I’m always interested in the evolution of organizations, both how they change as they grow and how they respond to changes in the wider world. So when it involves Apple, arguably one of the most influential companies on the planet, I was definitely interested.
Matthew Yglesias’ article in Vox notes a fundamental approach to Apple’s structure I was not aware of: that their structure is more akin to startups that group people functionally by expertise versus traditional corporations that divide people into lines-of-business. I suspect that’s over-simplifying a tad –especially as most large organizations have some forms of cross-functional groups. Still, it sounds like Apple is at a crossroads where its choices on how to organize people may spell whether or not it remains as successful in maintaining its whole ecosystem.
If there are other articles or even books on these sorts of organizational changes (for-profit or non-profit), please let me know in the comments.