In the past, Apple had a lot to lose from lax security measures, the company even reaching the brink of bankruptcy before Steve Jobs returned as CEO and fundamentally changed everything related to the security of the company's products. In the book Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired and Secretive Company Really Works we have presented some extremely interesting information about the way the Apple company works and reading the excerpts below you will realize that Apple is organized as a secret agency or maybe even worse.
Apple employees know something big is afoot when the carpenters appear in their office building. New walls are quickly erected. Doors are added and new security protocols put into place. Windows that once were transparent are now frosted. Other rooms have no windows at all. They are called lockdown rooms: No information goes in or out without a reason. People working on launch events will be given watermarked paper copies of a booklet called Rules of the Road that details every milestone leading up to launch day. In the booklet is a legal statement whose message is clear: If this copy ends up in the wrong hands, the responsible party will be fired.
At Apple, each employee has a well-defined role within the company and the information he receives is absolutely necessary for him to fulfill his duties. In general, a project to launch a new product is immediately discovered by employees when new rooms are built on the company's campus and when certain areas become restricted even though they were previously accessible to anyone. Apple takes exceptional security measures when preparing the launch of a new product, and if an employee has not been informed about what is happening then they certainly do not need to know anything. Those who still find out something must sign documents by which they agree to keep the information confidential, otherwise they risk being fired and sued.
Quite likely you have no idea what is going on, and it's not like you're going to ask. If it hasn't been disclosed to you, then it's literally none of your business. What's more, your badge, which got you into particular areas before the new construction, no longer works in those places. All you can surmise is that a new, highly secretive project is under way, and you are not in the know. End of story.
The same is valid for those in the management of the company because any discussions held in a meeting must be kept secret from anyone else the dismissal is the measure that will be applied and together with it the lawyers will look for methods of action in court. It is interesting that the management members of the Apple company place a high value on the buzz generated before a launch, considering that it can be worth millions of dollars if it is focused correctly, but even so no one is allowed to "blow" anything to the press.
For new recruits, keeping secrets begins even before they learn which building they'll be working in. Many employees are hired into so-called dummy positions, roles that aren't explained in detail until after they join the company. "They wouldn't tell me what it was," remembered a former engineer who had been a graduate student before joining Apple. "I knew it was related to the iPod, but not what the job was." Others do know but won't say, a realization that hits the newbies on their first day of work at new-employee orientation. "You sit down, and you start with the usual roundtable of who is doing what," recalled Bob Borchers, a product marketing executive in the early days of the iPhone. "And half the folks can't tell you what they're doing, because it's a secret project that they've gotten hired for."
Apple lost a lot because of information "leaked" to the press, but now the security system designed by Steve Jobs is meant to keep any secret, within the company, under any conditions.
