done better.

That’s not horrible, but literally the time between calls is about 10 seconds. Literally, I was on the phone for 10 minutes, got off, typed up notes and had to be done within a minute and another call was ringing within 10 seconds.

Apple is a good company where the focus is on metrics and not experience and that makes me never want to work for them again no matter the pay.

I was under the impression working at Amazon sucks.

in addition to its progressive stance on diversity and social issues

To many of us who understand these issues, we read "progressive" as "destructive". Moreover, Apple was soliciting donations on the iTunes Store for the Southern Poverty Law Center, a group that has personally slandered people I know - and that I _know_ to be free of hate - as being a "hate group".

Besides, most people I know working at Apple are miserable, both with the hours and their overwhelming aspects of control.

I'm glad to not be working there, and am easing my way out of the entire Apple ecosystem... and I know I'm not the only one in the Silicon Valley. (Indeed, it is a popular subject these days around here.)